Hello

I hope you can advise me on a situation that is very complicated in my mind.

I am sorry for my bad English if there are any mistakes.

My boyfriend and I have been together for about four years.

He is 5 years older than me. We met in the last year of college and very soon everything went well and we fell in love very fast. We both thought we were very similar and understood each other very well. In those days, my depression problem was very severe. Getting into this relationship made me feel better and my boyfriend worked hard to improve my mood. Another reason that made us feel close to each other were the problems we had. They were similar and it felt good to have someone to understand you. We both had family issues. Father issues

We graduated a year later and I had to go back to my hometown, which was a long way from there. Due to circumstances we could not see each other till now and I am thinking of moving closer to a city near his so that we can see each other. I had planned for this, because of financial reasons it did not happen.But im trying.

At the moment, I feel that I no longer love this man like before for several reasons. I like him, but no more than a normal friend, and I no longer feel romantically attracted to him, to the point that I always imagine myself with someone else. I have had nightmares many times that I was betraying him or that I fell in love with someone else while I was in  relationship with him. my feelings have changed .

He is an extraordinary man, very kind, supportive and patient. He has most of the moral qualities I expected from my partner, but on the other hand, after a few years, I found a lot of  differences that I did not realize at first, or I may have deceived myself that im ok. As time went on,  we both became more self-centered and expected more of each other for our desires. It was hard for him to bear my mental state and my endless problems, so much so that when I wanted to talk to him about them, he tried to shut me up quickly and said that I was overreacting. He is a sensitive person and I remember how he felt scared about knowing my suicidal thoughts and this made me feel a little lonely. At the beginning of the relationship, he listened to my problems. He used to think that he could handle my problems. He thought it was his job to make me feel better he has a strange idea that it is his duty to solve the other person’s problems and make them happy!! Now that he cannot fix my problems, it is difficult for him to hear about them. My problems are not solved easily. I am dealing with PTSD and had sexual abuse when I was a child and family problems, chronic depression and anxiety. Due to financial problems, I have not resorted to therapy for a year, but I intend to start treatment again after moving for work.

Problems that exist:

1- He has difficulty expressing his feelings. He is very worried about the future and is very idealistic and always anxious. Most of the time, he is negligent and is a perfectionist and when he procrastinate and does not do his daily works he begins to feels worthless. He also has problems with his mother and brother and these make his condition worse. He has been depressed for a while now. Unfortunately, I cannot stand his bad mood, and this has made both of us tired of each other. I cannot face someone else’s negative energy when I am in a bad mood I can’t take it and Im sorry about this.

He was very energetic and active at the beginning of the relationship and that’s what I liked about him I have never seen him like this. I feel scared. When I talked to him about this, he said that this is what he actually is and people always misunderstand his personality at the beginning of the relationship! He was very energetic and enthusiastic about photography, but now he has given up photography and has had doubts several times about what he wants to do for his future and what he is interested in at all. I don’t know what he wants to do at all he even does not talk about these things with me.

2- He has a passive aggressive behavior and he stonewalls me. I hate this behavior. I am very sensitive to this. He is afraid to express himself and his sadness and instead of telling me, he changes his behavior with me and expects me to understand but god I do not understand.  I get upset  and when I ask what happened he answers me with ” nothing its ok” which makes me angry and unfortunately I get aggressive in texting and when that happens he would leave and sulk. I tried to be calm but that did not change his stonewalling too. he would send a message after days. I feel controlled and being punished every time when that happens . He expects me to come to him and be the first one to text so that he would be satisfied. You can’t help but feel angry and upset about this behavior. I felt my pride was being trampled on. I had talked to him about this many times and he was sad that it was causing me these feelings and he said that the problem is that he grew up in a family that treated each other like this and did not express feelings. He said that when this happens, he expects me to approach him like him mom But I cannot treat him like his mother when it’s his fault.

3- We have nothing in common. We are very different, even our friends are different. We do not like each other’s taste in music, so we can’t listen to music together. Our opinions about life and everything are different and we cant discuss society or politics or life issues with each other because we would get upset or disappointed about the way we think. We even disagree about something as simple as what is a beautiful decoration for the house.

I love excitement. He is the opposite. I like the noise, he is annoyed by loud sounds. He is into BDSM things and I’m into vanilla sex.

He eats a limited number of foods like VERY LIMITED and this is crazy. I love to try new foods and be in different restaurants because I enjoy food so much. One day we were going to eat at restaurant and because he did not like any of my food listed in the menu he decided to order food for just me and while when I ate, he just looked and had no problem with it, but I felt very embarrassed and lonely. I felt miserable. At the beginning I did not think I would have a problem with this, and I thought it would be very foolish to leave out this good man because of his eating habits, but it is really crazy.

Another difference is that I am not satisfied with his appearance and this makes me very ashamed and embarrassed of myself because why should i not love anyone because of their appearance. He does not care much about his appearance, he rarely buys clothes not like he does not like clothes but he prefers to spend his money on other things. Even when his face was severely sunburned, he refused to use some ointment for his face I see how some men including my brother tend to care more about their beauty and body so I don’t get what he does. The only thing that matters to him is hygiene.

He doesn’t even wear the T-shirts he wore at our first dates because he says they are not comfortable.

I feel I saw his best version at the beginning but after some time and insurance he became his real self or a lazy self?!

When we want to video chat he wears his oldest T-shirt, which I hate. All this turns me off. I think to myself why he does not care when I care about my appearance and he expects me to. Comfort does not mean that we can be the worst version of ourselves, and I think good appearance is a kind of respect. This is what we are taught: Inside is more important than the outside, but I see that I can’t ignore this issue and I feel like a shallow bad person and I am ashamed of the reality inside me. I can’t do anything about it. I have tried to tell him in the past that I would like him to pay more attention to his appearance when he meets me, but I can’t do anything more or  point out or make direct efforts to improve this. I don’t have the right to change him.

I feel confused. All the feelings I had in the first 2 years disappeared. The distance between us has widened.

Sometimes I felt that he was distancing himself from me and that he was tired of me. We do not talk about anything outside of everyday life because we do not have similar interests. He thinks our words and chats are boring, but I was still exited to talk to him. Many times from the beginning  he was not as excited about texting each other and even our dates as I was. He was mostly busy with his work and study. There were times when I waited for him to respond to my message, but he did not respond until the next day. I don’t think it mattered enough to answer me the same day. I told him that if it was important to you, you would answer as fast as I do. Or when you promised me to talk you would not sleep and you would not leave me waiting. This has happened a lot lately. When I talk to him about this, he said that he was a little tired and very sorry that this would happen, he is just sorry every time about everything. He even cried once about this matter and said that his ex-girlfriend broke up with him because of this and this is not personal and he loves me, and if we break up because of this issue nothing will changes for the next person and he does not know why he gets bored easily after some time in a relationship he says he needs to fix this.

I trust him completely and I know he does not talk to anyone else. I feel that he looks at me as an opportunity because he used to say that if our relationship breaks down, he will no longer have the patience to build a new relationship. His previous relationship ended after four years, and everything he had invested in was lost. I feel that because it is difficult for him to start a new relationship, he is forced to accept this situation. He is 30 years old now by the way.

Idk I think I love him. He loves me too, but I’m not sure how he loves me.

I stopped being exited for talking to him even I found myself avoiding him because of the guilt and confusion I have. I do not know if the problem is with my depression or the fault of the distance we had. I do not know if the problems I mentioned are important or not. I must say that Im very selfish and sometimes I expect things that I cant or dont do.

Do I have high expectations and am I ungrateful? All my friends tell me that I am very lucky to be with my boyfriend because he is a very good man. Is it possible that if I get into a relationship with someone else, I will lose attraction after seeing their weaknesses and mistakes?

It’s very hard to let go the security I have with him and I think I will not find a person as good as him, and if I find someone who shares my interests, I may not accept his morals and regret that I ruined this relationship. what should I do?