My (22 F) boyfriend (24 M)told me earlier thag he doesn’t feel like kissing me is an option anymore after four years of relationship and I have been sad ever since. Are his words supposed to be true? Is this normal?
Our time together has honestly been the best time of my life. He’s sweet and funny, loving, handsome, smart af, you name it. We have been through rough patches and the relationship was at stake sometimes but we never let eachother go. I am very emotional especially when it comes to him. I suffer from anxiety and depression which intensifies it in general, but also this is my only happy place, and I can’t even stand at the thought of something not being right for him in the relationship.
Either way, I usually try not to let stupid little things get to me, but earlier we talked about how fast these four year have passed. Then, I leaned in for a kiss, and so the thought of him not initiating stuff like that anymore came to my mind. And I told him:
Me: Hey, you don’t kiss me first anymore, why?
Him: Well, I don’t know, after four years I don’t feel like it, I just don’t even realise that I have the option anymore.
He proceeded to tell me that it’s not because he got sick of me, but just because he got comfortable. The thing is, I always try to spice it up and he seems to like it, never saying no, and I am always (or at least i try to be) affectionate so he remembers that I still love him now as much as I did in the first day. He said that it’s normal for things to fade away after this much time, and him saying that made me start crying. I was shocked too. I told him not to say that because I’m one evidence that his sentence was wrong. Besides that, we’re still young so I don’t understand why would he feel like this already.
He’s left for uni and I’m now here typing this just to get it off my chest so I can finally be rational again. Usually, little stuff like this one will immediately leave my mind, but now everytime he’ll kiss me I will think he does this just for me, not because he wants to. Because if he wanted to, he would’ve done it without me saying in the first place, like I wanted to all this time and had no problem showing it. I didn’t even realise that I am mostly giving, not recieving lately.
Also, I understand this might be nothing. A part of me feels so as well, but he is my happiness and i feel like he’s fading away. I just don’t want us to grow apart while still in a relationship. Many things can happen if you grow out of love with someone but never leave them. And I fear him being one of those people as well.
Tl:dr – My boyfriend told me earlier that he doesn’t feel like kissing me anymore after four years of relationship and it has sorta crushed me. I have been sad ever since and didn’t get to talk to him about it yet. But I feel like since we’re so young, (I am 22 and him 24) this shouldn’t happen. I have been crying, feeling scared that his feelings are getting lost and I don’t know what to do. Everytime he tries to do something affectionate now I will feel like it is just so he can make me happy, not because he wants to.
2 comments
If your relationship is your only ” happy ” place you need to seek assistance in therapy with designing other happy/joyful places.
This is not advice for you in your situation but I like to focus on small joys to make my life pleasant.
It sounds like he is checking out of the relationship and you are clinging to him like a liferaft which can be draining for some people.
He’s right that after a while the spark gets subdued, but that just means that it takes intentional work to keep the spark alive, not complacency. Maybe he doesn’t know that working on intimacy is an option. Maybe tell him that you want to have great intimacy and that you feel hurt that he is comfortable letting it fade. Right now he doesn’t share you intimacy values, I think that’s what’s happening. I don’t think it means the relationship will end, but it will take some work from him and you. He’ll have to buy into the idea that intimacy takes work, you’ll have to be patient and meet him where he is at. You both might need to try many things to see what works for both of you. Relationships take effort like this. It’s like a job, and one of the most important jobs. Many people get into them not realizing this and then leave when the work needs to happen. Hopefully he can come to share your value of effort.