This needing to have playtime with his friends - not adult social time that you both could participate in - but time to play games with his friends makes him sound very much still a boy. I think you've outgrown him.

It's starting to sound like you're the one who wants "out of the commitment," but you don't like being the one to abandon the relationship. You want to be the innocent party, the one who was "wronged." You want the break-up to be his fault.

Maybe that's not entirely fair. Maybe he's being the best he knows how to be, and it's just not enough for you anymore. Maybe it's you who made a mistake, thinking you could commit to this guy.

I think you need someone further along in the maturity process. Even though he will probably continue to mature, I have a feeling that he'll never catch up to you. You sound like a person with a serious, reflective mind. In some ways, I think you are old for your years . . . and always will be. You might be happier with a man who is at least a few years older than yourself.

It might be kindest for you to pull out the old, "No, it's not you; it's me." routine. It's not fair to tell him you'll leave, unless he changes. He is who he is, and he probably can't change. This is probably who he was when you two started living together. You thought, then, it was enough, and now you find it isn't. That's not something to really blame him for. The two of you were very young. I know it's easier said than done, but maybe this could be done as an amicable, no-fault "conscious uncoupling," to quote the movie stars. Just say to him, gently, "I think we made a mistake. This isn't working for me, and I don't think it's working for you. Either I'm going to be miserable, or I'm going to make you miserable. What I want in a partnership is different from what you want. It's okay for us not to be on the same page, but we can't build a life together on that." Better that you two go your separate ways now, before there's a child involved.

The trouble with living together is that it quickly comes to feel like being married. It is a kind of true "mating" when you live, eat and sleep together. So undoing it can feel just as traumatic as divorce. That's why I think this kind of trial relationship is emotionally dangerous. I would say that you probably shouldn't live with someone whom you aren't quite sure you would want to marry. Undoing the arrangement is likely to feel very hurtful to one of the parties. So, if he wants to guilt you about ending it, you may just have to eat that. Better to be big enough to shoulder some guilt now, than to drag things out and try to figure out how to "catch him" at something that will allow you to be "the woman wronged." It doesn't sound to me like your really want this young man anymore. No great crime there. You really don't owe him a whole lot. This doesn't have to be a contest of who can guilt who. Let it be that the two of you innocently made a mistake that can be unmade. Then, hopefully, you both go on with no deep hard feelings. Five years from now, you'll both probably look back, thinking it was good that you separated. You may each end up in happier circumstances.