I've been talking with a guy for a few months now. I've talked to him before. We've known each other for years, but we only really talked here and there back then. Only this year has he told me that he was always interested in me since we met. When we met I was with someone. When he told me he's always been interested in me I was with someone. Now I'm not with anyone anymore. He's been talking with me every day. And it really makes me happy. We act basically like a couple even though we're not really together. I told him when I ended my previous relationship, I wanted to take time to just be single and really focus on myself, especially mentally. He understands that and hasn't really pushed me being in a relationship with him, but we tell each other "I love you" and we just act like a couple really. Last night he told me he wanted to have a family with me. To be honest, I didn't mind him telling me that. Like, in my previous relationships whenever I would talk about or even think about having a family with my exes, I wouldn't feel "safe". I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing that the guy wanted a family with me because I seemed "perfect" for them. I just didn't really comfortable with that idea for some reason. I don't know if it's me being picky, but sometimes the way a guy handled issues would bother me, how a guy felt about kids or felt about getting my pregnant on accident, how "handy" the guy is. Just things like that would be on my mind when I think about who I want to be with in my future. This guy I'm talking to now, though it's really early for me to tell, he hasn't really done things related to those topics that bother me. When there's a problem he does act like me where he needs time to calm down before approaching the problem. He jokes with me about his future kids how he would teach them things he knows, like stuff about cars (since he's into cars and I am only starting to get into cars again). He's told me if he ever gets me pregnant, he wouldn't leave me. He would help me raise the kid. And that honestly makes me feel safe because I don't think I'd be ready to raise a child on my own. Some of my previous exes would respond with "Oh hell no, I'm pulling out so you don't get pregnant", or "I don't really know what to do, but we'll figure it out". The second response sounds alright, but it just didn't make me feel safe. I want to feel safe with who ever I am with in my future. And this guy is into cars and does his own car maintenance if he can, which I find really attractive and is indeed handy. Especially since I want to learn to do those things myself and he can teach and I sometimes just day dream about me and him working on our cars together on the weekends or something. I'm really attracted to this guy. He wants to teach me things. He wants to share his interests with me. I'm pretty reserved about my plans for the future because I don't want to scare him or anything like that. But I kind of want to share with him some of my life. I really do. I haven't told my most recent ex "I love you". Like I never said that to the guy. I wanted to. But when I went up to him and thought I had the courage to do so, it never came out. And my ex made sure I was comfortable and everything, but I think he made me too comfortable. It's just really weird to explain. That relationship ended mostly because I wasn't feeling special since it was long distance and I felt like he wasn't really trying, but I don't know if I wasn't either, but he said I was alright with that. I don't know. It was all weird. But this current guy I'm talking to makes me feel special and makes me really happy. Even when I'm "upset" with him, I still feel bad for being upset with him. Like I said, it might just be because it's sort of the "start" of a "relationship" with this new guy, but I really just want to know, how do I know that this is for real? Like I'm noticing some differences with this guy already. But could it just be because it is the start and it's like the happy couple phase at the start? I don't know. It's just really confusing. This is also one of the reasons why I wanted to work on myself mentally first but I don't know if I really did that. I don't know. So many thoughts and uncertainty racing through my mind right now. It doesn't help that I try to be a perfectionist and envision myself with the "perfect" life. But I'm trying to learn that life is not ever perfect. That I should just enjoy things while I can when I can. So yeah. Just wondering how do I know if this is something real for me that I should go for.