Should I stay with a kind man who feels incompatible?

[SparrowHeart]

Just seeking some perspectives:
I am 25 years old.
I've been dating a man for about 7 months. He is 4 years older, has a steady job, stable living situation and is looking to buy property, comes from a large and close-by family who seem to love each other a lot. He is consistent, generous, kind, attentive, initiates time together often, cooks endlessly for me, adores his nieces and nephews, and is sweet to everyone around him.
We have fun on dates, get creative together and the sex is enviable.
We have similar goals for partnership, home life and family in future and have had these conversations.

However (you knew it would be there), I'm struggling to commit. In a broad sense, I just have a blunt and simple feeling that he is not my person.

Beyond that there are some definite incompatibilities:
He drinks, I live a tee-total sober lifestyle.
He is "bogan" (a term similar to hillbilly), meaning he is quite blokey, big meat eater, beer with the boys, trucks and fishing kind of man...
I, by contrast, am a hippy.
We are very different.

We disagree on faith. I believe in a divine entity (agnostic), he is very atheistic.
We disagree on vaccination. He would vaccinate a child. I witnessed an extreme adverse event in my family and (while not being totally against it) would be very hesitant.
I also don't feel met emotionally or intellectually by him.
We don't ever have really really in depth conversations.
I'm a deep-thinker and a deep talker and (trying not to sound egotistical), I've tied a lot of my identity in life to doing very well at academics and intellectual pursuits.
He is very simple, and always struggled with academic/intellectual things.
He has an (admitted) lack of care to dedicate energy to ''concepts" instead of tangible things. He is very practical.
And I miss deep conversations.

I know that I have met a very special and very loving man. He makes me smile all the time and he tells me he feels the same with me. But I wonder if we are unsuited in too many ways and perhaps someone else would suit us both better.

I don't have perspective on if people like this come around often.

My considerations at the mo:
Perhaps I should leave him and go off on a solo- traveling adventure to reconnect with myself and explore...
Or maybe I have a rare and beautiful person beside me and should stay.

Anyone with more or varied life experience wang to weigh in... I
would so appreciate it 🙏🏼✨

Sounds like you’ve met a great person there but it doesn’t sound like he’s your person.

He doesn’t have your level of intelligence and you can’t have really in-depth conversations with him. In the long term I think (know) you will get very frustrated and bored with him.

It’s hard because he has so many good qualities, but communication is paramount and trump’s everything else imo.

He's not for you in all sorts of ways.

Throw him back, and yes, go travelling if you can.

Sounds like a good guy but not the right guy for you. How will you feel carrying on without any deep conversations?

If he doesn’t feel right for you, then you need no more reason than that to end things. You’re both still very young and have so much more growing to do (I don’t mean growing up, just growing as people), if you don’t feel you can grow together, in the same direction then you’re best to leave it there.

No. You're still very young. The incompatibilities you've described are not small things and will only worsen with time. I'd let this one go and find someone that resonates with your core values and lifestyle. He may be a lovely person, but you'll end up feeling unfulfilled and resentful.Go out into the world and find your person.

There are two things that I would ask yourself.

do you want to spend your Saturday together in the same way? Don’t underestimate this.

do you share the same values for raising a child?

your post made the answers to these questions pretty clear.

You don't love him. That much is obvious. Staying in a relationship with him will be shit both for him and you.

Honestly-your position on vaccination shows that maybe you’re not as much of a deep thinker as you think you are. And probably means that he won’t want to have children with you. And calling him a “bogan” suggests you think you’re better than him-time for you to move on.

Please don’t stay with him, for both your sakes.

Leave the poor man to find someone who loves him

As someone else has said, these problems will only magnify as your relationship goes on. Some of them just cannot be compromised on. I could never have a long term relationship with someone was anti vaccination. You can’t give have a vaccination, there is no compromise. I also know I couldn’t be with someone who doesn’t value evidence based thinking

There is already a sense of contempt in your post about this person, despite the fact that you acknowledge they have many good points., That will only grow and you will come to resent him for not being who you want (even though he is only being who is always was). You are really young and have plenty of time to meet someone you are more compatible with, and should let him be free to do the same.

You’re 25. Go travelling for a couple of years. Let this man go, he deserves a partner who loves him and respects him.

Please, set him free to find someone who doesn't look down on him. The way you write makes it sound that you think you're quite superior and he's some kind of Neanderthal. He also deserves to have children that aren't put at risk of multiple potentially fatal diseases because of your one bad experience. When you go travelling, will you get on an aeroplane? They crash sometimes. Not often, when you consider how many take off each day, but if you were to apply your vaccination thinking to other areas of life, you'd never do anything.

You clearly don’t think he’s good enough for you so I wouldn’t waste more of his time.

You could perhaps have worked together really well, each bringing things to the relationship the other lacks, except that you lack the humility to realise this. Never mind. You're still young. Set him free.

You like him but you also have no respect for him, you have different opinions on many things which could be OK but you do not give his opinions any credence, so I agree with others he's a really nice man and you would lead him a dog's life, let him go.

I think you should go travelling, and leave him the possibility of finding someone who will love him for all those things.

Travel is amazing, and you may well find, that the more you meet people from
other cultures, that challenge your values, the greater appreciation you have for who they are at heart. You probably will look back on him as one that got away. Or rather, one of the ones who got away.

But I don’t think you’re going to find that appreciation of him until you’ve expanded your horizons. You’re 25 - explore, experiment, discover what the world has to offer.

For what it’s worth, dh and I have virtually nothing in common, but what we do share is a deep mutual respect, love and appreciation. We both agree that if we had met in our twenties it wouldn’t have worked.

It's an easy answer in that if he knew what's going on in your head about him, what you've written here, he'd choose not to be with you. That is, if he has self-worth.

So if you truly care about him, for his own good, you will set him free. That way, if you one day regretted doing so, you at least would know you weren't selfish in your action.

You've only just attained full development of your adult brain, which happens about age 25, when the decision making skills pre-frontal cortex has matured. So the things you have set in stone of what you expect for a lifetime partner might go through some tweaking as the years go by.

It's great to have standards. It's also great to know a partner doesn't have to match in every single way for him to be the right person. Of course it's important for major things like ethics and life goals, but friends and family might fill other needs a partner can't. Like maybe intense discussions about books when a partner doesn't like to read. Maybe a hobby you can do with a friend a spouse doesn't like.

Break ups are hard. Good luck while you continue on to the next stage.

If you feel this way 7 months in how do you think you'll feel 7 years in?

Call time for both your sakes..

You're very condescending about him.

Thanks for all the feedback.
And the brutality. Probably needed.
Though I should clarify that the lifestyle incompatibilities are things he brought up initially and I agreed.
He was the one who expressed a sense of intimidation because of the way I think, and being unable to 'keep up'... That was initially his sentiment, not mine.

I feel like you're right, in that it has then seemed to grow, in our perception, into a bigger and bigger gap...and probably is harming his self worth and made me think of him in condescending ways.

I appreciate the advice.
It's tough, because yes, I know we would both probably better suit others. Him especially, needing someone who appreciates the way his mind works.

I think you are incompatible and you need to let him go. He’s not the right person for you.

You don’t seem to be too bothered that he might spend the rest of his life with someone else. There’s your answer.

You don't work together. Yes - he is rare in the way of being a gentle and loving guy. And some woman would be lucky to meet him. And most likely - you won't meet someone who will score this high on being a "relationship guy".

But at the same time - being on the same page intellectually is important. Not being able to have intelligent conversations with your partner is mind numbing.

If you were 38 and were desperate for a child - I'd tell you to that you've had a good go at looking for the right guy, and it was your last real chance of settling down with a good potential father for your kids. But at 25 - you have time to live your life and see what else is out there. You may or may not meet a guy who fits your needs exactly. But settling at 25 is way too soon.

I was also in this position with a similar-sounding lovely man between the ages of 25-30. It just didn't last. We are still friends now, 30 years on.