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Have a fantastic loving partner, an incredible house we worked so much on, an amazing job with fantastic people I enjoy being around every day. I've decided to

Have a fantastic loving partner, an incredible house we worked so much on, an amazing job with fantastic people I enjoy being around every day. I've decided to part ways with my partner now and move out, be on my own again at 30. I could've started a family now, but chose not to. I don't know if that opportunity will ever come again. I've tried hard, but I just couldn't shake off the feeling of living a life according to a template, or a recipe. Holding myself up to everybody's expectations but mine. Feels like I'm ruining my life by walking away from people that truly care about me. I don't want to bask in regret. Am I ruining my life?

winphone1974 4y ago
Kind of sounds like you're rebelling against what you interpret as "the" template for life, but I'm not aware of any such thing beyond the broadest strokes. You can absolutely blow up what you've got and start from a new place, or you can define your life in the margins between what we all tend to have in common. Example: I have a wife, kids, home and job, but I also take big breaks between relatively short job tenures, do a lot of in-depth personal projects and mountain bike at a pretty extreme level for a guy pushing fifty.
yodsanklai 4y ago
> be on my own again at 30. It's really not that old, you have plenty of time to find someone and start a family. Tons of people are single in their 30s. After 40, I found it much harder to find someone though.
em-bee 4y ago
only if the response to feeling stuck in someone elses template is doing something random hasty, that you haven't thought through. before doing anything you should figure out what you want from your life. set goals, check if they are realistic and then take steps to explore. for example, instead of just moving out, i would have tried travelling. go to another city for a week or a month. try it on for size. take small steps to turn the life that you have into the life that you want. i was kind of in a similar situation, where i felt stuck in a life without perspective, and decided to move my whole family to another continent, giving up friends and a regular routine for a life of uncertainty and chaos (that wants to be tamed). i don't regret the move, as i have no desire to go back, but i wish i would have been able try first before making a commitment.
kyleee 4y ago
It’s really hard to know. Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe yes in some ways, but not in others? I always worry about being susceptible to the “grass is greener” type thinking. In any case good luck to you
ANumberlessMan 4y ago
Honestly, I would say you definitely might be. But I understand the wanderlust. It will be freeing at the beginning, but that life won't be there when you come back, and even if it is, the love won't be the same because _you left_. You left. An innocence the relationship had is lost. You will now change in different ways from one another. And you will now each tell yourselves stories about the other that don't match up. Some advice is that you have to decide to stop loving your partner now. If you leave, what you've left is gone. Forever. You can't have it back. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. You left. It's over. If you meet someone else, don't list the ways in which your connection with them isn't as ineffably beautiful as what you had, because the world outside of relationships hardens people. You may never have that feeling of home back in your life. To be in a relationship is to deny the world. You chose the world. Own it, accept it. You were not fit for a relationship. For the record, the template is there because it works. Life can go sideways more than you'd imagine is possible. It can obviously be a great decision you'll look back on as being a great decision. But you've tossed away something precious. You don't get to do that scot-free. You're different a person now.
kylehotchkiss 4y ago
Sounds like you could use a gap year or a sabbatical. Don’t underestimate how hard it is to find a loving partner. A lot of people in our society won’t, unfortunately. Any way you could try working together on making a unique life somehow? Put the house on the market and enjoy a long trip around US/Canada/Europe? Think about the house again later? Maybe a shake up with career? But I hope you don’t just walk away from everything. I lived abroad for a few years and it really helped me appreciate the things we have at home in US.
Beldin 4y ago
> am I ruining my life? How would we know? Based on one post on the internet? Let's not; that's not remotely how that works. If you truly want help, get professional help - the offline kind.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
orev 4y ago
> Am I ruining my life? Probably. That template you’re running away from is popular because it works. Most people meet all of their friends in school, which you only have access to when you’re young. Then you meet a partner in your mid-20s because that’s when everyone else is also looking for a partner. Then you get your career in full swing because you have few responsibilities and can put a lot of energy into it. Then you start a family because that’s the point in your life where fertility is optimal. All those things happen at roughly similar times for everyone, because each stage of life is optimized for that task. If you try to break the template, then you become the creepy old guy at the club trying to meet people. Or the guy in mid-life who has no career history in that field. Or you don’t have the energy to raise kids anymore. Or the pool of available partners is so small you don’t really have any options. You don’t live in this world alone, and most large goals require collaboration with other people, even if that collaboration is simply aligning your timing do do things when everyone else is. You won’t live forever, and your mind and body will slowly fail. You need to do things while you still can, not when some unattainable ideal state is reached. You don’t have infinite time to wait for perfect opportunities to come along. You need to make them happen as best you can with the people and resources you have available at that moment.

winphone1974 4y ago

Kind of sounds like you're rebelling against what you interpret as "the" template for life, but I'm not aware of any such thing beyond the broadest strokes. You can absolutely blow up what you've got and start from a new place, or you can define your life in the margins between what we all tend to have in common. Example: I have a wife, kids, home and job, but I also take big breaks between relatively short job tenures, do a lot of in-depth personal projects and mountain bike at a pretty extreme level for a guy pushing fifty.

yodsanklai 4y ago

> be on my own again at 30. It's really not that old, you have plenty of time to find someone and start a family. Tons of people are single in their 30s. After 40, I found it much harder to find someone though.

em-bee 4y ago

only if the response to feeling stuck in someone elses template is doing something random hasty, that you haven't thought through. before doing anything you should figure out what you want from your life. set goals, check if they are realistic and then take steps to explore. for example, instead of just moving out, i would have tried travelling. go to another city for a week or a month. try it on for size. take small steps to turn the life that you have into the life that you want. i was kind of in a similar situation, where i felt stuck in a life without perspective, and decided to move my whole family to another continent, giving up friends and a regular routine for a life of uncertainty and chaos (that wants to be tamed). i don't regret the move, as i have no desire to go back, but i wish i would have been able try first before making a commitment.

kyleee 4y ago

It’s really hard to know. Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe yes in some ways, but not in others? I always worry about being susceptible to the “grass is greener” type thinking. In any case good luck to you

ANumberlessMan 4y ago

Honestly, I would say you definitely might be. But I understand the wanderlust. It will be freeing at the beginning, but that life won't be there when you come back, and even if it is, the love won't be the same because _you left_. You left. An innocence the relationship had is lost. You will now change in different ways from one another. And you will now each tell yourselves stories about the other that don't match up. Some advice is that you have to decide to stop loving your partner now. If you leave, what you've left is gone. Forever. You can't have it back. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. You left. It's over. If you meet someone else, don't list the ways in which your connection with them isn't as ineffably beautiful as what you had, because the world outside of relationships hardens people. You may never have that feeling of home back in your life. To be in a relationship is to deny the world. You chose the world. Own it, accept it. You were not fit for a relationship. For the record, the template is there because it works. Life can go sideways more than you'd imagine is possible. It can obviously be a great decision you'll look back on as being a great decision. But you've tossed away something precious. You don't get to do that scot-free. You're different a person now.

kylehotchkiss 4y ago

Sounds like you could use a gap year or a sabbatical. Don’t underestimate how hard it is to find a loving partner. A lot of people in our society won’t, unfortunately. Any way you could try working together on making a unique life somehow? Put the house on the market and enjoy a long trip around US/Canada/Europe? Think about the house again later? Maybe a shake up with career? But I hope you don’t just walk away from everything. I lived abroad for a few years and it really helped me appreciate the things we have at home in US.

Beldin 4y ago

> am I ruining my life? How would we know? Based on one post on the internet? Let's not; that's not remotely how that works. If you truly want help, get professional help - the offline kind.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

orev 4y ago

> Am I ruining my life? Probably. That template you’re running away from is popular because it works. Most people meet all of their friends in school, which you only have access to when you’re young. Then you meet a partner in your mid-20s because that’s when everyone else is also looking for a partner. Then you get your career in full swing because you have few responsibilities and can put a lot of energy into it. Then you start a family because that’s the point in your life where fertility is optimal. All those things happen at roughly similar times for everyone, because each stage of life is optimized for that task. If you try to break the template, then you become the creepy old guy at the club trying to meet people. Or the guy in mid-life who has no career history in that field. Or you don’t have the energy to raise kids anymore. Or the pool of available partners is so small you don’t really have any options. You don’t live in this world alone, and most large goals require collaboration with other people, even if that collaboration is simply aligning your timing do do things when everyone else is. You won’t live forever, and your mind and body will slowly fail. You need to do things while you still can, not when some unattainable ideal state is reached. You don’t have infinite time to wait for perfect opportunities to come along. You need to make them happen as best you can with the people and resources you have available at that moment.