Last week was my girlfriend (48f) and I’s (21m) 1 year anniversary, which… just saying that is a trip to me. To celebrate as well as to just get away from everything, we drove up to Lake Tahoe and rented a cabin. It was a lot of fun - skiing, hiking, great food, steamy nights cuddling in front of the fire, it was just great. She looked really cute in her ski/winter clothes.

So, fairly early on in the week, we had a heavy talk about what this all means, having been together for a year, how things have been, how we see ourselves in the future… really tense talk. But in the middle of it, I finally told her that I’m falling in love with her, first time I’ve said that to anyone. She told me she is too. We both said this relationship is going so much better than we had anticipated, and that we do want to stay together. We talked about how crazy it was that we’ve reached this point when, a year ago when we decided to be a couple, we had done so saying we knew this wasn’t going to last and that we were just going to have fun together while it does. And now here we are, happiest we’ve both been in a long time (apparently the last few years of her marriage were quite miserable). Dropping the “L” word I might note was sooooo liberating. Afterwards, telling each other I love you came so easy, and now we say it very freely, always ending and even sometimes opening all our conversations with it.

In a year and a half, I’ll be graduating from college, and we’ve set that as the deadline for our breakup. I know how weird that sounds, and we laughed about how we worded it. But basically, if our prediction that this is just a fling and it will come to an end doesn’t come true by my graduation and we’re still together and going strong by then, then we’re going to go all-in with the relationship, including telling our family and friends and starting to make long term plans. She even suggested that if I end up getting a job and/or getting into a graduate school in the area, we might think about me moving in with her.

And last but not least, she confirmed that, if I ever do decide I definitely want a kid, she’d be open to adopting one with me, but only once. And that I can confirm is perfectly fine with me. I’m still unsure about a lot of things regarding my desire to have children one day, but that I can say for sure - I’d be perfectly fine with having only one.

I seriously have just no idea how to even begin processing all of this. I haven’t gone into too much detail into this on Reddit, but we also line up real well in other ways in terms of politics, religion, hobbies, etc. When I first met her, I was so not interested in a relationship, as I was way too braindead from classes and work to think about it. So, I was just trying to get laid and swiping right on basically every woman I came across on Tinder with a pleasant face and a good BMI, and as far as I was concerned she was just another one of them. A particularly attractive one who I figured probably wouldn’t give me the time of day, but nonetheless just one of them. From that to a year and few months later telling the most amazing woman I’ve ever met who seems perfect for me that I love her and her telling me she feels the same and wants a future with me and talking about adopting together… I really just have no idea what to think or feel right now.