Tl;Dr: Grew up with abandonment/rejection issues, need to know if I’m expecting too much or not from my relationships.
Maybe I just have a habit of dating extremely socially awkward/mentally ill people, maybe it’s just me because I don’t have much experience with having healthy relationships and I’m the extremely socially awkward/mentally ill one, but ALMOST EVERY relationship I’ve been in over my lifetime (I’m 36) has been almost devoid of affection and devoid of communication it seems like. I mean how often do y’all tell your SO that you love them? How often do y’all have sex? How often do you do stuff like hold hands, cuddle, hug, etc. when it’s not right before you are about to have sex? How often do your dates seem to actually want to get to know you by actually asking details about your life and what you think/feel? Do you go days without being affectionate with your SO? Is that normal? Am I expecting too much of a partner by wanting them to show me this kind of affection on a daily basis? How do you actually know someone is in love with you and they aren’t doing the motions just to not feel lonely when it’s convenient for them?
I feel like almost everyone I date seems super interested in me, and then I get too excited about the potential, fall in love, start a relationship and then suddenly the passion is gone after like 2 months for them. The compliments wane, the cuddling wanes, the sex wanes, the excitement wanes, they start spending less time with me, etc. And it seems like none of them are aware that the frequency has dropped and it’s always me who has to bring it up and basically do all the upkeep of getting my relationship needs met. I understand that people aren’t mind readers and that NRE is a thing, but my NRE never goes away, as long as things are going well. I feel just as passionate about my relationships years later as I did on day 1, so maybe I’m fucked and this is just how it is for almost everyone? Sorry, I never grew up around anyone who actually had a happy, healthy and fulfilling relationship and I grew up being abused as a child, so I really have no idea WTF is going on here and I constantly question my sanity because of this shit.
I would just once would like to find a person who is as affectionate and passionate as I am, but it never seems to happen for me. I mean whenever I’m in love, all I want to do is be around that person, I want to tell them how much I care, I always want to be physical with them (sex/cuddling/kissing, etc.), I want to know what they are thinking, what they are doing, how they feel, if they had a bad or good day or not, I just want that same thing returned to me, it always feels one-sided.