I (20F) am happy in my LTR/LDR, but make more sacrifices than my partner (20M). Is it ok for there to be an imbalance if I feel fine about it?

Me (20F) and my high school sweetheart (20M) have been together for 5 1/2 years, a few off and on when we were younger, but never off for more than a month.

We are currently long-distance, and have been LD for 2 years now. Both of us are in college, set to graduate in 2021.

We are very passionate about each other, best friends, and I am happiest when I’m with him. We have had rocky moments in the past, and we have changed a lot since we met (of course, we were children) but our values and goals still align.

Right now I am only able to see him every month or two during the non-summer months (we come back to our hometown for summer and Christmas). I fly to his house out-of-state, since I live with my parents at the moment it only makes sense for me to come to him. Plane tickets aren’t that much, but it’s not insignificant either.

He recently told me that he feels very lonely going for that long without seeing me, and asked if I could come every couple weeks instead of months. His degree is much more demanding than mine, so he currently can’t get a side job to help pay for them without basically flunking. I however, could, and was planning to get one anyway, but ~$350/month in tickets is still a burden for where I am financially.

I want to see him more too, and I could pretty easily adapt my lifestyle to accommodate the costs, and it wouldn’t harm my future. But I wonder if it’s too much of a burden on me. I don’t feel taken advantage of, the scenario just seems to end up this way, but people sometimes tell me that it’s too much.

I am a very relationship and family-oriented person, and for me love is just paramount. I never had a reliable family or friends growing up so my relationship with him is the most valuable thing to me, especially considering the possibility of having a family with him in the future. We are on the same page about post-graduation possibilities, but it’s still too far away for either of us to plan for.

Overall, the risk and trade offs seem worth-it to me in exchange for taking a chance on my first love that I see a lot of potential in. I just don’t know if I’m irrational in being so willing to adapt to follow his path, instead of him adapting to follow mine. I am a bit of a follower, he leads the way on things quite a bit, but I feel perfectly fine and happy with the way things are in the moment.

I just saw him last week, and it was euphoric as usual, if not even better than usual. We’re already planning the fun things we want to do when he returns to our hometown for the summer, and I couldn’t be more excited to spend more time with him. He feels like home.

Am I just irrationally romantic about this situation? Or can it be healthy for there to be an imbalance of sacrifices if we’re both still happy?

TL;DR: My values point towards sacrificing other dimensions of my life to be with my long-term / long distance partner, which feels right even though other people say it’s a bit much. We are both too young to know if lifetime commitment will be the outcome for us. Should I enjoy the moment and go with the flow, or move on to try to find something better like people say?

Submitted February 28, 2019 at 09:01PM by nikiinak https://ift.tt/2Ua9728