I hope I don't look like a weirdo stalker for people but I was reading an article on the datingish blogs page and accidentally clicked on your picture from one of the comments. But when it went to your site, this blog entry caught my eye and I thought maybe I could comment.

You asked how would you know if you are settling or how you can know if you can't live without him. Well, I would think that what you said earlier is scary. I would hope that a couple wouldn't get married because they feel it's the obvious next step. Someone should FEEL they want to be bound to that person forever. It should make them genuinely happy when they think of that person being their husband or wife. That's when a marriage should happen. Marriage is a step that a couple takes because they want to be closer to each other (and hopefully they are already extremely close before that decision as well).

Now before the whole marriage thing, how can someone know that they can't live without them? That actually takes some time, or even sometimes not much time. Take some time to reflect on how your boyfriend plays a role in your life. Is he just someone who is always there with you, having fun and being their for you everyday? That's good right? But what if something happened to you? What if you got hurt, was put into a hospital? What if you were diagnosed with a disease? What if you went bankrupt? What if something terrible happen in your life and you needed someone? Can you imagine all that happening and see yourself without him? If you were at the end of your rope, would you hold on just because of him? If you hit rock bottom in life, could you do it without him? Now many people would say that you shouldn't rely on others for anything or even feel that someone should change their lives for someone else. But you know what? We ALL have changed our lives for someone. My father changed (on his own free will) to be a better person in his eyes because he wanted to be a better father for us.

From my experience, I know that my boyfriend is "the one". This past semester in college, I suffered from a moderate depression that sent me so far down from where I was before that I had to take a semester off from college just to get myself together again. I live in South Texas and he lives in Northeast Texas, approximately 8-10 hours away from each other, depending on the route you take. But we both went to a university that is four hours away from our home towns (it's kinda right in the middle of the journey to either of our home towns). I met him there and we were best friends right from the start, then later on this summer, we got together. Well during this whole depression thing I went through this semester, he was always there at my side. He would stay up with me sometimes all night because I wouldn't stop crying or couldn't fall asleep. I never asked him to come over to my dorm to help me; he did all that on his own. I could have been there alone and gone through all this, but he was there all the time. Helping me through it all. And looking back, I couldn't have done it without him. If I didn't have him, I would have gone crazy or slipped farther into depression. I wouldn't be as sane as I am now.
Now that I'm back home, and he's still in college, we're still together, even after the four hour distance between us. I remember asking him if he was certain if he wanted to stay together when I left, because I wasn't gonna be able to return until a year later when I was able to transfer back to the university. He was adamant that we were gonna stay together through it all. So even though we will only be able to see each other now maybe...three or four times out of the year now, we are still together. I couldn't imagine my live now without him. I couldn't see myself living the way I am now, stuck at home still fighting the depression, and trying to get back into school without his help, his support, his love to get me through it all as well. So you see, we've known each other for a year, we've been together going on 7 months but we've been through so much together, and not just little things but some major life changing events and tragedies. I know that it was those events that have brought us even closer together than we both thought possible. He says himself that he can't see his life without me anymore and that once we're done with college, we're to get married. He's had some bad things happen in his life recently too but I've never once left him or not given him my support.

That is how you can evaluate your relationship and see if you can't live without him. Have you two been through tough times or life changing events that you both have stuck to each other for? Imagine going through horrible circumstances and see if you think you could do it without him. I hope that you two are really happy together and that one day you two get married. And I apologize for my super long comment. I tend to talk to much when I type. :-p Hope you don't think I'm super weird to comment on a strangers blog but I felt I had to. You don't have to take my advice, it's just my opinion. You can delete this comment after if you want. lol Ok well, hope everything goes well in your life!