He mentioned the possibility of us seeing others whilst we are apart. I don't know what to do.

A female age 30-35, anonymous writes:

I have been in a committed, monogamous relationship with my boyfriend for about two and a half years. During this time we attended the same college, maintained relationships with mutual friends, worked together, lived together, backpacked Europe together, etc. We have a very strong relationship built on trust, communication and deep love. After living together for about two years straight, we are having to live in different states because of work. He is moving to Florida for about eight months and I will be living in North Carolina. We are young, 22 and 23, the world is ours. I think it may be both a blessing and a curse that I have found someone who makes the world for me, my partner in crime, the person I don't want to live without. I am his first real relationship. I have helped him feel confident about himself as a handsome, sexy, intelligent individual. During our time together, I have taught him to recognize that girls check him out and flirt with him. I have shown him a lot about himself. I plan on trying my best to work/live with him as soon as possible, but since we are actors we are basically migrant workers. We work contract to contract. I know people in the business that got married and then didn't see each other until their honeymoon eight months later. In our careers, we have to be able to handle long distance relationships very well if we don't want to be lonely the rest of our lives. Last night, he asked me if I had thought about us seeing other people while we are apart. I love him dearly, I realize that he has not had the chance to experience dating a lot of people. I don't want to hold him back from valuable life experiences because I want to continue a monogamous relationship. But I don't know how to handle him hooking up with other people, or how to go about doing that myself. He has left the decision up to me, which means that this is something that he wants to do but he doesn't want to lose me over. Basically, I see three options for how to handle the situation. I could make the decision to redefine the parameters of our relationship and make hooking up with other people okay while we are apart. Or I could tell him that I want a monogamous relationship that survives not having a sexual relationship for several months at a time. Or I could break up with him and let him go do his thing. I want to do what's best for him, but I don't want to have an unhealthy relationship. I don't know how seeing other people would affect us as a couple. I'm not exactly interested in having a bunch of hook ups. I find them a little awkward and more or less meaningless in the big picture. Life is short, and I want to spend as much time as I can with someone I love and care about, not trolling bars looking for someone to bang. I'm pretty good at handling relationship troubles, but at this point I don't really know what to do. I don't want our relationship to ferment and turn into something ugly, because I've spent some of the best years of my life with him and I don't want those memories tainted by a bad ending. If you've handled this situation before, please share your experiences. I have only ever seen this type of relationship end by one of the parties seriously dating one of their 'hook ups.' How should I handle this? And if I do make the decision to redefine our relationship, how do we decide on rules/standards/communication? This is uncharted territory for me.

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A female reader, Aunty BimBim  +, writes (9 September 2012):

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