Help me convince myself !

Hello ,

I always wanted to backpack to SE Asia. Now i have the money to do so for a moderate time ( 10.000 USD ). I almost got my vaccines down , i only need to buy HEP A and B ( repeat , because I was vaccined when I was 13).

The only thing stopping me is telling my parents and girlfriend. I know my parents won't accept this because i have to quit my job to travel ( I'm a mailman and I absolutely hate my job). They are old school , "work untill you can reitre , than travel "will be their answer , but i don't want to wait that long.
Next problem is my Girlfriend. I really love her but she's still in college and has no resources or time to travel this long. But I can't wait 3+ years for her to finish college and have money to travel. I feel like I need to travel now.
I would crush her heart if i told her I will leave in a few weeks. I hate hurting her feelings. I talked about travelling and she was not happy about is and said she would never like to see me again. I don't expect her to wait on me for 6 months , I told her if i come back , we shall try again , if you would still like. But she doesn't respond to that and I understand.

I need your advice people , I really need to go through with my plan , but this will involve hurting and pissing off people :(
Please tell me that travelling is the right choice to make.

Sorry for my broken english , but i'm dutch.

I don’t know enough about your relationship, or Dutch post office jobs, to give you life advice.

My limited understanding is that if you quit your job with the PO when you return, it could easily take 6-10 mos after return to get a similar job.

As for the girlfriend, I too left a girl behind when I went traveling (multiple years in Asia).

We each saw other people. The ones I saw, at some point very early in the relationship, I told them “I care about you deeply, but I have left someone behind, and I cannot commit to anything long term until I know if she is the one for me.” Since I was a traveler, it was assumed I was “there” temporarily and didn’t hurt anyone.

She was a college student at the time, and didn’t bother to tell anyone the equivalent. That was simply assumed in college relationships.

In the end it didn’t work out. I am now happily married to someone else and she is divorced from someone else. We still love each other and remind each other of that in phone calls. Our love never ended but our relationship did not work out. We sometimes wish we had done things differently, but who knows?

If you have the travel bug that badly, travel. If she means that much to you, then wait until she can take a semester or a summer off, and travel together.

My life is happy and I am not disappointed with my decision, but sometimes I sigh and wonder what could have been. It's been 22 years.

thanks , for responding :D

And yes I asked my girlfriend to travel with me , but she just started college ( 3 years ) , which means i have to wait 3 yeras before i can travel.
I honestly can't wait that long(. I need to act now and just follow my dreams.

And as for my job , it's just a job , my first job , a job I don't like :D
If I return after my trip I can easily find another job ( might not be a fun job , but a job is a job ).

Ps . I'm 21 and me and my gf have been together for almost 4 years. She is my first.

Have you asked your g/f to take a gap year and go with you?

You don't have a travel problem. You have a relationship problem.

Either grow up and grow a pair and tell her, or write her a postcard from the road and expect your bridges to be burned.

I know I should tell her , it's just not so easy for me , I hate hurting her , because she has been in my life for about 4 years. I talked to her about before and said I don't expect her to wait around ,but I would like to give a try again when I return.

We are right for each other but not at the right time. After my travels I like to tryy again. I need to travel because she doesn't want to in the near future. So I need to do this for myself , like she does college for herself.

Go for it. If travel is what you want to do right now and have the funds to do it then your parents of all shouldn't hold you back. Your girlfriend doesn't sound like she'll ever want to travel so doesn't sound like any reason to wait for her. If you are meant to be together forever then you'll survive 6 months without each other. Imagine you don't travel as you stay with her and she in 9 months time break up with you.

Sorry to say but it's very rare for someone that gets together at the age of 17 are still together 10 years later particular when one goes to college and the other doesn't.
You are young and the world is open.

This is only my opinion based on when I started college. I'm a nurse and a lot of my fellow students had boyfriends but a lot of them also seemed to disappear after a year or so.

Let me speak to you clearly and honestly

You seem to have little concern about being able to regain a good job and a good relationship with your parents. Consider those factors. If I have understood them accurately, them assume them to be true and take those two factors as "given."

As for your relationship with your girlfriend I really don't think I have (nor will ever have) enough information to give you life advice in that area.

My GF saw my opportunity to travel as me establishing myself, she supported me and gave total approval. The woman I eventually married (my current and forever wife) once gave me approval to get a truck driver's license and move to a third world country because I thought I could use it to do a good thing . . . she gave that permission despite the fact that we had a very young school aged son.

Different people think in different ways, and I am not going to tell you what you or your GF should do, but I can tell you with certainty if my wife came to me tomorrow and said "I want to spend a year alone in Tibet" (or Cambodia or wherever) I would
- check on the joint finances
- miss her badly
- kiss her forehead and give her trip my full approval and blessing.

It's a Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
"If you love something set it free . . . " we say here in the US.

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Edited by: LongIslandBob

i have to quit my job to travel

How's that? You don't get a holiday at the post office? There are so many Dutch tourists all over the world. I'm sure that most of them didn't had to quit their job to travel.

Most people with jobs in the developed world(excl. some workaholic countries like USA, Japan) can afford to go on holiday every year fro 2-3 weeks sometimes even 4 weeks. Also if you're studying most stundents can manage 2-3 weeks holiday, not to mention the summer.

Is there really no option to travel for a shorter time with your gf? You could even start with your gf and finish the trip alone if she has less time. She would probably be more OK with this solution than totally ignoring her.

You can see a lot in SEA even in less than 1 month.

You already know what you need to do, so you need to just work up the courage and do it. Your parents will eventually understand, and you can always get another job when you get back. As for your girlfriend, I'll agree with some others that have said to see if she can come with you part of the time. If not, well, you need to work that out. No one here can give you relationship advice, but everyone here will tell you to travel if that's what you want to do. Good luck.

I want to take a long trip not a month , and I don't even have a month of free days left. And honestly I hate my job and wish to never do it again haha , so quitting my job is the right thing to do.

And I realize that I have to grow a pair and just tell em. I might piss my loved ones off but , it's my dream and I just want them to support me ( too bad they wouldn't support me :( )

Yeah. Dithering about on a posting board isn't going to accomplish much.

Late night blatherings (it's after midnight here)

I just got of the phone with the ex-girlfriend about whom I have been posting.
We have been speaking several times a week since her divorce 2-3 years ago.

My love for her has never died.
Her love for me has never died.

Our journeys took us separate directions, and there is a sadness to that fact.
But if she had denied me the opportunity to travel, we would have had a different lifelong issue in our lives. Relationships are complicated.

Dude, your in your 20's, every time I took a long trip, my Girl fiend dumped my ars, every time, after a few trips I just got used to it.. If you want to travel do it, wait for friends and you won't travel much. Your Parent's will always love you.

good advice.

It sounds to me like you already know what to do. You need to dump the girl and get on the road. She will, believe it or not, get over it and get on with her life.

You say you don't like hurting her, but what you're doing is being selfish. The quicker you tell her, the quicker she can get on without you. And the quicker you do, the quicker you can get on with your fun traveling plans without feeling guilty. Win-win.