[quote quote=82440]I was madly in love with my boyfriend. We’d speak everyday and got on so well. Sexually things are fantastic. I felt so in love and I felt like I was falling more and more in love with him everyday. Everything seemed perfect. Then one evening I suddenly just thought “I’m not in love with him anymore.” That was 3 weeks ago now and the feeling still hasn’t come back. I’ve cried everyday and feel so depressed about the fact. I don’t want anyone else. He’s the most amazing person and so good for me. The day before I felt that way I’d even daydreamed about being engaged to the guy. I’ve fell out of love before but that was for genuine reasons. Breakups, not getting on, not actually being in love in the first place, etc. There’s no reasons here and I’m heartbroken. I don’t believe anyone else could be so good for me. I really want to keep trying because I really feel that we’re worth it but I’m so scared. Any advice?[/quote]

The feeling of love is itself not love. Love is the result of the effort of making love. Not sex but being kind and caring and true.  True love can only be known after a duration of time. You will only know it is love by the sacrifices you make to retain the quality of the relationship.  A relationship without any sacrifice is not a relationship. A relationship by definition is an ongoing sizing up between or consideration of differences.

At any rate, and relationship where one will not make any sacrifice to retain the good graces of the other cannot be said to amount to much. It it’s just over for you because you fell out of love then it must not have amounted to much in the beginning. That’s not a criticism. Perhaps you suddenly woke up and found out that the cliche of loving another wasn’t a vital necessity to you. Or maybe you changed. Or you have new goals.

Hello Everyone!

Especially Anita,

I’ve come a long way since my posts on here but this forum helped me so much with moving forward with myself and really gave me insight to my own actions and why I was making them. Updates – myself and this long distance ex boyfriend now are casual friends we talk from time to time and I’ve realised that deep down I do share that love for him but it is purely platonic I find myself still a little repulsed with him but I think in a way my situation was me growing up and finding my tastes in men.

The best advice I got on here was to break up with him! it was extremely toxic because I tried so hard not to be toxic. We weren’t a great fit for one another we did more damage than good. All and all, everything fell into its right place with my story and I believe everyone in here will find their way.

A lot of issues resided within ourselves. He has been seeing a psychotherapist and I can tell a difference in how he acts and for me I never eventually got to it but I understand myself a lot more now and I’ve learned to feel a lot less guilty for my feelings and the actions that come along with them.

Thank you very much Anita you are a kind soul and I appreciate all the insight you gave me ! ❤️

Ada

Dear Ada:

Your first post in this thread was back on Feb 28, 2022 (page 3), almost 2 years ago. You shared on that first post (paraphrased) that you used to love and feel very close to your long-distance boyfriend of 11 months, but randomly and suddenly you fell out of love with him (also the words in the title of this thread), feeling distant from him, and even revolted by him. You felt guilty for feeling distant from him and revolted by him.

On March 2, 2023, after some communication, I wrote to you: “… These are my closing thoughts: I think that it will be best for you to… break up with him. You have your own mental health challenges, and your LD boyfriend has his own. It is possible for two people to help each other and be better for it, individually and together. But in this case, his impulsivity and severe carelessness are harming you. By impulsivity, I mean that he says whatever comes to his mind without thinking how it would affect you, and by severe carelessness, I am referring to him talking about the other girl… he went on and on about her and did so repeatedly, on different occasions. This is not… normal carelessness. It is severe carelessness, and such would harm any woman who’d be in a relationship with him…

“You shared that you are “like an observer” in your life, that you don’t make the choices that you want to make. I figure it’s your fear/ anxiety that keeps you from being a participant in your own life, making the choices that you want to make, choices that are right for you. This is something for you to work on in quality psychotherapy: to shift from an observant to a participant“.

Seventeen days later, on March 19, you posted next and shared that you broke up with him, and that you missed him and were obsessed with him.

A day later, on March 20, 2022, I wrote to you in regard to your obsessive thinking at the time: “you’ve been obsessed with this man for 11 months (“The man I was genuinely obsessed with for all 11 months now… extremely obsessed with him“). After you broke up with him, you found yourself “struck with obsessive thoughts and actions. I can’t stop thinking about what is he doing? Is he even upset?..’ – obsessed with him during the 11 months of the relationship, obsessed with him after the breakup, obsessed in general (“I am an obsessive person I’m always hyper fixated on something“), possibly OCD?..” (page 4).

Two pages later, and close to a year and 9 months after my last post (above quoted), you posted again. You shared that you have come a long way since you posted here, that posting here helped you with insight into your actions and motivations, and it helped you to move forward. You shared that your ex-boyfriend and you are currently casual friends, that your love for him is purely platonic, and that you are still a little repulsed with him.

You wrote yesterday: “The best advice I got on here was to break up with him! it was extremely toxic because I tried so hard not to be toxic. We weren’t a great fit for one another we did more damage than good. All and all, everything fell into its right place with my story and I believe everyone in here will find their way“- thank you, Ada, for your update, for your expressed appreciation and for encouraging other members in a similar struggle. It is very kind of you to have done this!

“A lot of issues resided within ourselves. He has been seeing a psychotherapist and I can tell a difference in how he acts and for me, I never eventually got to it but I understand myself a lot more now and I’ve learned to feel a lot less guilty for my feelings and the actions that come along with them“- like I suggested to you back in 2022,  we are never guilty for how we feel, so better peel the guilt off from what we feel. I am glad that you no longer feeling guilty!

Anytime you’d like to post again with your further progress and struggles (there’s never a linear- nothing but progress when it comes to these things, so there’re always struggles), please do and I will be glad to read from you and reply further.

anita

Dear Ssleeping:

You are welcome, good to read from you again. I re-read your previous two posts. In your first post (Feb 5), you wrote: “He’s had a tough time recently with work and depression“, and indeed from what you shared about what he said to you, he sounds depressed.

The way I understand depression is that when a person is too anxious for too long, the anxiety (a negative excitable emotional state), turns into depression (a negative but calmer emotional state) because the brain/ body can’t endure excitability for too long.

He felt anxious (“He then started feeling anxious when thinking about it, he felt anxious when just thinking about things he loved related to me“), and then over several days, his anxiety turned into depression (“He felt like this for days and eventually broke down and told me, over the coming days he said he doesn’t want this anymore and needs to be alone“).

A hallmark of depression is the loss of interest or pleasure in things previously enjoyed, as well as indecisiveness, and so, he lost a significant amount of the interest he had to be with you, and he wanted to be alone, and he is indecisive.

From the DSM-5 (the American diagnostic guide for mental disorders), two of the symptoms of major depression are: “Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day”, and “Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day”.

You wrote: “I don’t know what happened… Could this be caused by avoidant attachment style?” (Feb 5)- I think that what happened is that he sank into depression, and that his current state of mind and behaviors are caused by depression.

“He doesn’t wear his bracelet and has changed his Lock Screen photos on his phone. I can feel how much he loves me when he looks at me, I can feel the affection and the want but I think he stops himself“- back to the DSM-5, “Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt..” is another symptom of major depression. Maybe he feels unworthy of you and that’s why he doesn’t wear the bracelet, and why he stops himself from expressing love for you (when he feels it)…?

Did he seek medical help for depression, recently or in the past?

anita

Dear Bell:

“the past 7 months together have been amazing.. But the past couple of months – or really this year as a whole – has been really hard for us as a couple, he has upset me quite a few times, and we have had more arguments than usual… And then I started to realise I had no interest in sex anymore… And then there it was, I was suddenly not sure about him and I anymore… and overall just didn’t feel in love like I used to“-

– there is a saying, what goes up, must come down. It’s true for all things subject to gravity. In this case, your emotions went up, and then down. It’s normal. Loving/ sexual feelings are not a matter of all or nothing. There are natural, normal changes. Key is not to panic when changes take place.

What happens when you panic is that fear stands in the way of the loving feelings coming back, so it’s a vicious cycle.

Here’s you panicking: “This feeling has been the worst guttural type of feeling I have ever felt before. I told him straight away and It just broke his heart. For a couple days I kept going from I want to be with him, I don’t want to be with him, I’ll be better without him, I will die without him, driving myself insane really… I’ve lost my appetite… I keep getting stuck with bad thoughts, almost intrusive thoughts“.

“I really need someone to tell me what to do… I do believe that I have both avoidant and anxious attachment styles from having an absent father in many ways, I hope that someone will see this and be able to give me some clarity and show me the right pathway”– I think that the right pathway for you is to do what any person panicking needs to do: to relax, to calm down. Only in a relaxed state of mind, can your thoughts be rational. Did you ever see a doctor or a counselor/ therapist in regard to your anxiety? And if you did, what were the results?

anita

Dear Bell:

What I sense reading your recent 2nd post, and re-reading the first is the excessive fear of being alone, aka autophobia.

“I will die without him“- fear of being alone/ without him, a fear as intense as the fear of death.

“I do believe that I have both avoidant and anxious attachment styles from having an absent father in many ways“- part of you (the anxious attachment part) is so afraid to be left alone in the future, anticipating how terrible it will be. Another part (the avoidant attachment part) is trying to put an end to the anxious anticipation of being left alone in the future.. by bringing the feared future to the present, making the breakup happen already, so you are not afraid anymore that it will happen.

“I’ve seen a psychologist once since we ‘broke up’ it did help me feel a whole lot better“-  I think that you felt so much better during and sometime after that one session with the psychologist, not only because of what she said, but because with her, you did not feel alone. You felt that you were being listened to, being attended to, being someone’s priority, as in someone cares about you…?

“I have another psychologist appointment coming up and many more to come after that one, but the time between appointments feels so long and I feel very alone“- I feel very alone, key words. During the session above you felt a whole lot better because you were not alone. But in between appointments.. you feel very alone.

“my psychologist told me that… I am trying to run away from my relationship because of a fear of being left alone“- there it is, fear of being left alone (I wrote the above before this part registered in my mind).

“The anxiety and o bad thoughts are still constant. I have been refraining from bringing these up with him and only mentioning it here and there because I do not want to worry him and upset him anymore… The pushing him away and pulling him in has been really hard for him and I hate that I’m doing this to him“- it’s kind/ loving of you to care about not worrying and upsetting him!

“I found during the time we were apart that I had this constant fear that I was nobody’s first choice anymore and I felt so alone and absolutely devastated… It’s like this horrible feeling that the world is closing in around me and I won’t ever feel happy again“- this is how autophobia feels like. This has been my experience, as I too suffer from autophobia (I didn’t know of the term until a few days ago, and I wrote about it in my own thread since).

I am guessing that growing up, you too (like me) were left terribly alone, maybe physically, maybe emotionally, being ignored, being no one’s priority?

anita