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Need Advice on Feelings for Boyfriend

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Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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  • #230037
    liz
    Participant

    Hi!

    So I have been completely freaking out lately because of me feeling like I lost my feelings for my boyfriend and my mind has convinced me that I have, yet when I look at pictures and videos I get this small inkling inside me of happiness saying what are you saying, you need this terrible feeling to go away. Help!!

    So I started college this past fall and I really did not want to go. I loved my life this past summer and put off college as much as possible. I was so so in love with my boyfriend and never wanted to do anything without him. We did everything together, and even when I thought of school and having a long distance relationship I immediately started to cry. He left a week before me, and I was devastated. I had no doubts and knew that I loved him so much. My first week at school was rough, I was always texting him and I felt very uncomfortable. I wanted to go back and relive summer. The next weekend I went to visit him and was nervous, yet the weekend ending up being fine and I had no doubts. I felt very uncomfortable at his school and did not mesh well with his friends knowing that they were not like him. It worried me. I left his school that weekend a complete mess and immediately getting back to my college I remember calling my mom telling her that I was worried about him and how different his friends were than him. A couple days after getting back was when these doubts took over. I kept having my mind telling me things like “Maybe you don’t want this” and “Maybe you don’t like him anymore.” These thoughts have taken over my life making me so sick. I started thinking so much texting him and talking to him like “do I want to talk to him?’ “Does he make me happy? You aren’t so happy right now..”  I cannot concentrate on anything and my heart races so fast everyday and  even when I think of it I start to panic. I ended up telling him how I felt and he was hurt and I really felt terrible because I don’t know why these thoughts are in my brain and making me feel so disgusting and anxious. We took a break for a night for me to think and I immediately told him that I wanted to fix this. How could I be doubting the one person who made me the happiest I’ve ever been? He ended up coming  2 weekends ago to visit. I got myself in such a tizzy that I just had thoughts like “What if I don’t feel right” before he came and my mind kept telling me that I didn’t like him that I myself ruined the weekend. The whole time I felt anxious, not feeling a happy emotion, only grossness and nerves taking over. It didnt make sense because I still held his hand and hugged him but kept doubting it because of this sickening feeling and thoughts in my head. I felt terrible. It was like I was looking for things why I don’t like him, overanalyzing his looks and even if I “really” want to hug him and be with him. Right before he left we had a talk and decided to take a break, for me to figure out whats going on and why I feel like this about him and everything. I also have been stressing so much about my schoolwork freaking out about every grade and every assignment. Also the days I seem to be more stressed, the more my mind tells me that I don’t love my boyfriend, that I don’t want to be with him. I also feel terrible because he is heartbroken knowing I’m feeling this way and is still there for me and is waiting. I really need help, I truly want to fix this and go back to that amazing feeling I had with him before but I just feel sick. My mind seems to be convincing me that I do not want to be with him, and I am also so scared for making the wrong decision that I do but my body isn’t allowing me. A past boyfriend really hurt me, and it took me a long time to trust my current boyfriend becoming comfortable and confident. I also remember going to my mom and telling her I wasn’t sure about him in the beginning, and she would tell me that I would see him tomorrow and that I be fine. And I was always reassured when I saw him. Now I can’t just see him to be reassured.  The other day he told me he was going to a party and my heart dropped just like when we were together and I saw on Instagram that he liked another girls picture and also got a terrible feeling inside. I feel as my emotion towards him is just nerves and uncertainty and I don’t understand it. I just want to go back to being confident in my relationship and him, because it took me so long to open up to someone, and he loves me with all his heart.

    Please help me with what I should do because this terrible feeling inside me will not go away, and I’m sick of feeling like this all the time. I am making myself sick, and my emotions are numb and puzzled because I just feel anxious all the time.

    #230153
    Lilly
    Participant

    Hey! Seems to me like this was a big step moving away to college… I think a big chunk of this anxiety you are feeling is that you are uncomfortable and scared of being in this new place, maybe you need to first feel comfortable in you’re new environment. Just think of everything you need to do, write down you’re “tasks” down like a grocery list. It’s like grocery shopping, sometimes it looks like it’s going to take you forever to get everything for the week, but once you start grabbing stuff it doesn’t seem that bad. You probably don’t want to hear this but people grow apart. Especially in college. It’s okay to realize you don’t want something anymore. I think you need to make that grocery list and along the way things will start making sense, don’t freak out… Things change.

    #230215
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear lindsey:

    Reads to me that what happened is that you got overwhelmed. You were not ready for the changes in your life and the distress got too intense. Seeing him with his new friends got you worried that he will stray away from you. Being overwhelmed, your brain came out with a solution: to no longer feel  love for him.That way you won’t care if he abandons you for his new friends and new college life.

    But this solution didn’t work out well because it made you feel guilty for hurting your boyfriend, because you are distressed by the loss of the loving feelings, and it freaks you out, your words.

    I think that you will feel the loving feelings for your boyfriend again once you are no longer overwhelmed. You need to adjust to your new life circumstances, which means to feel calmer about these new circumstances. Short term psychotherapy or counseling will help you adjust. Maybe such is available in  your college. (I bet you are not the only new student who is overwhelmed).

    I hope to read from you again.

    anita

     

    #230221
    liz
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Currently my boyfriend and I are still talking, but its not the same. He is very short, and feels we can only get back to where we were when I feel less anxious and worried all the time. I feel like talking like this (not together, him being bland)  is distancing us more and my mind keeps telling me that I’m fine without him. I keep telling him I won’t get better when we are acting like strangers, but he insists that he’s been too hurt and he can’t act like nothing is wrong. Texting him is terrible because it has gotten so boring and bland. I sometimes don’t answer for a while because of this. I want to get those feelings back but its like a fight with my brain.

    I have gone to my school’s counseling center and also am going to see one from home, and I really hope this helps. I feel like our love is fading everyday and I’m holding onto memories.

    #230223
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear lindsey:

    You’ve been panicking for a while and we can’t think effectively when we panic, we only make things worse. The solution is one: stop the panic, stop trying this or that. You have to take a break and calm down. Take some time away from everything, be it a few hours at the least, go someplace relaxing and clear your head.

    Priority # 1 is that you relax.

    It is good that you are pursuing counseling. Why don’t you let your boyfriend know that you regret making his life difficult lately, that you regret hurting his feelings, that you panicked because of all the changes in your life and freaked out. Let him know you need to relax and clear your head, that you are pursuing counseling so to adjust to all these changes,  and that you hope things will get better.

    Then take your break, relax.

    And post anytime.

    anita

    #230227
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear lindsey:

    Just in case it helps, I want to explain the following: when we feel fear (anxiety is ongoing fear), we can’t feel affection/ love at the same time. The two can’t co-exist.

    When we feel ongoing fear our thinking goes on overdrive, we think a lot, but not rationally. We think so much that we obsess.

    Seems to me that this is what is happening with you: the changing circumstances of your life increased your anxiety by a lot, your thinking got escalated, you can’t feel love at the same time you are afraid. Then you have fear added to fear when you noticed you don’t feel love for him and that increased the overthinking even more. Then you told your boyfriend about not feeling love for him, his feelings got hurt, he withdrew from you, and that increased your anxiety and overthinking even more.

    This is why you need to relax, a whole lot of relaxing, to slow down your thinking, to make it possible for your thinking to be rational and proceed from there.

    anita

    #230251
    liz
    Participant

    Anita,

    Thank you so much. I hear it so many times that its just me and overthinking that its not him but truly its so hard to believe when you don’t feel the love inside. I have constantly been telling myself its him but how do feelings just change so rapidly? I am trying to calm down and relax, its just very difficult. I try to clear my mind it just always creeps in. I just want to get the loving feeling back.

    #230333
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear liz:

    The more you panic about losing the loving feeling and the more you “just want to get the loving feeling back”, the more that feeling will stay away. Give up on it, and it will creep back in, on its own timing (not if you wait, check, then check again and panic, thinking something like: why isn’t it back? I waited for a whole day!)

    What happens with any loving couple is that each does not feel love all the time for the other. Sometimes it is gone, then it returns. But the person does not notice or doesn’t get alarmed, doesn’t panic.

    What happened with you is that you got caught in the thought: I don’t feel love for him, what does it mean… am I never going to feel love for him again? You got alarmed, you panicked.

    You focused on something normal (not feeling the love in a relationship temporarily) and you panicked over it, fearing it is permanent.

    anita

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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