My first ever blog, just need to vent and hopefully receive some objective feedback. I've been going out with my boyfriend for 2 years and 10 months now and I'm on the verge of breaking up with him. There are several reasons why I feel it is time to do so. For starters, I've never been able to imagine himself with him in the long-run. In my head marriage and babies have never been on the cards, though I know he believes they could be. I know in my heart he's not the one. However I've managed to ignore this for quite some time, rationalising that we're too young to even consider those kind of things and to just enjoy it while it lasts. But as our 3 year anniversary approaches, it feels like I'm just prolonging the inevitable. Why continue in a relationship that I know has no future?

Secondly, my parents don't approve of him. For a long time they said nothing, believing it would run its course but recently my mother has become very vocal about her dislike for him. Basically she thinks I'm too good for him and doesn't understand what I see in him. Although we normally get on really well, this has given rise to a few heated arguments. And yet I can see where she's coming from. We're from different backgrounds, I'm from the country and he's from a part of town that's not the greatest (which in Ireland can be a big deal!) He has no real social skills, he will barely say hello to my parents when he comes over to my house (which really bugs them) and he doesn't interact with my friends very well either. It is as if he doesn't need to make an effort with other people around him because I'm there to do it for him. Now I have to point out that this isn't out of rudeness but out of shyness, but at 20 years of age he should be able t at least make basic conversation with people he's met hundreds of times before! Because of this I'm embarrassed to bring him to family events and I'm reluctant to bring him with me on a night out because he won't make an effort with other people and completely monopolizes my attention. He can be very clingy. If we're in a club he always wants to have his arms around me while we're dancing and won't let me do my own thing. When we're together in social situations he always has to be holding my hand or have his arm around me which can be suffocating and sometimes I feel like he's marking his territory for any other guys in the room. I often feel trapped in this relationship, I fantasize about being single or being with other guys, even though I feel guilty for doing so.

But despite all this there are aspects of my relationship that I love. My boyfriend is my best friend, I trust him 100 % and I can tell him anything. He makes me laugh and we have a great time together. We're interested in the same music and films and have the same ridiculous sense of humour. What frustrates me is that I'm the only one who can see this side of him, his true personality only seems to come out when we're alone. He is an absolute sweetheart, he has never said or done anything mean or nasty to me, he has always been a perfect gentleman. He tells me how amazing I am and how he loves me more than anything else in the world. But this makes it all the more difficult to work up the courage to break up with him. I know it will break his heart and it will break mine to do it to him. He has never consciously done anything wrong and I know it's going to seem completely out of the blue to him even though it's been something I've been thinking about for a while now. He was my first boyfriend, I've been going out with him since I was sixteen, but a lot has changed since then, I've grown up, I'm finished my second year of college now and in years to come I don't want to look back and regret spending all my time with one person. I love him but I don't think I'm IN love with him, if that makes sense?

I'm so confused and upset right now. I know in my heart that I should end the relationship, that it's not fair to either of us to stay in a relationship which I know has no future...but I just don't know how I'm going to deal with the guilt of breaking his heart, or with the pain of losing my best friend.