I (26F) have been dating a guy (23M) I really really like for 2 months now. Before deciding to enter the relationship, I had been skeptical about the age difference and stuff since we have different lives. We have known each other for over a year and we have been really good friends before all of this. He is still studying and dependent on his parents and I am fully independent and working. I knew the situation wouldn’t be easy because of these and some other differences but I decided to go for it since I really liked him.
He has been the most caring and attentive person all this time. He has some struggles with his studies and finding a job so we have been dealing with it together lately and it has been really rough. A week ago, I was spending the night at his place and I found pics of a baby on his phone. I insisted he tell me what is going on so admitted to having a one-night stand last summer with a girl from Germany. She told him about pregnancy once she got back and insisted on keeping the baby while telling him he can be as involved as he wants. They have been in touch since then and she keeps him updated about their 2month old baby. I checked their convo and she seems super nice and “professional” about it. They agreed on her raising the baby without him. She isn’t asking for any kind of support and they have agreed he will just be seeing the child a few times per year once he graduates since the girl and the baby live in Germany.
For now, this whole situation does not affect him as much. He tells me they agreed on everything and he has no plans to be involved in the baby’s life more than he is now. I am not scared about it now but I am scared about what might happen in the future and how it might affect his and my life too. I told him I need some time to think about it because I am not sure if I am ready to be facing all the things that await us. On the other hand, I really like him and I am not sure if this should be a deal-breaker or not.
Any advice is welcome. I am really really confused…
4 comments
So hes totally fine and chill with having no connection, relationship or support his own child. That would tell me a lot about him as a person and his level of maturity.
You’ve got two pretty big issues here. First is your age, but really it’s a different stage of life rather than that big of a gap in years. You’re a fully independent adult, and his mom/dad is still making him dinner (just an example, doesn’t have to be specific to food). I’m guessing he has never lived on his own or with roommates, so it would be a huge leap for him to go from living at home to living with a partner.
The second thing is the child. It’s a huge red flag that he didn’t even tell you. You also don’t really now how this will evolve since the child is still so young. What’s amicable now may not work in the future in terms of custody, financial support, proximity of how close he wants to live to the child, what happens if the mother can no longer take care, etc. You are dating someone with a child. Ideally the child would come first, but it doesn’t seem like that is the case for now (which is a red flag in my opinion – if you eventually had children but then broke up, would he be equally disengaged?).
After all this, I almost missed the part about him struggling with school and finding a job. Again, more red flags. Maybe some of these are temporary or a sign of immaturity, which sort of goes back to the point of being at different stages of life.
For me, there is just too many issues and red flags. There are tons of other people out there that can be equally as caring and have other positive qualities, but without all the red flags.
I think you shouldn’t plan on facing something which you don’t want to in the future just because you like someone for 2 months.
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