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I have been with my guy for a little over 2 years. I guess we're what you would call, "college sweethearts" but I'm starting to feel like this box of chocolate called our relationship is soon to expire.
I really love my boyfriend with all my heart, but I'm the type of person who believes that realistically you can't be IN LOVE with someone all day every day. However, as long as love is there, you can just wait to fall in love with them again and again. My boyfriend doesn't quite feel the same way. He is constantly questioning what love feels like and thus we don't actually say, "I love you" to each other because he's afraid he'd be lying.
Do I think that means he doesn't love me? No. I think he's just one of those guys that isn't capable of expressing his emotions well, but he's improving.
Anyway, my boyfriend is a senior this year and is of course planning out the rest of his life. Lately I find myself incredibly frightened that he'll decide that I'm not part of the plan. After 6 months of either living in different states or different countries, we are finally in the same city again. It's not unexpected that we would have a hard time getting back into the swing of being in a more normal relationship, but we're keeping it going.
However, a week after he got back (about a month ago) he did break it off with me. Granted, this break up lasted for less than 24-hours, but it really scared me and broke my heart a bit. In the end his reasons can all be chalked up to our failure to communicate properly and his uncertainty about his entire future.
We resolved to talk about everything more openly from now on and he agreed that even though the future is scary, he has no problems with the relationship and wants to stay with me. He said that he is also afraid that since he almost broke up with me, I'll be afraid that it could happen again at any moment...and he's right. Especially with him graduating at the end of the year, I'm afraid I may just be written off as a part of this chapter of his life.
I am realistic and know that neither of us can predict the future and that things will either work out or they won't, but of course at this point in time I don't want to lose him. Such is life.
Have any of you guys ever been in this situation? Am I right to be worried or am I likely working myself up over nothing?
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Comments (11)
You either trust him enough to believe him when he says he wants to be in the relationship or you don't.
If you want to stay with him, my advice is to just take him at his word and train yourself not to worry about it. He might break up with you in the future (or you might break up with him!) but it's not going to do any good to worry about it before it comes, especially if you don't know whether it will or when. If it does, you'll be able to handle it when it comes - people are much more resilient than they give themselves credit for. If not, you haven't wasted hours adding stress to both your life and his for no reason.
If you've talked to him and some time has elapsed and the two of you can't work it out and/or you don't want to deal with it for whatever reason, break it off now. You'll start the healing process sooner and get back to a place of peace sooner. You're both still young, and you are starting a new chapter in your lives soon. I'm not an advocate of making sure you're single for such transitions, but there are benefits to being unattached during them.
Having been in a similar place... I recommend the first.
Best wishes.
Say hello to my new favorite phrase (rather, pathetic fucking excuse for cheating):
"You are responsible for creating your own happiness; not me, not anyone else."
Do whatever the fuck you feel like doing, whenever the fuck you feel like doing it.
Whether he loves you or not is absolutely irrelevant.
Love is an act, not a feeling. Do his actions tell you that he loves you? Do yours tell you that you love him? The happy go lucky feelings will fade over time, but the work you put into loving someone stays with you and them forever.
Do you want to get married and have kids someday? Is this a man you would want for a husband and father to your kids? Is this someone you can see holding your hand when you're in the hospital someday? How do you think he will react when there is a car accident, or the checking account is down to zero, or it's your 40th birthday and need to be treated really really special?
Is he who you want to be looking back over your life with when you are 80 yrs old?
You don't believe you can love someone everyday? What? Love is a deep emotion that requires really caring about someone. I think you can get on each other's nerves and maybe not "like them", but to say that your love flip-flips for your partner is kind of weird.
I know how you feel. Honestly, here's how I see it: if you worry that he'll break up with you, you might worry yourself into overanalyzing where you doubt every moment of happiness with him, thus leading to breakup because of these insecurities. If you don't worry, then he'll still break up with if he wants to. Either way you cannot control his future actions and things will happen if they do. So you might as well not worry and just enjoy the time you have together.
Sometimes it's better to just take each day at a time rather than try and figure out if it's meant to be.
It hurts, but you gotta move on. Take it as a lesson learned and do something productive that makes you feel like a better person.
i was in a VERY similar situation. i don't think i handled it all that well. in the end, i realized that a lot of what kept me in the relationship was that it made me feel good to make him happy - it was a challenge to do it. when he was actually lovey-dovey and affectionate with me, it was great. the problem was that most of the time, during those last 6 months or so, it almost never happened. and he did not seem to be nearly as concerned with my happiness as i was with his. i gave and gave and gave. i don't know what was going through his head, but he wasn't telling/showing me anything. after he broke up with me (for the 2nd time) i was so angry - i had given so much and he ended it with a phone call, saying "i just don't believe that love is real and this can't work...blahblah"
eventually, i realized how wonderful it was for him to break up with me. it was very freeing.
and then, guess what? he begged me to get back together with him like 3 months later. without hesitation, i said no.
I can honestly say, having dated guy after guy who has dumped me and wanted to get back together, the fear is definitely hard to get over. And normally, they do it again.
Like another comment said, though. Do what you feel is right, gut instinct for me is usually always correct.