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First serious long-term relationship, confused about my emotions, Idk what to do

HomeForumsRelationshipsFirst serious long-term relationship, confused about my emotions, Idk what to do

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  • #232941
    Devon
    Participant

    I apologize if this is disorganized, I am just really confused and feeling lost

    So my girlfriend and I have been together for 1 year and 8 months now, we’ve known each other for over two years though.  We’re both college students in our early 20’s, we attend separate schools and see each other 3-4 times each week.  After being with her for about 6 months I started having somewhat doubtful emotions about our relationship, this was right around the end of the summer last year which we spent apart (we started dating in February).  About a month into the semester I cheated on her (yes I know what I did was horrible, and I regret what I did deeply, I apologize if this offends anyone reading this) .  I didn’t tell her for a couple months, I was fighting with deep emotions of what I thought I wanted and how I felt about my girlfriend the whole time.  When I finally told her I took all the blame, and I made sure she knew she didn’t have to forgive me and if she wanted to end things I would’ve understood.  When I told her I decided I wanted her and loved her and didn’t want to lose her, she made the decision to forgive me and that we would work on our relationship moving forward, and now for the past year, almost, since telling her we’ve been spending more time together and our relationship has been progressing at a healthy rate.

    Now, during all of this, since the time when I started having doubtful emotions, like 6 months after we started dating, I have had on and off feelings that our relationship doesn’t feel quite right, something just feels off.  I don’t have these feelings all the time, and the intensity of them is varied, they’re usually weak and easily ignored to where I’m actually considering that maybe this relationship isn’t quite right.  And I’m currently having them now and this is the strongest I’ve ever felt them and I’m actually considering ending the relationship.  I assumed that these feelings where just twisted from when I cheated and that this is not how I actually feel, but now after a year, I was hoping that I’d feel much more much better in our relationship, but I feel they’re only getting worse.

    There isn’t anything seriously wrong with our relationship as far as I’m concerned.  We’re both understanding of each other.  We’ve had our fights like any couple has, and for the most part we’ve fixed or helped whatever was the main concern of the other after these fights, and we usually only have them maybe once a month.  The only thing is one thing almost always comes up with these fights and that’s our sex life.  We’ve never had intercourse for somewhat medical reasons, but we’ve done almost anything else in the books.  We have on off periods where we might do stuff like three days in a row, but then most of the time we might do stuff like 1 or 2 days every couple weeks.  This is mostly my concern as I’d like to do stuff more often, there’s things that I have an interest in trying/doing that she really doesn’t like to do, but most importantly she just doesn’t seem extremely into doing stuff.  She rarely initiates it, and when we are doing stuff she just seems almost lazy or lackadaisical about it.  Every time we’ve had a fight this almost always comes up, and I just feel it’s always a repeat of the same argument.  Plus I just feel like I shouldn’t be holding sex this important and I always feel terrible about complaining about it, and she tells me that me complaining about it just makes her want sex less and that I need to stop worrying and complaining, but then when I don’t for a couple months, and nothing has changed at all, I can’t help but worry and bring it up.  I’m not sure if I’m being crazy and maybe I just want sexual activities too much, I understand that her and I aren’t always going to be in the mood at the same time, but I just feel like she is never in the mood or never really interested in doing stuff.  Whenever we make plans to do stuff, about like 50-75% when we made plans she’ll tell me that she’s not in the mood or too tired and then will promise we’ll do stuff the next morning and then we don’t.  I just feel bad about wanting sex as much as I do and I don’t know if I’m wanting it too much or if I’m actually fine and we just don’t have sex as often as we should?

    I only talk so much about that because it’s the one thing that after a year I’m still not exactly happy with our sex life and almost always comes up with our arguments and doesn’t seem to be changing at all.

    I’m also confused if there is a specific reason why I might be doubting our relationship or if it’s normal to have these thoughts and I’m just thinking to far into them?

    I have shared this with my girlfriend, twice now actually within the past two months, and now I think we are both going to try couples counseling to try and figure out what might be going on.  I’m just hoping to get some different opinions and advice from you guys.

     

    Sorry for the long post and I thank all of you for reading it and giving me advice.

     

    #233017
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Devon:

    Significant, ongoing, long term sexual incompatibility between two very young people who are not married and do not have children- I think it is reason enough to end the relationship, for this reason alone. I don’t see how couple counseling can resolve this.

    Why not break up for this reason?

    anita

    #233023
    Devon
    Participant

    Anita,

    Thank you for replying, I’m just worried that I’m overreacting and maybe I’m just too worried about our sex life.  Our relationship as a whole is pretty great, we’ve talked about the future and living together and eventually getting married.  It’s just this one thing, and as frustrating as it is, I guess I’m just wondering if it’s the bases for my doubtful feelings about our relationship, or if a lot of people have these doubts and that I’m just overreacting about them?  I almost want to believe that you’re right and that this sexual incompatibility is something that I should end the relationship because of.  On the other hand, I’m worried that I’m going to regret ending such a good relationship over sex.  I’ve always wanted a relationship since pre college, and I’ve never had a good relationship, or sexual relationship with anyone until my current girlfriend.

    I hope that makes sense, I love her, and besides this sexual compatibility issue, I feel like I have little to no reason to end the relationship.

    #233027
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Devon:

    If she was the only woman in the world for you, I understand your dilemma. Perhaps you do believe that she is your only opportunity for a relationship, that if you break up with her, you will  be alone for the rest of your  life. Is that what you believe?

    anita

    #233033
    Devon
    Participant

    Anita,

    I do not believe in “the one” personally, but I’ve just had a lot of bad luck in the past, but more importantly, I just don’t want to make a mistake.  I’m afraid that I would be giving up a great girlfriend for the wrong reasons.  I guess I’m worried that what I want sexually isn’t a good enough reason to give up on the relationship.  I’m also someone who doesn’t like giving up, so that isn’t helping my decision.

    #233039
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Devon:

    I think that it is better for your girlfriend to be free from the pressure to have more sex with you than what she wants or needs. And I think that if she loves you, it is better for her to not feel that she is depriving you from what you want and need.

    I understand that you are afraid of making mistakes. Some mistakes are easy to determine, for example, if you break the law, that choice is a mistake because the consequences, such as jail, are very unpleasant. But other choices are not easy to evaluate as mistakes: is it a mistake to end it or is it a mistake to not be available for a better relationship?

    You can’t predict the future as it depends on many factors. You can live a wiser life by planning ahead. I suppose it will be a mistake if you end this relationship and passively wait for another. But it will not be a mistake to end this relationship and actively and sensibly look for a better relationship.

    anita

    #233251
    Janie
    Participant

    Hi Devon,

    When I found your thread, I felt the need to register just to comment. I relate to your feelings and am, actually, going throgh a similar situation. I’m on my early 20’s and I’ve been on a relationship for more than 3 years. Same thing as you: me and my boyfriend did great together, we talked about common interest, we even lived together (which made everything more confusing – imagine sharing a house together, everything there reminds you of you as a couple). I’ve been having this exact feeling, exactly as you described: “not sure if it’s right”. It’s not really rational to explain it like that, but trust me as I say that you’re not the only one who feels that. I believe it’s a common feeling. I’ve actually felt it before in my two last relationships (I’m the master of relationships, yes). Because I’ve felt it before made me be afraid of feeling it again: I knew that this feeling cannot go away. I’ve tried to wait and see if it was a bad phase, but in my experience never worked.

    So that was happening again with me and I was observing. Some things happened and made me see we were going to a more serious path together in our life – a few days after, I woke up with an angst so big I felt it in my throat. I knew I had to do something. So I broke up. I tried as hell to feel the right way but I couldn’t. I broke his heart and it felt so bad, I care for him so much. But in the end you need to listen to your heart. I cried as hell, I was really sad, I had to move out from the house because I couldn’t bare to look at our stuff. But in that first night I felt relief. Relief of not feeling the angst, the feeling. So that’s how I knew I did the right thing.

    A point I should tell you is that we also had problems in our sex life. It’s been more than one year that I felt we were kind of cold. None of us felt the need to have sex. I mean, we don’t need to have the first-month passion, I know it changes – but it wasn’t right to not feel naturally that you want to have sex. At least for me. We talked and agreed it was a problem and tried some solutions. But in the end, the feeling was the same: we couldn’t do it naturally.

    Well, I don’t know if I feel safe giving you advices. You should really listen to your heart. And believe in it. It may be a rough decision but if you feel it’s right, then it’s right. You and me are both young and I really believe we will learn more about love as we live. There are so many special people in the world!

    #233367
    Feathering my nest
    Participant

    I was with someone I wasn’t sexually attracted to for 3 years. (Not presuming theres a lack of attraction for you two.)

    However, it wasn’t a satisfying relationship even though we had a wonderful friendship- that I cherish to this day.

    Could you try sex therapy?

    #233513
    Devon
    Participant

    I want to thank all of you for your advice, and Janie, what you said sounded almost exactly like what I’ve been feeling on and off, almost like there is no reason for the bad feeling.  Now, I actually spent the night with my girlfriend this past Wednesday, the 24th, after the advice you gave me Anita, and some of my personal friends I shared my feelings with, I told her how I was feeling and that I thought we should end the relationship.  I don’t know how, but I told her the entire truth about why I was unhappy with our sex life, which I honestly thought w as s impossible in the past based off our arguments about it.  I guess since telling her I wanted to end it made me capable of being able to be 100% honest about the shortcomings I felt we had physically.  She surprised me a little and actually listened and understood what I was saying, and now she’s promising me that we’ll do stuff at least once a week now, and I believe her.  I feel much better and no longer have those doubtful emotions.  I hope that we’ll be able to make this work and I think if we can then I think our relationship will recover fully.  I guess I, or we, just needed to communicate better about our sexual relationship.  I know I said in my previous post that we’ve kind of tried this in the past and it never worked, but this just felt more genuine between us and I really want to believe her, so time will tell and I really have high hopes.

    Once again thank you all for your advice, I will definitely post again if I ever need any more advice.

    #233533
    Anonymous
    Guest

    You are welcome, Devon. I hope this relationship works well for the two of you. Post again anytime.

    anita

    #233683
    Janie
    Participant

    Being honest with your own feelings and with the person you’re with is the key 🙂
    Good luck working it out Devon, I hope you guys find some solutions together! Hope your feeling goes away!

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