Category: Dating and Relationships
My boyfriend and I have been having an off-again-on-again relationship for quite some time now (i'll spare most of the details) but I've been going througha situation that I think I need some clarity on. He recently in his own way, told me that he no longer loves me anymore, (he was drinking when he said it), but when I told him that I would be more than happy to give him his space so he could go explore other options if his feelings changed, he started being extra nice to me. So now we're on this seesaw, one minute he's got an attitude with me for no reason, not wanting to touch me and when we are intimate with each other, I can tell he has the "let's just get this over with attitude" it's all in his body language, we live 2 hours away from each other and he comes to my house or i'll go to his on weekends, but I've noticed that lately he'll wait until real late to come to my house and it wasn't like that before. He used to want to clean up when I would come over that has changed and he used to couldn't wait to hurry up and get me in bed but now he'd rather just sit all scrunched up on one end of the coutch all night and watch TV. But yet, when things change when I tell him if he's not in to me anymore to just say so and we can just end this. He wants to turn back in to his old self. I do love the man and want this to work, but I'm not sure what to do. I've tried talking to him but he says there's nothing going on and I'm overthinking the situation. What do you'll think?
Baring in mind that I don't know anything about either of you, these are my thoughts. Honestly, it sounds like he's not as into the relationship as you'd like him to be and deserve someone to be but that he doesn't have the stones to be honest and tell you that. Perhaps he's afraid of hurting you. Either way, if I were in your shoes, I think I'd start preparing myself for the reality that this relationship may have played itself out as far as romance goes.
I'm pretty sure this isn't what you were hoping to hear. Hopefully, I'm wrong. Best of luck to you.
I'd agree. Sometimes no matter what we want, relationships simply die.
Best thing is to talk about it, sober.
Hard to say like poster 2 suggest.
I agree with the previous posters. Hard to say any more because I don't have enough info, but I'd advise off the top of my head that you need to tell him that you are moving on and stick to it. Could be that he's just dragging this out until he finds someone else. That's not fair to you.
To quote the movie, he's just not into you. I do not mean to be flippent or unkind. When you tell him you may want out, he warms up because it bothers his ego to be dropped. Guys sometimes do think this way. I am one, so I know of what I speak. He will eventually find someone else and he will leave, ego in tact. you should not wait for that. He will never come around. Once that spark is gone, as hard as it is to accept, it's just gone. You have the choice of a sharp pain when you cut it off, or a long dragged out pain if you hang on until he gets the balls to leave. Either way, he will blame you, so be ready for that. Breaking up is a bitch, but you owe it to yourself to be free to move on.
I do want to add one note of caution here.
A little of what you've described could be down to nothing more or less than the relationship maturing. Sometimes people settle in a bit. They do a little less because they don't feel like they have to do 100% of their very best at all times. This, in and of itself, is natural enough, though if it's something that's bothering you, then yes, it would behoove you to speak to him about it. I am mentioning it here because sometimes a little of the spark settles down once a relationship has gone through its first tests. On one level it means that whoever's doing the settling has begun to take the relationship for granted, and I'd argue that this can be a good thing.
But that's the operative word. Can. It doesn't mean that it is.
I'm offering this note of caution only because I think it's very easy for any of us to offer advice, but very difficult for us to contextualize that advice properly without knowing more than what you've said here. I don't for a second believe that you'd deliberately twist the facts, or bend them to suit you better, since you'd only be getting support based on fraudulent perception, but a relationship can almost never be summed up entirely by one person or the other within it.
All that being said, I do think that the previous posters have a serious point, and that a deep bit of soul-searching, conversation or both is in your future. If you are not feeling respected anymore, if you've begun to feel like a partner only insofar as it satisfies your boyfriend's expectation of having one...if, in other words, you're feeling less like a person he loves and more like a checked box on one of life's pages, then he needs to know, and you need to put your foot down. Because in the long term, no one deserves to feel that way.
I can add nothing new, but my support for the things which have already been said. It takes two to make a relationship work, and it takes communication and a desire to improve to combat complacency if complacency there is.
And tell him to make up his mind and stop playing games. Either he's committed to making the relationship work, or he isn't. You deserve better if he's both too scared to let you go, and unwilling to even show you he loves you anymore.
Though Shepherd Wolf has a point, this doesn't sound like that. Relationships must be satisfying for both people, not just one. Usually if it is just a relationship growing comfortable, it becomes comfortable for both, not just one.
I agree with the post before mine.
Also, this has been on and off for a while. The couple don't even live together.
Doesn't sound much like a marriage to me.
I'd say it was time to end it, and move on.
Maybe in the future, things will change. This happens sometimes, but for now, it just doesn't sound like something I'd call a union.
My opinion is only based on the facts at hand.