Girlfriend (22F) of nearly 2 years and I had a disagreement last night about her career path, which is something we've spoken about before but I thought had been put to rest.

My girlfriend is the most beautiful, sweetest, caring woman you'll ever meet, and I've been told a hundred times over that I should hold onto her-- and I'm not about to disagree with that. She's absolutely the woman I intend to marry, and I plan on proposing within the next year or so, after I graduate from university. One of the things that attracted me to her in the first place is that caring nature she has, her desire to help people in any way she can. I'm more of a stiff upper lip, "just get on with it" kind of person, so it's kind of an opposites attract sort of situation. She brings out the parts of me that I sometimes don't even know are there. And overall, we're immensely happy with each other. But it's that need to help people that's making her consider following in her mum's footsteps in a direction I don't like the look of.

Her mother is her best friend and her greatest role model. Her dad doesn't really contribute much towards daily life, including in raising her 14 year-old sister and 4 year-old brother. So her mum is basically the definition of a strong, independent woman, raising three kids almost on her own, and working various jobs over the years to pay for bills and food while her partner spends all his money on beer. They're an immigrant family as well, which has undoubtedly made life even more difficult. At some point back in Portugal, when my girlfriend was still a kid, her mum was a firefighter. Top of her class when she was in training, despite being a heavily asthmatic smoker (which she passed on to my GF). She continued to be a firefighter for a while when she moved to this country. And at some point in the future, my girlfriend wants to do the same, even if it's just for a little while.

She brought this up to me a couple of times at least a year ago, and at the time, having heard her mum talk about the traumatic experiences she had, and my GF having told me how her dad used to stay up at night not knowing whether or not she was going to come home if she was called out, I told her that I was absolutely not comfortable with her pursuing it. Back then, I told her that if it meant that much to her, she could do it but that I felt that I had every right to leave her if she did. She tried to convince me, but I wouldn't budge on it, so she told me that she would respect my wishes and just go on a first aid course at some point instead. I was relieved and thought we'd put the whole thing to bed.

Cut to last night, she brings it up again. I retained my original stance. She's asthmatic, she's a heavy smoker, and doesn't work out; she's not physically fit enough to go through the training to be a firefighter in my book. Even if she gets fitter and quits smoking before she applies, it's still something that has the potential to put her in danger, which I don't like. And I think I have every right not to like it. We argued about it briefly, and at some point I told her that the only way I'll ever let her go through with it is if I do it as well, which she was fine with. To be clear, I also smoke a little bit and I'm developing a bit of a beer belly so I'm not as fit as I used to be, but if we both improve in physical health, which we plan to, I will still be more suited to it than her because I don't have a chronic lung condition or back problems. Doing it together is the best offer I've got, I'm still just not happy with the idea of her doing it.

Since it's not something we're going to be going through with anytime soon, we just agreed that there was no point in arguing about it and to talk about this again when it's more relevant. I want to be clear that it's not a relationship-breaking debate, because she only wants to be a firefighter for a few months just so she can feel like she's helping people like her mum did. I'm just strongly advocating for her doing something less dangerous to get that fix.