Should I listen to my fears?

[inloveinchina]

Why I am so intimidated by her history? Is it because her stories point to something in her character that my heart knows is bad, or incompatible with my heart? Do I fear that her feelings for me are not as strong as mine for her? Is it that I want to be thought of as the wild lover, not the committed boyfriend? Do I fear she will betray me in the future? Do I feel inadequate compared to the men she has been with? Am I afraid of a girl who has such a strong sex drive, or at least one who has acted on it? Do I think it shows a weakness of moral sense for a girl to have had 20 lovers by the age of 22? That apart from me and the only other serious boyfriend, they were all met on the Internet? Is it because she wasn’t honest about them to me to begin with and now I don’t know if I can trust her on other things? Is it because she is Chinese and I fear underlying moral values are too different? I am jealous of her wild days, all the sex she has had, relationships and feelings she has been through. Would I do the same if I was a girl? Despite being six years older than her, do I feel like I have not had enough myself? I guess I wouldn’t be feeling any of this if I didn’t love her? For a long time I had no feelings for anyone at all, despite being with many. Am I just afraid? It is the first time I have invested all my feelings in one person. Is it because I am going to have to a massive life change in order to be with her, despite having known her a very short time?

What should I do? What should I think? It hurts, and I feel totally disorientated.

[Frock]

You know, I'd been in a similar situation before - okay, not quite similar, but the first person I dated was younger than me by 5 years and also more experienced. But you know what? In retrospect, I don't think that it matters as much as I thought it did at the time. I mean, yeah, it hurt like anything to find out that they were still in contact with one of their many exes, especially having known some of the tawdry details about their past together, but in the end the reason it didn't work out for me was because we were at different stages in our lives. (When you're in your twenties, a 5-year difference can be a big one in terms of wanting different things out of your life.) We just wanted different things; the primarily sexual outlook of my ex was a SYMPTOM of this, not the cause.

Some young people (not all, but some) are more prone to be sexually active and perhaps even "adventurous" while in their early twenties. I was not like this in my own early twenties; I was always a rather square, old-fashioned type, which is why it hurt even more when I found about my partner's past (I realized that this person may not find me as "special" as I found them). But that in itself didn't ruin the relationship, because honestly, if someone REALLY loves you, these anxieties can be allayed - the past is the past if it is kept in the past, and if it is made obvious that no matter who came before, you are the only one for them NOW (and in the future).

So the mismatch between our pasts didn't itself result in our break-up... Rather, it was a growing understanding that we both just wanted different things. I was much older and hadn't been with anyone before, and even if I had hypothetically been with many partners before, I was now at an age (or more correctly, a stage) where I wanted to "settle down". It was becoming more and more obvious (to me and to him) that while he also theoretically wanted that, he wasn't actually ready for it. For settling down. And he was so much younger than I! (Not just "younger" in terms of physical years, but in terms of romantic aspirations and what he wanted out of a relationship.) No wonder he wasn't ready for a long-term commitment... When I realized that, I broke up with him. (Gently, without melodrama; it was possibly the most well-mannered break-up in history. I'm a woman, but I've always been the "gentlemanly" type!)

Anyway, I think that you can still make it work with this young woman you're in love with, AS LONG AS she is in the same developmental stage as you and wants the same thing out of your relationship. If the "goal" is the same, then the age difference doesn't really matter as much, and neither does the amount of sexual or romantic experience either partner had had prior to the current relationship. If both really love each other and are both at the STAGE of wanting to commit to each other, the past won't matter as much. What I like to say is that if the present has enough power, neither the future nor the past can derail it.

However, if she's honestly still in an earlier developmental stage, which she certainly sounds like she is, since she feels free to relate to you stories that would make ANYONE wanting a serious relationship anxious - if she's okay with making you anxious in that way, then maybe she isn't interested in the kind of serious relationship you're interested in, at least not yet; maybe she's looking for something else.

This has nothing to do with you; it's something she's got to settle inside her own mind and heart first, and she may not even know what preoccupations are driving her until much later, when she's more mature. But at this stage, she may not be ready to be having this relationship with you in the way that you want it. I mean, would anyone who wanted a serious relationship share tales of sexual conquests past? I can't imagine it...

Then again, that's just what I feel. Like I said, I'm not the most experienced person - hardly at all, having only loved 2 people and been involved with 2 in my life! - so maybe I'm wrong. But still, it's an opinion...