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I feel like I don't love my boyfriend anymore

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  • #323015
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alina:

    “My boyfriend and I have been together for almost two months, and before that, we liked each other for about two or three”- and in those total 5 months you were never in his physical presence, never met him in person.

    “For the first few weeks of us being together and before that, I was crazy for him.. wanted him next to me”- you wanted him next to you online, as in laptops type of together?

    I had no idea you never met your boyfriend in person, throughout the relationship. So it’s all been an online relationship. And the other boyfriends, were they also online boyfriends?

    anita

     

    #323017
    Alina
    Participant

    Two were, the others weren’t.

    #323019
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alina:

    In the beginning of this current online relationship then, your heart raced while looking at the computer screen?

    The boyfriend before him, you did meet in person, correct? If you did then the butterflies and racing heart with him (the fifth boyfriend) could have been because you were physically with him, you met him. And with the current boyfriend, it makes sense that you wouldn’t have the butterflies or racing heart because you never met him in person.

    anita

    #323021
    Alina
    Participant

    Better phrasing: Two were, the others weren’t, and when I said I wanted him next to me, I wanted him next to me physically.

    #323023
    Alina
    Participant

    The fifth boyfriend was online. Every time he’d join a call, I had a racing heart, which I remember sometimes thinking something would be wrong.

    #323025
    Alina
    Participant

    I have met my current boyfriend in person, but I moved before we got close and got together.

    #323027
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alina:

    I can understand this part, that you wanted your current boyfriend next to you physically. I communicated before with women who had online relationships with men they never met, but if I remember correctly, almost always they mentioned that at the beginning of their threads because it is a significant piece of information. But when mentioning butterflies and racing heart, I think that it is very relevant that you never met the man.

    anita

    #323037
    Alina
    Participant

    That would make sense to me, but my fifth boyfriend and I never met in person yet I always got a racing heart and butterflies when he joined a call, but I also remember feeling like he was always going to leave me and I remember invisioning me with other people in question of how it would be, even though all I wanted was my now-ex at the time. With my boyfriend now, we knew each other a little in person but mostly knew each other online and got together online, yet, I never got a racing-heart or butterflies, but I don’t see myself with anyone else and have been wanting a future with only him. He’s on my mind all the time and we talk about a future together often. I use to have a strong want of wanting him to be next to me physically, but now I don’t feel that want as strongly. When he says things about wanting to be with me, I do not feel disgusted or uncomfortable, but I don’t feel the wanting-him-next-to-me as strongly as I did before.

    #323039
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alina:

    I read your recent post but I am not focused enough at this time. I will be back to your thread tomorrow, about 16 hours from now. Take good care of yourself.

    anita

    #323099
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alina:

    I will retell your story using the new-to me information from yesterday:

    Before your current online-boyfriend (I’ll refer to him as OB2, for Online Boyfriend 2), you had another online-boyfriend whom you never met in person. I’ll refer to him as OB1 (for Online Boyfriend 1).

    This is what you shared about your online relationship with OB1: “Every time he’d join a call, I had a racing heart.. I always got a racing heart and butterflies when he joined a call… I did get the heart racing, butterfly feeling and at the time, that’s what I saw love as “. You referred to your past with him as “a bad past”. About that bad past, you wrote: “we’d break up and then get back together over and over”. During the breakups, you were able to see yourself with other men, in the future. Finally, you “left him because I saw myself with (OB2)”.

    This is what you shared about your in person (in real life, irl) friendship with OB2: last you met him was in 2018, and this was the nature of the friendship then: “We didn’t talk much because we both had our own separate group of friends, but we were each other’s safe place. If his friends were upsetting him, he’d hang out with me. If I was upset, mad, alone, etc., I’d hang out with him. We weren’t the closest, but we weren’t the farthest”. After you moved away, the two of you had no contact for a couple  of months, and then he texted you. “I didn’t think I cared that much for him, but when I saw his text, I cried and cried every month. I didn’t stop until (the online friendship started about 5 months ago)”.

    That online friendship developed into an online relationship. About the online relationship with OB2: for the first few weeks of this almost 2 month online-relationship, you were “crazy for him. I always felt so crazy for him and I always wanted him next to me. I was obsessed”, but then something happened: “I was happy and felt so alive one day, and then the next day the question ‘Do I really love him?’ came into my mind and I haven’t felt the same since… ever since this question came into my mind, I haven’t been the same about it… I’m doubting my love for him… The doubts won’t  leave my mind”.

    You explained: “Over time I came to realize that my heart never raced when me and him would talk and I never really got butterflies… I never got a racing-heart or butterflies… I used to have a strong want of wanting him to be next to me physically, but now I don’t feel that want as strongly.. I do not feel disgusted or uncomfortable, but I don’t feel the wanting-him-next-to-me as strongly as I did before”. You are starting to think that you “only like him as a friend”.

    You added: “but I don’t see myself with anyone else and have been wanting a future only with him. He’s on my mind all the time and we talk about a future together often.. he’s the perfect match for me. We get along so  well, we’re able to talk to each other about absolutely anything, we make each other happy, and so much more. He’s always on my mind and he’s all that I ever talk about. I only want him and no one else. I don’t find anyone else attractive nor do I see myself with anyone but him. He’s everything… I know I want to  spend my life with him, and I only want him… We talk all day every day and I am really comfortable with him… he’s sent me a lot of sweet, loving things that I’ve always wanted…I’ve had my mind set on the type of guy I’ve always wanted for awhile, and he’s exactly it… Everything about him is great, even his flaws. There isn’t anything to not love about him”.

    You referred to your online relationship with him as “a well-going, easy relationship.. with a best friend”, something you did not experience before, irl or online.

    As to the real future of this online relationship, you wrote: “my boyfriend and I won’t really be able to see each other anytime soon… I don’t think of our future as much as before.. We still talk about it every day, we still want to live together, be dog parents, maybe start an actual family, and we talk  about closer things like what we want to do when we can see each other”.

    And now, my thoughts about feelings: it is very important to understand what our feelings mean, what it is that we should do when we feel this or that feeling. Imagine an irl live-in relationship, a marriage, let’s say, where you react automatically to your feelings: whenever you feel anger, you yell at your husband; whenever you feel sad, you close the bedroom door, lie in bed, and you refuse to talk to your husband until you feel better; whenever you feel a desire for him, you go to his place of work and demand to get physically close to him right there and then. When you don’t feel love for him, you pack your clothes and leave; when you miss him, you move back in.

    Imagine you had children with this man, what kind of a life will they have: they will be moving in and out of their home, and when at home, their mother is out in the living room happy one moment, locked in the bedroom crying the next moment, yelling at another time.. they will grow up to be very anxious people, suffering through life.

    We need to behave responsibly no matter how we feel, responsibly towards ourselves and others (not yell when angry, not reject a husband or our children when depressed, etc.).

    We have to understand that feelings change and do  not stay the same. So when you feel a certain way, tell yourself: this feeling is not forever. It helps to mention this to yourself when you feel distress, so that you don’t panic, as in: the world is ending, the sky is falling down, I will never be happy again!

    When in a romantic relationship, we have to understand that we will not  feel the same all the time for our partner. It is impossible, because no feeling stays the same. Feelings are not permanent conditions.

    Let’s say you look at the sky and it is clouded, the sun is behind the clouds and it is grey. Do we panic, thinking: it will never be sunny again, what am I to  do??

    Or do we think: it is cloudy now, but it will be sunny later?

    Same with feelings, sad now, happy later; scared now, calm later, don’t feel close to him now; will feel close to him later.

    My thoughts about romantic relationships and marriage: lots of people get romantically involved with people they don’t know well, even after long irl relationships. But when you know a person only online (OB1) or primarily online (OB2), it is very unwise to decide that you want “a future only with him”, that you “only want him and no one else”, that you “want to spend my life with him”, that “Everything about him is great”.

    You have to have an in-person, irl relationship with a man before you decide these things.

    Let’s look at OB1 whom you never met in person, irl. All those butterflies and the racing heart, what if you met him in person and he smells bad, not the kind of smell that goes away in the shower, but a particular smell that turns you  off. What if he chews his food with an open mouth and that will drive you crazy,  not with lust, but with disgust. What if you see him interacting with his nephews and to your horror, he yells at them and calls them names?

    Let’s look at OB2- you don’t have the butterflies for him anymore. What  if, when seeing him in person for the first time in the short history of your online relationship, and you see him being kind to children, and you get butterflies imaging him being kind that way to your own children. What if you meet him in person and you  become intimate.. and you didn’t know how good it feels to be with him, in person. Alone. And those butterflies are back!?

    I don’t know those things, how you will feel when you see OB2 in person, how anyone smells and chews their food, and how they treat the children in their lives, but you should know.

    This is why it is important to not make relationship promises or plans before getting to know a person thoroughly in person, in addition to the online part.

    Regarding your doubts and the question: “Do I really love him?”- now that I know that you didn’t spend any time in person, irl, with OB2 outside the friendly acquaintance of 2018, I say: you should doubt the relationship, because it is only an online relationship. You should ask yourself if you really love him because you don’t know him well enough yet. You may know him well in the context of an online relationship, but not in the context of a real life relationship. In addition to not knowing how he smells or chews his food, you don’t know a whole lot of things about him such as how will he introduce you to his family (he didn’t do that yet), how will he treat you on a date (he didn’t do that yet), how will he treat you in front of his friends and co- workers… and how does he treat children.

    I hope my input here is helpful to you. I wish you read through it patiently and let me know what you think.

    anita

     

     

     

    #323139
    Alina
    Participant

    I think that helps a bit. You are right, I really don’t know how he smells and things in real life, but, it just worries me about not loving him. From what I know right now, he is everything I’ve ever wanted. We talk all day and fall asleep together over the phone. For years, I’ve known what I wanted. I never really thought of smells or of how they treat children, but I’ve known my personal wants and needs, and he has all of that, and with him, if he did something like chewing with his mouth open, and it bothered me, and I asked him to try to stop, he would, because he’s the type of person to not want me to be uncomfortable. I know doubts are common in relationships, especially online, but it really hurts me mentally. I know that it’s unwise to ahead-of-time say, “this is who I want, ” But, that’s just how I feel. I feel highly of him. He’s done so many things that I’ve always wanted, he has the same future goals as me, etc. We’re on the same team about many things. I know that he’s who I want. He’s my one. I know that’s silly of me to say, but he is. But, it worries me to think that maybe I don’t love him like I should, as if I do only see him as a best friend because I don’t want to lose him as a boyfriend. I don’t want to let go of him like that. I want to have a life with him, I want to see him in person again, I want to grow old with him, etc. The spark just.. Isn’t there.

    #323143
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alina:

    He may very well be the perfect match for you. Although online, you gathered a lot of information through many hours of conversations over almost half a year. I understand that you are quite obsessed about butterflies and racing hearts but really, it is okay to have a life with a man while not feeling that spark. That spark never lasts, or it may return at times, but in a healthy, loving relationship, it is replaced by deep appreciation and affection and a team mentality, a partnership.

    What is the use of a spark, for a man, when his wife fights with him and argues a lot, or cheats on him, or is very selfish otherwise. What is so wonderful with a hostile woman who feels the spark when making up after fights. Better have no  fights and no sparks.

    Think of this: if he cares about you like you believe he does, he will do what it takes to make you feel good sexually, and that will be a spark for you!

    To make a relationship healthy and loving for both parties, work as a team, benefit each other, operate so to make each one of you better together than alone.

    “maybe I don’t love him like I should”- if together you are a team, if you make his life much better being together with you than his life would be without you- then you love him just like you should!

    anita

    #323145
    Alina
    Participant

    Long recap:

    I met my current boyfriend a year ago. At the time, we were both single. I was taking a break from relationships and he was crushing on someone. When we first met, we weren’t that close, at all, but, we exchanged numbers because we still wanted to talk. We both had our own group of friends so we didn’t really talk much, but we were each other’s safe place. If one of us was upset, we’d go to the other.

    A few weeks later, I moved away, and so did he. At the time, we were still distant, but were still each other’s safe place, and after a while, we started talking more. I did eventually start questioning if maybe me and him would be a good couple, but that thought left my mind quickly since I knew he liked someone.

    A few months later, I met someone new, I’ll call him Kade. At first, I didn’t like “Kade” But after about three weeks, I started to fall for him. At this time, my current boyfriend and I weren’t talking and haven’t been for about a month or two. At this point, I thought we weren’t really gonna go far as friends and I wasn’t too bothered by it because us meeting was very sudden.

    After those three weeks, Kade and I got together, and we were happy. When we talked, I had a heart racing feeling and butterflies, we both did. Now looking back, I see that because we never talked alone until we got together and we didn’t know each other for long.

    Two weeks go by of me and Kade being together, and I get a text from my best friend(current boyfriend) saying he was leaving for awhile because stuff was going on. When I read this, I bursted into tears. I was scared, worried, hurt, and really upset. I cried for about two weeks because of it. Kade tried cheering me up, but it didn’t work.

    After awhile, I got use to it. I was still hurt, yes, and I still cried at least twice a month because of it, but I was getting better at being okay with it.

    Kade and I were still together. We were happy… For the first two months of our relationship.

    We were getting close to three months, but, this is when things got bad. His cousin, Jax(not his real name either) was always trying to get with me, which I, of course, said no to, but I suggested I would be friends with him. At the time I didn’t see it as anything bad, but I see why it would be. When Kade found out about this, he got REALLY upset with me, and kept telling me to block Jax. I didn’t think anything could happen, so I kept refusing. I was wrong.

    Two weeks later, Kade stopped texting me. He left me on read, stopped calling me, etc. I was devastated. I knew I did something but didn’t know what, and it hurt, a lot. After a few days, he and his cousin woke me up at 3:41AM and told me to call him. Jax showed him our messages and I guess he wasn’t happy with them(I didn’t cheat) (this is the “problem” I mentioned before) and he left me.

    I was hurt, I cried over the phone and told him I was sorry and that if there was anything I could do to fix it, to tell me. There wasn’t, I knew that, but I wanted to do something to try to make it a little better.

    This is when we became on and off. I thought I still loved him. I didn’t. I only cared but I didn’t see that, I thought I loved him.

    We ALWAYS argued, we were never happy. Neither of us could get over the past. He always made me cry and couldn’t handle me anymore, and he had a bad habit of bringing up my best friend who had went away, which made me cry more.

    My best friend left in March, and came back in July, Kade and I were still on and off, but this is when my best friend and I got REALLY close.

    We talked every day, he made me really. happy, and we both liked each other, but, of course, we both thought the other person didn’t like us, so he ended up getting with another girl, and I got back with my ex. We were jealous of each other’s partner, but didn’t make it obvious. We still talked to each other more than we did our partners, which made us happy because both of our relationships were toxic. Problem was, we both thought the other didn’t like us, so we stayed in our relationships. Not only that, but we both have a hard time leaving people.

    His girlfriend ended up breaking up with him and I was still in my toxic relationship. I was crying every day when I got home, every time I joined a call with Kade, every time he said he’d be right back and never came back, and so much more. I was never happy, and that’s when my best friend stepped in. He made me forget how badly I felt with Kade, he made me forget about how Kade left me for hours and hours. He made me really happy and feel really loved. He later told me he liked me, and I confessed too.

    We stayed neutral since I was in a relationship, but we were both happier knowing that we liked each other. As my boyfriend and I got further apart, my best friend and I got closer. We loved it.

    That’s when I knew I didn’t want Kade. That’s when I knew I wanted a life with my best friend. That’s when I knew he was my one. He did things for me even if he thought he had no chance with me. He still put effort into making me happy and being there for me even if he thought that I wouldn’t ever be with him. He still texted me good morning, fell asleep over calls with me, and more. He did everything my boyfriend never would.

    I finally broke up with my boyfriend and after a week, my best friend and I got together, and we were really happy, and still are. We trust each other with everything and want the best for each other. We have the same wants, needs, same goals, same future ideas, etc. And if we argue, we get it solved and fixed in minutes.

    In the first few weeks, I was crazy for him. My heart didn’t race, and I didn’t get butterflies, but I felt so happy and alive. I felt loved and so did he. He was on my mind alllll the time. I was 100% sure I wanted a future with him and I always badly wanted him with me.

    And now, I don’t feel all of that. I’m not 100% sure about a future, he’s still always on my mind but I don’t have that “I’m so in love” Tone anymore, and I don’t want him next to me as badly as I use to. I feel more neutral towards him now and the doubts makes it worse. He feels like more than a friend or best friend, obviously, but my feelings don’t match with his relationship towards me, and it’s upsetting. He is everything I’ve ever wanted, but I don’t feel that strong, loving connection. There’s no spark, and it’s really painful to think of, because I want him, of course I want him, but, it isn’t a strong want.

    I hope that clears up my story completely, and if you have any advice on how to get that strong feeling back or how to get the doubts away or less of a bother, please let me know! I want him and me to be fluent, I want us to last, I want him to be my one and only, no one else. I only see myself with him.

     

    Also

    While I was with “Kade”, that’s when I saw myself with other people, not when we were broken up, and this was even when we were going well.

    #323151
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alina:

    I read only a part of your recent post. I have 3 questions at this point:

    1. I didn’t understand this part: “I get a text from my best friend (current boyfriend) saying he was leaving for a while because stuff was going on. When I read this, I burst into tears. I was scared, worries, hurt, and really upset”- why were you scared, worried and upset?

    2. Was your relationship with Kade in-person, irl, or just online/ texts/ telephone?

    3. “Jax showed him our messages.. (didn’t cheat)”- what were those messages???

    — I will need to read the rest of your recent post and your answers to these three questions tomorrow morning when I am better focused, and will reply then (in about 16 hours from now).

    anita

     

    #323155
    Alina
    Participant
    1. I was worried because he had never said anything like that. He never seemed that upset. He said there were personal issues going on so I got worried about what those were and why. There was more to what he sent me but it’s personal.
    2. My relationship with Kade was all online. No irl or in-person contact at all.
    3. The messages weren’t anything like asking each other out and stuff. I don’t remember it all clearly, but it was just casual conversations. We would argue with each other one day, next day we’d ask how each other was and talk about our day, if my boyfriend wasn’t on Jax and I would talk. What I remember was that I was being too Friendly for Kade’s liking, but I never knew what his wall was.
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