I (20F) have been in a relationship with my current boyfriend (24M) for about 4 years now and this will be the first time we meet face to face. We’ve had calls and video calls before this. Initially he wanted me to fly down for his birthday in March but I unfortunately had a health scare relating to my heart and my doctor told me it would be unwise to fly.
When I brought this up to him and apologized for not being able to fly down he was disappointed, understandably so. However, a few days later he offered up the idea of us breaking up— especially since the entire thing was causing me a lot of stress on top of my health issue at the time. Admittedly I felt relieved that we’d no longer be together but I panicked as well and ended up agreeing to his ultimatum of either flying down in April or breaking up. He bought me the tickets, as well as travel insurance, and here we are.
I’m scared because I don’t even know if I want to spend the rest of my life with this man and I feel like I’m lying to both of us. I’d be meeting his parents for the first time on top of meeting him and unfortunately it feels extremely daunting.
My mother (56F), who’s been attempting to be supportive, is also worried for my health and my safety. She hasn’t met my boyfriend and she’s worried that I’ll be making a mistake by doing this if my heart’s not in it. She offered going to therapy and sorting myself out before I commit to this but, again, with my boyfriend so set on this happening now, I don’t think that’s possible. She’s also worried that this is all a ruse to kidnap me, as again she doesn’t know much about my boyfriend, and it’s causing her to lose sleep.
I feel a lot of pressure to go. He’s already told his family and his mother asked what my favourite food was and maybe I’m being too much of a people pleaser but that was very sweet of her and I feel like I’ll be letting a lot of people down by not going- including myself. However, on the other hand, I don’t know if this is right for me. What kind of girlfriend feels relief at having a breakup? He isn’t neglectful, or mean, or anything of the sort. He makes me feel safe and protected. I just don’t feel like I can bring this up with him. At all. I feel stuck and honestly like I should just block him, and every connection to him, and run for the hills but that isn’t productive. I don’t want to hurt him, I love him, but I’m terrified of facing him.
I also don’t know how to tell my dad (62M) about this. He’s working right now, will be for the next two weeks, so the only conversation I’ll be able to have with him will be over the phone. I don’t want to just tell him I’m going because that’ll make it seem like it’s a situation he has no control over and I’m his daughter so he obviously doesn’t want to see me hurt. Both of my parents would rather my boyfriend visit here first but I didn’t want that. I wanted it this way, I’m just completely second guessing myself now.
The reason as to why I’m going to visit him first is mainly because of how often I told him I didn’t want for him from coming here and that mainly stems from how, when we started our relationship, I was young and I didn’t want for my parents to know. That’s also why they know nothing about him. I was going to therapy to hopefully address these issues and figure out more of what I wanted but that fell through last October. I haven’t been able to speak to my therapist since.
Any advice as to how to address this with my boyfriend would be helpful. I have no idea how to deal with this in a healthy way right now. I’m just scared and nervous and have no idea what I’m doing.
Tl;dr – I have to fly out to see my boyfriend on the 20th and I don’t know if I actually want to go.