A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:HI there, I am 22 years old (female) and my boyfriend of two years is 32. I know the age gap is big but so far its not worked too badly. My BF isn't very experienced and so it sort of works.My question though is this: I am a very positive person, my ambition is to move to America from the UK and I hope to run my own beauty business in the near future. My boyfriend has never put down my dreams in anyway but I get the impression he doesn't believe I will achieve them. He has a reasonable job and a nice flat, etc but seems to lack ambition or the ability to looking forward. Im always thinking about where i'll be in ten years time whereas he says "I don't even want to think about that!" His father was ill recently so I guess thats something to do with it. My question is - is this normal behaviour or have I got a BF who is a bit of a negative, stick in the mud type? I just wish he would say something like "in five years i'll be running the section at work" or "in ten years i'll be driving such and such a car" and things like that. Is it just the age gap between us?
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (27 April 2013): There is a reason why we don't do things that we did in our twenties anymore. You will only understand it when you aren't in your twenties anymore. Your guy is not saying anything to you because he knows it's hopeless until you become older.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (27 April 2013): There is a very good saying: if you want to make God laugh make plans.
Even if you didn't indicated your age I would understand immediately that you are a very young person. You lived so little and become an adult just now. Your boyfriend has another 10 years over you, at one point he was 22 also, and I m sure he had the same thoughts as you.
How are you going to move to US it's not that easy. Open your own business in States it's not that easy also. You need quite a bit of money to start. I m a business owner, I know when the times are hard, you still need to pay your rent and insurance. You being new in a country even if you get here will have a hard time renting even a small flat. Renting something for businesses a whole different process, requiring local credit history, some money in a bank and lots of references.
One thing is to dream high and have all these ambitions, another have the actual knowledge and skills.
The older you get the more you want to live your life day by day. We, very old people in our thirties also have dreams and fantasize about excitements, but we are also realistic. We learned how to budget and save, because now we have kids and aging parents, who get sick more often every year.
Also our desires and dreams change. What I wanted at 25 is not the same what I want at 35. What was important for me then is not important to me know.
Our enthusiasm for people and events diminishes over years, and that's ok. We find pleasures in other things, different from when we were 25.
Your boyfriend is not being pessimistic. He is content with what he has, good job, nice appartment, you. He is not very supportive as may be because he knows that you will change when you get older, and may be your plans of moving to US won't happen, and may be you will continue living where you are with him.
I used to care about what car I drive when I was I my twenties, now I would rather pay for good school for my kids, and I m happy with that arrangement. We change, life brings us surprises, and we can't control events in our lifes it doesn't make us pessimistic or not ambitious we become wiser and more caucus, because we learned.
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A
male
reader, peanut_gallery  +, writes (26 April 2013):
Well, you are moving to America. Assuming he quits his job and comes with you, I think it will be very hard for him to be able to imagine what will happen.
Are you using this to justify leaving him? Are you afraid he isn't motivated enough to provide the life you would like to lead if you stay in the UK?
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (26 April 2013): OP what you call negative and stick in the mud, us old folks (30+) call that settled.
OP you're asking a guy to imagine his life at 42, middle age basically and expecting him to be dreaming of a magical future of fairy dust and pixies when as a guy who is only a couple of years older I can tell you we're looking forward to our penis not working as well as it did, a beer belly and grey hairs or baldness. He spent the last ten years following all the dreams he had at your age and has probably done most of those things.
OP it's easy at 22 to look to the future with hope and stuff. You're only just an adult. He has ten years of being an adult, it's not all sparkly and new to him. He's not going to get excited by lots of the things you are.
It's just the generation gap, he's not negative he's just been there, done that it's old news to him. We all had grand dreams at your age, some came off others didn't but if his ten years more than you in this world has thought him anything it's there's no point in looking so far ahead when life has so many twists and turns, you really just can't know where you'll be.
OP I think as we get older, people start to more focus on the now rather than the distant future, then later in life we live mainly in the past.
He's past the "future's bright" stage of life and is happy where he is and just living in the now.
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (26 April 2013):
 Hmm...well, your dream puts pretty much an expiration date on your relationship, so he might just not be enthusiastic about a dream you have that would most likely signal the end of your relationship with him.
I think your BF is a realist. It's nice to say "In 5 years" or "in 10 years", but think yourself back on 5 years ago. Many times life has other plans for us 5 years down the line. It's good to have ambition, but especially when faced with a family illness or you're past the college idealistic phase, it's easy to fall into a "daily grind" mentality.
In my opinion, it's good to have a bit of both mindsets. Have a good long-term vision, but be realistic enough to know that dreams require a daily patient achieving of tasks and goals. I think the both of you can learn from each other here, because there is a good and healthy synergy of both views.
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (26 April 2013):
 It's not the age gap per se but your dream of coming to America an running your own beauty business is a bit much.
First of all why can't you do it where you are? what is so magical about here? What part of America? What are your fallback plans for when (not IF but WHEN) it fails... over 50% of all small service oriented businesses fail within the first five years and that's assuming you have the necessary capital to support yourself for the first two since you won't show any profit for two years usually.
I think maybe age has shown him that your dream may be a bit unrealistic.
I think it may just be that you two are not compatible personality wise.
BTW a gap of ten years at 32 and 42 is a lot less than a gap of ten years at 22 and 32. I know it does not make sense to you now but it will.
I'm the older partner in my marriage... when I was 32 my now husband was 18 and i never would have dated him then.
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