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Getting Experience Dr. Neder, I have been dating my girlfriend for over 5 years- since my senior year of high school and her junior year. I've graduated from college and she is about to. She is the only girl that I have dated. I've always had girls as friends but never relationships with them. Its not that I am interested in someone right now, but I seem to be finding myself attracted to some of her friends and other girls that I meet lately. I find myself wondering if I've missed out on anything by not having dated more, and had more relationships. I love the girl that I am with and wonder if I'm just looking around at all my friends who have dated several girls, and continue to do so, or whether I should consider myself lucky for finding my girlfriend when I did in life? Thank you. Hello! First of all, the answer is yes - you've missed out on some things by having stayed with your girlfriend for the last 5 years. Of course you've gained some things too. The real question is what side of the balance is better? If this is the only girl you're ever going to be with the rest of your life then you're in good shape. You've become an expert - on her. However, that also means that you've haven't learned much about women's ranges and trust me, that’s one HUGE range! Women have all sorts of dynamics that you simply can't read in a book and understand. You need to experience many of them in order to get a sense of just how that is. If you had come to me 5 years ago and asked if you should enter into a long-term relationship with this girl, I'd have told you "no". You're going to miss out on far too much, especially considering that you're just been through college. Look at all the girls you had access to right there. Each one of them was an education in and of itself. There's a reason why you don't spend your entire college career in one class. You need lots of subjects in order to get the knowledge you need to be successful in your chosen field. I can't tell you whether you should break up with your girlfriend or not as I don't know you or her or the relationship. What I do know is that you're always going to wonder what you missed out on. Perhaps you can handle that or perhaps you can't. Only you know the answer. If you're not sure, I suggest you either down-size or break up your relationship and start getting some of that experience you missed. If you're sure, then simply focus back into the relationship itself and realize that you're going to be attracted to other girls too, but that your relationship is what's important to you. Best regards... © 2009, Dr. Dennis W. Neder Other Relationship Issues, Books Relationship is a pervading and changing mystery...brutal or lovely, the mystery waits for people wherever they go, whatever extreme they run to. - Euroda Welty
Dr. Dennis W.
Neder is the author of Being
a Man in a Woman's World
I and Being
a Man in a Woman's World
II. Have a love, dating,
relationship, sex or man/woman question? You can
write to him by going to: beingaman.com/ask_question.asp
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