Now that you’ve chosen the college you’ll be attending this fall, all of your hard decisions are over, right?
Not exactly.
For pre-collegiettes™ in relationships, there is still one decision to be made that can be even harder than choosing a college: whether or not to stay with your high school boyfriend.
He may be the guy who’s been by your side for the past four years, or maybe he’s the one you just met but already love like crazy. Whatever the case, college is a completely different atmosphere than high school, and will quickly put a high school relationship to the test.
Luckily, we’ve gotten advice from love stylist and author of MENu Dating Tristan Coopersmith as well as collegiettes™ who had to make this decision themselves. We’ll tell you the questions you need to be asking yourself and the pros and cons of each decision, so you can make the best choice for your relationship as school nears.
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1. ‘What if…?”
Coopersmith says pre-collegiettes™ need to play the “what if” game before heading off to school. Some questions she suggests asking are: “What if a really cute guy asked me out?” and “What if you heard a rumor that your boyfriend was seeing someone else?”
In these cases and others like it, you need to ask yourself what you would do and how you would feel if you were still in a relationship with your guy. If you stay with your high school boyfriend, you will be making many sacrifices – especially if your boyfriend goes to a different school. “Being in a long-distance relationship is a big commitment, so you really need to ask yourself if you’re willing to make that commitment because you don’t want to waste your college years,” says Rachel Dozier, recent James Madison University grad.
Coopersmith says that some of the challenges collegiettes™ face when in a long-distance relationship are feeling left out when your friends are dating, confusion as to whether you made the right decision (especially if you think about other guys), a lack of social growth and feeling resentful that a lot of your time is spent Skyping or traveling to see your guy. She also says collegiettes™ may begin to feel as though they are drifting apart from their boyfriends.
“It is easy to have lots in common in high school; life is simple then,” Coopersmith says. “But once you get into college, your worlds expand, and they may not expand in the same ways – leading to a lack of interest in each other (not to mention not much to talk about on the phone).”
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2. How much effort do you want to put into your relationship?
Whether or not you and your boyfriend go to the same school, going to college in a relationship is hard. You will both be changing, going through new experiences and figuring out what you want in life.
Trying to stay together as you go through these changes is difficult, especially when you two will be changing in different ways. It takes a lot of effort to not only remain on the same page but to also find the time to communicate with one another.
If you and your guy are long-distance, Coopersmith says you need to ask yourself if you are willing to spend many weekends and all of your breaks traveling to be with your boyfriend (if it is even a realistic option).“How do you feel about the idea of having Skype dates with your boyfriend every Friday night when other girls are out at parties hooking up with new guys?” Coopersmith adds. To make a LDR work, Coopersmith says you need to set up “dates” via phone, check in regularly with your boyfriend (through text, email, etc.), and schedule numerous visits with each other.
Our RLCG Jake, who was in a LDR with his high school girlfriend for about two years, traveled home often and skipped a lot of college activities to make his relationship work – a decision he says didn’t allow him to branch out as much as he should have. “Looking back, I just really wish that I had tried meeting more people instead,” Jake says. While he really liked his girlfriend at the time, he adds, “If I’d never gotten involved with her, I think my first two years would’ve been much better.”
While the effort to maintain a relationship can strain some, it can be bearable and even good for others. “I think that if both people are mature enough and care about each other enough, they can do anything,” says Rachel from JMU, who has been in a LDR with her boyfriend throughout college. “That being said, it’s definitely hard. But being apart has allowed us to each have our own individual lives while also supporting each other.”
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3. How much do you trust yourself and your relationship?
When you and your boyfriend go to college, your dating pools are probably going to get a lot larger. This means that the temptation to cheat or to even think about another guy is going to get a lot larger, too.
“You have no idea how college kind of transports you to a different world where everyone hooks up all the time and trust is hard to come by in relationships,” says Kelly*, a collegiette™ who was with her high school boyfriend for a year and a half of college. Before you go to college, you need to make sure you trust yourself and your boyfriend to be devoted to your relationship. “Determine your trust level … your trust in him and your trust in yourself,” Coopersmith says. “Ask yourself if you trust your boyfriend 1000 percent to be faithful. Ask yourself the same – do you trust yourself to be faithful in the face of temptation? Temptation at college is inevitable, and you will soon see that you and he have opportunity to hook up with other people.”
If you and/or your boyfriend already have trouble keeping your eyes from wandering, then college is only going to make your relationship harder. But if you are committed to each other and you don’t mind sacrificing the chance to date that cute guy who lives down the hall, then you may be able to make it work.
“What is for certain, though, is that you both have to be on the same page – about everything,” Coopersmith says. “From how frequently you will check in with each other to how often you will see each other, to what is on or off limits, if you don’t agree, a relationship will never work. If you do, though, it can work beautifully. Sure, there will be some challenges along the way, but every relationship has those. Challenges make you stronger, if you survive them.”
Alexandra Churchill, an HC contributing writer and senior at the University of New Hampshire, had to ask herself if staying in her relationship was worth sacrificing the college dating scene. “One of the questions I asked myself was: am I going to regret missing out on the dating scene? [My boyfriend] and I had an agreement that if we felt we were missing out, then we would take a break if needed. But, at that point, we decided to stay together … Although we’ve had our ups and downs like any other couple, we’ve managed to stay together through college.”
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4. Is there a future to your relationship?
Although you and your boyfriend may have a picture perfect relationship, can you see it lasting for a long period of time – even if you just began dating?
While you don’t have to decide if you see a wedding in your future, you do need to decide if your relationship is solid enough to last for a while. What’s the point of going to college with a boyfriend if you are probably going to break up a month or two after school starts?
“Measure the growing power of your relationship – is there a future here, really?” Coopersmith says. “Try to envision your life a year from now, or better yet, five years from now. Where do you want to be living? What do you want to be doing? Does your boyfriend really fit into that picture? If you see yourself traveling all over Asia teaching English, would he go, too?”
If you and your boyfriend break up often, only to get back together after a few days of staring longingly at each other in the hallway, then your relationship may not be strong enough to last a few months of college. If you and your boyfriend are going to different schools, then you also need to take each other’s needs into consideration. For instance, is your guy the type of person who always needs someone by his side? If so, then a LDR is probably the wrong choice for both of you.
Kelly and her high school/college ex-boyfriend had to ask themselves this question when they decided whether or not to continue to date in college. “We asked ourselves how much we meant to each other, as in do we have a future together?” Kelly says. “That was what we kept coming back to. We both thought we had a shot at a really good relationship, but we were worried that dating in college might make us resent each other and ruin the potential to get back together one day or even maintain a friendship.”
Sydney Threet, University of North Alabama senior, also questioned a future with her boyfriend, and she realized it would probably be better without him in it. “I was free to discover myself and what I want out of life without having to consider someone else’s feelings and dreams as well,” Sydney says. “That sentence sounds selfish, but sometimes you have to be selfish in order to live your best life.”
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…So what should you do?
Of course, we can’t tell you exactly what to do because every relationship is different and has a different outcome.
Some advice we can give you: Be honest with yourself when answering these questions. When deciding whether or not to stay with your boyfriend, one option Coopersmith suggests is to not make a decision just yet. “If you and your boyfriend like the idea of staying together, then do,” Coopersmith says.
If you will be in a LDR, Coopersmith says, you need to sit down with your boyfriend and decide on some ground rules. Decide when you will check in with each other and what interactions with the opposite sex are appropriate. It can be an awkward conversation, but it is one worth having if you want to stay together.
Whether or not you’re in a LDR, Coopersmith says you need to eventually evaluate whether or not your relationship is working. “Be realistic: give each other a timeline for re-evaluation, in say three to six months,” Coopersmith says. “When that time comes, honestly evaluate what is working and what isn’t working so that you can decide how to adjust the relationship accordingly. You may need a couple of tweaks, or it may be time to walk away. Either way, you will be moving in a positive direction.”
You and your guy could also decide to take a break from each other but agree to re-evaluate your relationship after a few months after school starts. Jake agrees with this strategy. “Every situation is different, but I would tell someone to take a break until Thanksgiving and see what happens.”
Every relationship is different, and while some, like Sydney, don’t regret their decision to break up with their boyfriends, others don’t regret their decision to stay together. Western Michigan University grad Andrea Opalewski is engaged to her high school sweetheart. “We really have no idea what would have happened if we did not go to WMU together and ask that of each other every once in a while,” Andrea says. “Would we still be together? Planning a wedding? Would we have gone our separate ways? Questions go on and on. As clichéd as it may seem, if it’s meant to be, then it will be. Follow your heart.”
Sources
Collegiettes™ across the country
Tristan Coopersmith, love stylist and author of MENu Dating