How to feel secure in a relationship in a future full of uncertainty?
My partner (25M) and I (25F) have been together for 4.5 years. When we started dating, we agreed that we both wanted marriage and eventually children, and I always felt like we were working toward a similar future.
He's now in his second year of medical school and is busy and stressed every day. I work a stable 9–5 job, so I have a lot more free time and am optimistic about life in general.
The thing that's worrying me is that whenever I bring up our future, his response is always like "we'll see when the time comes" or "I need to figure out other things/ have bigger goals to think about".
I completely understand that he doesn't want to think about marriage right now and I'm not asking him to propose tomorrow or in the soon future, I just want like yess I love you and am excited to marry you one day, not a we'll see. It makes me sad that our future seems to depend so heavily on whether his career and personal life are going well.
He also doesn't know what specialty/pathway he wants to pursue yet, and he's told me that if he got an offer in another country, he would consider moving for the sake of his career. I would support him 100% if he wanted to pursue an opportunity like that. But the idea of potentially moving countries without having any reassurance about where our relationship is going makes me uneasy. It feels like his dreams and plans are very clear in his mind, while I'm more of a "we'll figure out where I fit into this later."
When I ask if there's anything I can do to help when he's stressed, he usually says they're his personal things and that he needs to deal with them himself. I feel quite shut out because he keeps all these things bottled to himself and I just deal with the consequences of 10 unknown stressors. I've suggested things like therapy or having some outlet, but he says they're a waste of time and money.
I feel like I'm just waiting and hoping that, once everything else in his life is sorted out, he'll eventually decide that he wants a life with me.
I also don't want to wait another 5 years only to find out that somewhere along the way he decided he doesn't actually want marriage anymore :(
Every time I bring up the future, he avoids the topic because its all scary and uncertain, but I love talking about the future and planning things aahhh I don't know anymore. Sorry for the rant, any advice would be super helpful thankyou everyone!!