You are not a baby, you are an adult. You don't need permission to live the life you have already decided to live. Get the man who loves you, and that you can love. From your letter you know the small town guy across the street is not him. Stop acting out and get on with your real life. Today, not sometime later, you have only got today.

Also it would really be nice to know you followed your instinct to run while you can still run.

danpage0

If you stay you will always feel like you are missing something. You will never be happy living life in a small town. I waited 41 years to make the move and I am glad I did. I move from upstate NY to upstate South Carolina and did not know a soul. I got a job with a large government contractor, stayed there four years. Tranferred with the company to central Florida and after three years, I am looking to transfer again. I want to move to the upper midwest. Where the winters are long and the summers are short.

Go for it.........it won't be easy but nothing in life that is worth having ever is!!!

LW, of course you have to get out. Not just get out of the relationship, but get out of the town. Yes, Chicago would be a great option. I am a transplant to Chicago, and so are most of my friends, and we all love it!

Based on what you wrote, to me it looks like you would be guaranteeing yourself a life of unhappiness and resentment if you marry this guy.

One thing you should reconsider, though, from your "option #2", is the following: You say that you could "make the move to the city... and try to beat out all the other eligible women for a sane, healthy man who likes to ..." etc...

Ask pretty much ANY woman who's 10 years older than you, and I'll bet they will ALL tell you that getting a man should not be your primary goal. Certainly you should not be trying to "beat out all the other eligible women" and so on.

You are so young, you need to create yourself. Notice I didn't say find yourself, I said create yourself. Get to a place where you have some space (both geographical and emotional) and spend some years figuring out who you want to be and becoming that person. Maybe a good man will follow, maybe not, but at least you'll have a better chance at being happy.

Love happens, and not always--maybe not even usually-with the right person. With more time and experience, you'll realize that this man was only one of your loves, and you'll be filled with relief that you waited, allowed yourself to go through more of these journeys--one of which will probably yield a more suitable mate.

You started in with the sex and love thing a little bit later than some, and you're feeling older than you are. You're still new, and your experiences with the love and relationship thing are new. Leaving someone you love, but with whom you know in your heart you will not be happy, not be able to create your truest life, is difficult. It's also the right thing to do, and in a couple years that will be obvious to you.

You'll thank yourself for mustering the courage and strength to leave now and go after the life you were meant to have. You don't actually have to have all that much money to get out. Maybe you can borrow a little from a parent, a couple thousand, get a tiny apartment in a city somewhere, scrape and pinch and eat cup o noodles and work hard and breathe your independence. You can do it. Good luck.

Long ago and far away, I was a small-town girl facing choices much like yours. I chose option 2. Now, 30 years later, I am more certain than ever that it was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do, and all that is good in my life started with taking that first seemingly risky step.

What's more, my mother was once a small-town girl, and she did not choose option 2. She married the guy, who was my father, and together they led a miserable life that finally ended for her when she died young in an alcoholic stupor.

So I say go. Go now, while you can get the maximum benefit of going; go before the mortgage and the children hem you in and make it all but impossible to go. Go becasue it is best not just for you, but for everyone iinvolved. In the end, your going will be a kindness to your fiance, who will find someone more compatible, to your future children, who will be born into the life you want them to have, and to everyone you will ever know, including the person you will become if you just step out into your life -- the life you know you could have.

Go, and have a wonderful life, full of adventure -- I know you will.

Quoting from Anonymous: " Now she admits her marriage has been crappy all these years and if she'd been normal weight at 26 she never would have settled for him."

Well you know what? Dang, that's cold. Here this guy accepted her as she was, even if he was of limited imagination/experience/worldly wisdom. He likely had a good heart and unless given further information, I'm going to see him as the old husband who comes looking for Lula Mae in Breakfast at Tiffany's and she says "I'm not Lula Mae any more" and he says "Don't they feed you up here?" because he thinks she's too skinny and he still cares about her health and safety.

If that were a guy saying he'd never have settled for the woman who would have him when he was obese, how would we women feel?

Whatever else was wrong with the small-town husband, he took that woman as she was and until I see further proof he was morally bankrupt and otherwise reprehensible, that's pretty dang cold.