I [M29] am having long term relationship [7+ years] doubts and started to fall for another person. Perspective and advice on this situation would be very helpful.

Hi y’all,

I \[M29\] have been having relationship doubts for a while and recently started catching feels for someone else and it’s been very difficult to process. I’ll elaborate more below but I was wondering if I could get any advice or perspective from people who have been on either side of this type of situation. This relationship has been going on for a bit over 7 years.

This is the first serious relationship either of us have been in (started in college) and it’s been very involved and we’ve even lived together for several years (before covid) at this point. The start was shaky but we’ve stayed committed to each other and worked through our issues as best we could. My partner has always had moments where they can fly into fits of rage – all verbal attacks – and I lacked the self worth to counter any of this or force a change and just absorbed it for quite a while. It was all harmful though and fractures started to form before covid as I gained a bit of self confidence (my SO has worked to improve my self confidence over time as well) and felt they were unjust and unwarranted and overall harmful. Over covid while being homestuck I tried to involve them in just about any hobby that seemed of interest around the house but I felt mostly invisible and in many ways I felt more like a roommate. This hurt of course, especially alongside the occasional (\~1mo verbal rage) outburst.

As the lockdown ended I made a new friend and they share a lot of the same hobbies and interests and I’ve been able to hold very long and in depth conversations with them. I intended to and have kept boundaries up but from what interactions I have had I have only liked this person more. This is pretty unusual; I’ve crushed on friends before but usually it would dissipate within a month or two whereas this has persisted. I really feel a connection and attraction to this person and have let our friendship cool off a bit to maintain space there and halt the development of further feelings but in the same time span my partner has again remained largely uninvolved and raged – leaving my a crying mess a couple of times.

I… I want to be a good person and keep things going with my partner since they’ve acknowledged their issues – they’ve started seeing professional help for their problems even – but it’s been very difficult. I feel like I’ve drifted and I don’t know what the exact value of this relationship is besides familiarity and the inertia of it all. My partner is supportive but it’s become harder over the years to open up when verbal attacks have occurred and I’m really banking on that behavior subsiding I feel. I also wonder if my heart is really in this if I’ve become so enamored with another person; ignoring this person does this signal a compatibility problem with my current relationship?

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TLDR: Relationship is long (7+ years) but has had rocky and demeaning moments and I’ve had bits of doubt all along. Met someone new and I am deeply interested in them but am keeping them a bit distance while I figure things out. Any advice on compatibility issues and what feeling very strongly for another person signals?