I just want to get my thoughts down and hopefully get some perspective on this.

I’ve been on vacation with my girlfriend for the last 2 weeks. A month before this she moved into my flat. We have been going out for over 3 years now. We’re both in our late 20’s.

I have a 1 bed apartment and I didn’t really relish the prospect of her moving in. We work in the same city and used to see each other once or twice a week. That was good for me, but she was keen to live together having been together for 3 years now.

I need a lot of time to myself. Im introverted and fairly solitary. I feel a lot of pressure when I am around other people and I liked having a space to retreat to. I have discussed all this with her. She knows who I am. Despite all this she was hoping I would be enthused about the prospect of her moving in with me and getting to spend more time together. I wasn’t all that enthused. My apartment is quite small and I thought it would be too tight for 2 people. More broadly than this though I suppose I didn’t want to spend more time together. I talked about my reservations. She was of course upset but I said we should try living together all the same as my feelings may change.

She’s only lived me for one week so far, as a she went away for a month to travel. I joined her for the the last 2 weeks of this trip. During the week we lived together she wasn’t working. I didn’t like the prospect of coming home to her. I wasn’t sleeping well with her in the same bed which didn’t help my mood. I don’t know why I dreaded returning to her each night so much. I suppose to an extent I felt imposed upon. Perhaps I just wanted more solitude.

To jump back in time a bit, I suppose for the last 6 months or so I have been having doubts about the relationship, but there hadn’t been anything dramatically wrong with things to prompt this. She’s a really lovely understanding person. We don’t really clash over anything and treat each other respectfully. Increasingly though I felt like I didn’t love her that much and couldn’t place why that was. I found her less attractive too and we were having sex a lot less.

I found myself saying things I didn’t mean and not really talking about how I was feeling for hope that they would change. As far as she knew nothing was particularly wrong. I felt insincere saying that I loved her when I wasn’t sure if that was what I felt anymore. I couldn’t tell her she looked beautiful because I didn’t really feel that either. I was less affectionate than I used to be. I was more non committal. I felt an impending sense of dread that in time that I would need to discuss these feelings with her at some point.

Sometimes i hoped that she would break up with me. I always felt uneasy, thinking that the relationship could breakdown at any point despite there being nothing too dramatically bad with things.

A year into the relationship whilst travelling solo for 3 months I cheated on her with a girl I met in a club 2 weeks before I was due to come home. I was very drunk but I wanted to do it all the same. I had been gone for 3 months and had vague ideas about living abroad permanently, so I was considering splitting up.

After the night where I cheated I decided to continue the relationship. I thought it could consign it to the recesses of my mind as some terrible drunken mistake which I would not repeat. I decided not to tell her at the time and did not think about it all that much.

I have remained completely faithful since then. However, in the last year or so I have been pulverised by guilt over that deceit. I keep astonishing myself for that deception and my cowardice for not revealing this at the time. I feel I can’t be truly transparent with her, which is what I want. If my mind is consumed with guilt and she asks me what I’m thinking about I can’t share this with her.

I don’t know if the intensity of this guilt is disproportionate as it was a one off event which I have no inclination of repeating. I thought I could bury it but it haunts me. But there’s this guilt coupled with the lack of interest I have in continuing with the relationship which I’ve felt for the last 6 months. I’m trying to establish whether the guilt I feel is the main driving force for making me want to leave the relationship or whether it’s a side feeling along side the sense of disinterest that I’ve been feeling the past 6 months.

Anyway we’ve been on holiday these last 2 weeks and things haven’t been good. They weren’t good before I left. She was crying repeatedly during the first week we lived together. She said I seemed disinterested and resentful for her being there; that I was doing the bare minimum in terms of interaction. I couldn’t really dispute that. I was trying to hold it together but I couldn’t fake that I didn’t want to live with her.

I was dreading our vacation together. I suspected we would have to address how we are feeling about things and I didn’t want to confront this. I have been running away from this for months. As the trip progressed I was consumed with the conviction that I needed to end the relationship. That I couldn’t continue to live with the guilt of my deceit and that my punishment would be the loss of the relationship. Another strand of thought was that that the happier times on the vacation were those when I was alone.

I got quite down on the vacation. We barely had any set and I didn’t touch her or show much interest. It came to a head two nights ago. I initiated sex because I knew she was unhappy and feeling unloved. I didn’t want to do it. I felt a slight repulsion at the prospect. I tried to persist with it but couldn’t stay hard. I did the bare minimum in terms of foreplay. She admonished me for this, saying that I’ve just seemed completely disinterested in her and it’s clear I don’t find her attractive any more. I acknowledged these feelings were true, stating that id been trying to avoid that truth in the hope that my feelings would change.

I said that I’d been thinking it would be best to end it. She said she didn’t want to, but said it was up to me to decide what I wanted. I said I think that breaking up is what I want.

We’re scheduled to get the same flight back but we’ve spent the last 2 days apart. She told me where she was staying and told me to come and find her three if I still want to be together.

Since our separation I’ve felt so internally conflicted. There is a fearful voice saying that I broke it up too soon, that she is a great person, that you’ll never meet anyone else who can understand you the way she did. A lot of low self esteem has surfaced. It’s really apparent how much I devalue myself. Another part of me admomishes myself for not owning up to the cheating that happened over 2 years ago. Another part of me is trying to psychologise myself; labelling me as avoiding and trying to identify some psychological defect which is driving me away from intimacy. Ive looked into my family history and the relationship with my parents. It’s like I’m looking for evidence of how this break up is not what I really want and that it’s some internal flaw which is driving me to do it.

On the otherhand there is a strong conviction that getting back together would be the wrong thing to do. This voice doesn’t really justify that conviction though. There is a lot of fear running through me and a lot of self loathing. I have had that loathing for many years and it surfaces on and off. It insists that everything is my fault and that the future is fucked.

I have one day until the flight back with her.

If you have stuck with this, thanks so much for reading. I would be interested to read any replies received. Also I haven’t proof read this so sorry if it reads terribly.