I'm trying. I'm trying to understand this. My cousin was the same way. Even though you guys loved your partner, you both felt like you're wasting your time if something about your future relationship wasn't perfect, but I don't see it like that. I see it as happiness for the now. I don't date someone to spend the rest of my life with them, I date them to enjoy them right now. You were too focused on the end goal, and not on the living life in the present. And I think that's actually counter productive to being the best person you could be. I believe you improve through relationships. You learn through your mistakes, your experiences, and you come out a different person.

I was ready to commit to my boyfriend for life, and he said he was too, but then didn't want to take the steps to formalize it. And that hurt. It felt like he was paying lip service to the idea. "I want to be with you forever, but if anyone asks, it's nothing serious."

How long were you even dating your boyfriend? It takes time. And if he doesn't want to get married, then he's just not ready. There's no guarantee of marriage with anybody. Sure it's binding but you want it to be happy.

It just made me feel panicked and insecure to know that if he wanted to, he could get up one morning and just leave and that would be it. Even though it was functionally identical to a marriage, we were using the same title as the guy I dated for a month back in high school, and I worried that other people saw the relationship that way too.

There you go. You said it yourself. It was your insecurity that broke the relationship.

And in the end, if it was just something I wanted enough to make it a deal breaker, then that should be enough. It was important to me, it wasn't to him, that meant that if I really wanted that goal, eventually I'd need to break up with him and the longer I stayed, the more time I was wasting. Which was really at odds with my "I want to be with this guy forever" desires.

What really bothers me about this part, is that your end goal seems to be the security of marriage, instead of being with the one you love. It's sad. How can you just turn your feelings off? How is the desire for marriage stronger than your love?

Just let it go, and accept the void of not knowing. Not knowing how it will go. It's hard, I know. I'm going through that right now. But it's better than not being with the one you love. settling.