[Ask April Masini]

It sounds like at age 20, you understandably want to experience life more, and he’s in a different place, in that he’s ready to have a serious commitment with you now.

It isn’t fair for you to expect him to give you space — if you want to date other people then you have to declare your own boundaries. His panic is understandable. He knows he may lose you and he doesn’t want that. It’s a lot easier in a way for people to get into a fight and break up than to decide that it’s just not working out because of a concrete incompatibility and know you’re going to hurt him if you do break up with him. Angry break ups diffuse the direct pain of rejection and loss. Your maturity, sensitivity and understanding of the problem is what makes it so painful for you. Your fear of giving up a good man in exchange for exploring college life only to possibly wish you hadn’t given him up — or giving up this special time to explore other relationships and a new life in exchange for your current relationship, only to find out you possibly made a mistake and threw away a special part of your life — is all real and understandable, but life is full of choices and you have to make one.

Drop the judgment you’re making about yourself and look at the options clearly. I know this is hard, but you have to do two equations. The first one is to figure out what you want more — the college experience or the relationship you have now. The second thing you have to figure out is which possible loss will be worse for you.

I hope that helps you make your decision. Let me know what you decide and how you’re doing. And follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter, as well as on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 😀