My boyfriend and I have been together for 3 1/2 years and we are in our early and mid 20s. We have started talking about a future together but I am not sure if he is the one I should spend the rest of my life with.

We are in line with everything- kids, division of labor, values, financial issues, etc. All except for one major thing: I am very adement about living close to my family. He strongly opposes this and would like to live in a different state than them. He previously agreed to live near them but they have recently had a disagreement with him and urged me to break up with him leading to the worst period of our entire relationship (for more information view my other thread). He believes that they are damaging to our relationship, especially my sister. He sees her as a manipulative selfish person who has been the cause of several of our fights in the past. He would live near my parents but not my sister and she wants to live near them and me as well so there's no getting around that. I have always imagined myself to settle down within an hour or two of my parents and sister and I really don't want to be the family who only sees each other once a year.

It feels as if there is no outcome which will make me happy. If I stay with him and live away from my family I will feel homesick, more lonely, and longing to be near them. If I break up with him to live close to my family I will always feel resentful for the role they had in causing tension in my relationship leading to this breakup. I wonder if I would ever have a long this deep again and I can't imagine myself with anybody else. If we somehow end up living close to them they might end up damaging our relationship, as they have in the past.

How do you know if someone is "the one"? There is only so much a person is willing to compromise. How do you decide, at such a young age, who is right to spend the rest of your life with? How do you chose between family and a partner? How do you make them co-exist peacefully?