10 Year Relationship in Crisis
WARNING THIS IS LONG AND MULTIPLE POSTS
Greetings. My name is Jake and my ex-fiancee is Nina. This is my first time posting here and first time ever visiting a site like this. Please bare with me while I explain my situation in seeking help. Im 28 years old and my ex-fiancee is 27. I have been with my fiancée of 5 years for a total of 9.5 years, we've known one another since 5th grade. We started dating in 1998 and moved into our first apartment in 1999. We purchased a multi family home in 2000 at the age of 20 me and 19 her. We've done everything together in our relationship from cruises to road trips to visiting my relatives on opposite coasts. We spent large amounts of time with each others families and are close with both. Our relationship was envied by everyone we knew and were revered when it came to hanging out with other groups of couples. We spend every waking moment with each others aside from work and commute. We were happy and still planned daily and weekly events. We were still very affectionate and baby talked each others daily. We had regular sex 1-3 times a week even during busy weeks and both have regular orgasms through multiple methods. We never broke up previously but had the weekly "stress" fights but quickly made up. We mainly fought due to our personalities being almost identical from our strong willed persona's. Our relationship was 85-90% fun and loving and 10-15% stress from bills,home location,job,lack of money fights and fights from overall stresses.
My fiancée has gone to college 2 nights a week for the last 5 years with my help with her homework etc, she maintained a full time job with a commute of about 60-75 minutes minimum each way during this span. I have worked from home and on the property during this time. I only make 1/3rd of what she makes. A couple of months ago she finally graduated with a bachelors degree. She has been unhappy with her 60-75 min commute with the expensive gas and heinous traffic as well as her job/co-worker for years but stuck with it hoping for future advancement. Her pay was nothing to complain about either. Just recently her company contract expired and major changes started to unfold and she has stressed over what to do. She acts like unemployment may be a fun break for her if it occurs.
Over the last 2 years we've been prepping our multi-family forsale so we could move into a brand new colonial home in a wooded small town (we live in a concrete jungle 30 miles away atm). We'd live with her brother who is 30 and her niece who is 6. Her brother and I have spent months refinishing the exposed 25x25 basement for us to have our bedroom, living room and computers while only sharing the kitchen with him for 1-2 years tops. This would have been a good economical decision for her brother and for us. Her brother recently went through a divorce and was living on a tight budget and needs help. Within recent months my fiancée has expressed her deep discontent for having to live in our current home and neighborhood. She has many bills to worry about and has a nightly bartending job she does 1-2 days a week. After all is said and done she has little money left for anything and expenses are high. Among her other stress's are a vehicle we can't sell to get rid of its high monthly payment, not being able to sell our house on a previous attempts and a long list of to-do's that are taking forever. We share bank accounts, cell phones, title's, vehicle insurance.
In the middle of May 07 she went on a company travel trip to Kansas which is about 1000 miles/1 hour back from home. We spoke on the phone regularly during that week and she takes advantage of the non existent commute and go's to restaurants with her co-workers after work with her expense money. One night she was there she went out for the evening with her male boss's and co-workers who are all at least 10 years older and married with kids. This was a regular theme when on travel for the last 5-6 years. We agreed she'd not stay out late and she'd call me at 11-12 to let me know she got home safe and I could sleep without worry. She ended up getting home at 2-230AM my time when she called. She said she didn't bring her cell or pocket book and only her license and debit card and they all just got back. I got very angry and rode her pretty harsh and told her she wasn't going on travel again unless it wasn't an option. She didn't have her cell in case of emergency and got home 2.5 hours late. My point of view on this subject is that she took it for granted I don't mind her hanging out with other men co-workers who all consider her as a daughter. I wanted to reassert that it was really pushing the trust/respect level when things like that occur when Im already a super pliable boyfriend/fiancee in this regard.
Fast forward to June. My fiancée and I are still doing our daily life as mentioned previously. We have 2-3 fights that are above average this month, mainly initiated by me if not all. From my perspective they are caused by the large amount of stress we are now experiencing surrounding money and bills and living at a location we despise (one of our 8 storage units was robbed in February 07). We talk frequently about how things will be much better when we sell the property and move. She shows signs of not believing the move will ever take place. We're still having regular sex and kissing, hugging and pausing when parting ways to kiss and say we love one another.
After a recent fight with many demeaning words said by me we weren't in the best of shape on a general level. Two weeks ago right after a few moody fights as mentioned above we lay in bed close to sex and I get frustrated that she isn't as excited about the idea as me. After laying for a few minutes and talking with her she tells me that she doesn't feel the spark with me anymore and do we think we should split up? This was a "moment" question during a cuddle type situation about the new unknown feeling she had which was apparently developing for a 2-3 months gradually, the fights apparently made it spill over. I told her that Ive felt the spark had been gone for me on previous occasions over the years. I told her that it passed and I considered it to be a global stress effect and nothing more. I feel that our love, history, friendship, accomplishments, ties to everyone and level we mesh is more important than a "spark" that may have diminished or poofed during these stressful times. Sparks can be rekindled, the other stuff cannot be duplicated easily if ever.
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