I’ve been dating this guy for the better half of a year now, it’s my first relationship and it’s his longest relationship. I like him a lot, and he likes me just as much if not more. Recently I’ve come to the realization that I’m alexithymic, which means that I have a hard time knowing/understanding my own emotions. I do know that when we spend time away from each other, like when we go spend time with our families without each other’s company, I miss him a lot and feel a deep sense of longing. But since I have a hard time making sense of how I feel in general, and with my lack of experience with relationships, I worry that I might be missing out on something without even knowing it. On the other hand, I have a tendency to overthink things so maybe I’m worrying myself in circles. It’s hard for me to tell.
How have you discovered that you were unhappy in a previous relationship? Is it something that just hits you one day, or is it something you gradually come to terms with over time?
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If you think you’re dealing with alexithymia, you could probably benefit from seeing a therapist to deal with the underlying cause(s) and get the needed tools to engage in the introspection you will inevitably need to figure out, for example, whether you’re happy in your relationship.
To answer your question, people turn unhappy in relationships for all sorts of different reasons and in all sorts of different ways at different paces. No one person or relationship is the same, and so there is also no one universal road to unhappiness.
It can happen suddenly, e.g. if one finds out the other is cheating and everything comes crashing down all at once, or it can be something that builds over time. A lot of the time of it’s something that is just brewing over time, it doesn’t become fully apparent until one hits their breaking point and it suddenly becomes very urgent.