Quote:
Originally Posted by Hi-Psi
And just so we have all the info. She just took this job in November and it's a great opportunity for her to get experience as an EMT. Yes she could get work closer to Calgary but she doesn't seem to want to, she says this is the best opportunity for her.
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I'm curious as to why you go from saying IT IS the best opportunity for her to SHE THINKS it's the best opportunity for her. You mentioned you're also an EMT so shouldn't you be able to evaluate whether it is in fact a great opportunity? (I could be off base here, I'm know nothing about your career) It sounds to me like she says it's the best opportunity but you're not so sure.
If this is the case then I can imagine that she's using this to pry you out of Calgary. If she's dead set on small town living in the future (she says she wants to raise kids in a small town but it could be that she just wants to live in one and kids are a convenient excuse) then she might feel it's better to find out now if you'll move, then moving back to Calgary, getting married and potentially knocked up before she finds out.
On the friends and family front are the friends in Calgary really hers? You said that you have family in Calgary and hers are somewhere around Red Deer, I wonder if the Calgary friends are basically yours and she finds it unfair that moving to Calgary would entail living close to your friends and family and not hers, given that your breaks are longer which conceivably would allow more time to visit them when you're off.
I think that if you haven't already you need to hash out exactly what each of your plans for the future are, and to be completely honest about them. I suggest allowing a period to gather your thoughts, perhaps on paper, and then when you sit down you both have to make a concerted effort to not get emotional and argue as that can derail and end the conversation very quickly. If your going to end up together you should be able to be completely honest with each other about your expectations for the future.
As for my personal experience when I was 24 I found myself in a long term relationship with a great woman. But it became more and more evident that our expectations for the future radically diverged. She wanted to get married and settle down almost immediately in or around Gibbons, next to her family, pump out kids and never really work again (pretty much like her parents had done). Whereas I wanted to get the hell out of Edmonton and travel and not have kids any time soon. We fought over peripheral things often and it took a long time to find out exactly what she wanted (and what I wanted). We (more so me) eventually decided that there was no compromise possible and I ended things. Side note: before actually hashing it out she often used the words "we want" and "compromise" when she actually meant "I want" and "you give up". It took a while to convince her that I didn't view living on an acreage outside of north-east Edmonton vs. living on an acreage outside of Gibbons as a compromise.
One more side note, I agree with other posters that moving away from your friends and family isn't the end of the world it sounds like you think it is, and that you can make friends but since you hold Red Deer in such low esteem you likely won't put in the kind of effort you need to in order to make things work. I also agree that giving it a shot could be a good idea but again you have to be honest that you're not fully committed to it and you may decide against it later.
Anyway, good luck.