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Look, she's 19 years old and she has a 19-year-old's view of relationships. She expects whoever she dates to be her knight in shining armor, completely devoted to her like something out of the movies or a romance novel. She has NO IDEA how relationships actually work.
That's not a problem.
You just have to stop acting like what she thinks she wants is reasonable. People have doubts in relationships. News flash: I've been with lurkette 14 years, married for 10. I have doubts sometimes. It's WAY normal, and it does NOT mean that something is wrong with the relationship. If you're a human being, you have doubts.
Guess what that means? She has doubts too. She's just afraid to admit it. Because she thinks that having doubts means something when it DOESN'T. That leaves her clutching at something that she "knows" is a lost cause. She's wrong about that, but it leaves her clutching and clinging and desperate.
I'm not going to give you advice about whether you should stay with her or not. If you DO choose to stay with her, you've got to be the grown-up in the relationship, because she's not going to be. You can pull her up by your bootstraps, but not by hers.
I'll also say this: 19 and 23 are WORLDS apart. Your average 23 year old has seen some of the world, had a couple relationships under her belt. She more or less knows how people are, knows what she can expect. Your average 19 year old is still trying to have the relationship she reads about in Harlequin Romances.
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