Submit your anonymous sex and relationships questions to Em Chan here. 

“I’m twenty and while I eventually want a family, I’m not looking to get married within the next five years. Is it okay to start a relationship with someone who I really like but can’t see myself marrying due to lifestyle differences?” 

– Future planning

Dear Future Planner,

I think it’s admirable that you have thought through your life’s trajectory – not enough people really think about their romantic life in conjunction with their other goals or plans. However, I will say that you never know what life may throw your way.

So is it “okay” to start a relationship, with your stipulations and all? It depends. A relationship is between you and another person, so all the considerations have to be shared. Many relationships today are pretty casual and not meant to be long-term because of the increasing number of people choosing to marry later in life. (I’d say you can engage in hookup culture if that’s what you’re looking for, but we are still in the middle of a global pandemic, so that option is off the table.) 

Before you get involved with anyone though, it is important that you are honest with the other person about if you’re looking for a long-term or short-term relationship. For some people, the mere mention of marriage will scare them, so I would stick to simply saying ‘long/short- term relationship.’ 

From the phrasing of your question, it sounds like you want to find a long-term relationship. With that in mind, you mentioned not finding your potential dating partner marriageable material. My question is, why are you already jumping the gun on deciding that you’ll eventually marry them? I understand you don’t want to get married, but five years out is a long time. 

Before you start on about, “because I don’t want to commit to someone and then time goes by and I don’t want to marry them!” I’ll interject a story of my own.

I got into a long-term relationship with a similar mindset as yours: not wanting to get married for at least the next five years. Like you, I wasn’t sure if I should date someone that I couldn’t imagine marrying – so I tried to find someone who was similar in lifestyle habits in case we wound up getting married. Fast forward almost two years later and we ended up going through an extremely painful break-up. He was everything I genuinely believed would be perfect for the future – key phrase: “for the future” – but it took me that painful breakup to realize that as much as we can plan for the future, our plans (and people) change. We can’t prepare for that, regardless of how perfect or flawless a person is on paper, life happens.

So whether you choose to move forward with this relationship or not, keep an open mind. Five year’s time can change a lot in a person, whether that’s you or your potential partner. Don’t completely disregard potential partners simply because you’re planning for the future, because people come and go into our lives for various reasons; maybe they’re meant to grow alongside you. 

Like I said, five years is a long time. Especially as we’re still socially distancing with most people, you can take the time to really get to know your potential partner more. As much as you may think you know the person and their lifestyle differences may be off-putting in your plans for a future together, you never know how in practice it might actually work out. Think of all the romantic movies where the protagonist ends up with the unlikely romantic interest instead of the seemingly “perfect” person they thought was the one.

My favorite quote that I’ve referenced many times is “love is logistics.” I’ve applied this to navigating long distance relationships and opposite personalities. This is one of the few times I’ll say those logistics aren’t as important, and perhaps instead of leading with logic, just see how things go with this potential partner first. You never know how the future will unfold, and maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.