Hello and thanks for everyone reading this 🙂 I don’t expect anyone to tell me, what the right thing to do is, but maybe someone has experienced something similar and can share their thoughts with me. Like having broken up while having similar feelings and thinking it was the right choice or regretting it. I would be grateful for everyone doing this!
My boyfriend (28M) and me (25F) have been together for 4 years now and living together for 1. When we met I was mentally unwell, had a low self esteem and an eating disorder. I was seeing him as my “savior”, which was a big mistake. I transferred responsibility to him and at some point stopped working on myself, which is wrong of course. I have (or had) some sort of daddy issues, so at least I know where it’s coming from. About a year ago I realized, that only I am responsible for my mental health and that he can’t save me and that this is not his job.
At the same time I started to develop crushes on other people. Of course I didn’t act on them, but I started feeling bad towards my boyfriend about this. My boyfriend gives me the feeling of only having eyes for me and I wanted to feel the same for him. I thought maybe I want an open relationship (which he didn’t want and that was fine for me). But now I realize what I am lacking is not sex with other people. When I met someone else, that I crushed on, I was having the small spark of them being my “soulmate”. I am longing for emotional connections, not sex.
That made me think about, why I felt like I’m missing out of this – I mean I have a boyfriend already! But I think I dated him “as my savior” and appreciated qualities about him, that fitted this role. He is very rational, mentally stable, caring and ambitious. Now I’m wondering if I would have fallen in love with him if I dated him in the role of a partner, or a “soulmate”. He is a very serious person and focusses on his career and is not that social. I love having deep emotional connections with people and am way more passionate. We don’t have deep talk or get lost in moments or conversations together, I really miss this and everytime I tried I realized that we don’t really bond that much on an emotional level. Maybe I have to high expectations or am a hopeless romantic – but I have this connection with other people in my life (Family and friends) and I would love to have this in a relationship. I tried to click with him on that level, but it didn’t work.
I think it’s normal that after 4 years you may start to feel bored and miss the energy of a new relationship. But I am not sure if that is what I am experiencing – maybe somene who is in a long term relationship can tell me. I don’t really miss him, when he’s not around. I recently went on vacation with friends and realized, I would not have had so much fun, if he was there. (Maybe because of this “father-role” I put him in?) He has great qualities and I think he loves me a lot and I feel so ungrateful. I don’t look forward to spend my life with him, but maybe I’m just afraid of settling down. He seems like the perfect person to marry and have kids with, but I just think my life would be boring with him and that’s not what I want (yet).
Does this sound like something you could work through and one should simply accept, since the “perfect partner” doesn’t exist or does this sound like there is no hope left?
Again thanks for anyone reading and giving advice <3
Tl,Dr: I dated my boyfriend with the intention of helping me through a bad mental state, gave up on this. Not sure if we vibe on a soulmate/partner level – is this necessary for a fullfilling relationship?
3 comments
Very standard stuff.
You’re a young woman and probably quite attractive, so that gives you a lot of options.
You value novelty, excitement and self-gratification over loyalty and commitment so that’s what you’re choosing. You believe, rightly, that you can have attention and validation easily and delay commitment until later.
But with choices come responsibilities. Spending your 20s focusing on your own needs will dramatically reduce your chances of finding commitment and stability later. The two things are not separate and you can’t just have one now and then the other later. You absolutely have everything you need to rack up a huge body count, fall in and out of love and enjoy the drama and attention. But that means your options for commitment and stability will be very small later because not many men want to settle down with promiscuous, self centred women and even fewer can sustain a long term relationship without divorce.
I think you need to talk to him about these feeling. But I know that would be very hard to do. So maybe a therapist would be good to talk to. with the little crushes you constantly have, how long do they last for, are they real feelings or a spur of the moment. You’ve been with him for a lot of you’re out of school life. And I think it’s very common for people in your situation to feel sort of “trapped”.
I apologise if this doesn’t help
I wouldn’t look at this as you saw him as your saviour. I could reword as you saw a strong dependable man that you felt safe and secure with to provide you with support – that sounds like an ideal partner qualities. Are you also attracted to him?, as if so, there might be something else giving you thought.
You get what you put in a relationship, you just learn to work together. Communicate problems, concerns, wants and desires, you can build a great relationship with someone if you are able to discuss this freely with each other and work on fixing what you think is a problem. You need to determine what your concerns are, if any desires are not being fulfilled, if its a fear of missing out, what do you think you are missing? Why cant you do do this with your partner?
What do you want? sometimes, when you are at your lowest, you learn who you can depend on.
The best thing you can do is communicate everything with your partner. You can then work to make sure you are working together on your relationship or whether you decide you want something else.
For comparison – My misses and i have the same age gap, i was 21 when we got together her 24, she was going through some serious things that i didnt know about until 6 months in. I have helped her in low times, she has been amazing during my low times. We are a team. Have been together 14 years, super happy, great relationship. It only got better every year. We have had ups and downs but communicate everything very openly and work through everything together