[Askingquestion]

[I wrote a lot, because it felt good to sort of get it all out, so I'm not sure if anyone will actually read this/respond, but either way it felt good to write]

I've been with my girlfriend since our senior year of high school, which makes it four years now. We're both in our senior year of college, and in a couple months the plan is that we'll move out together (we're both living at our parents' houses right now). She wants to be engaged before we live together, so, before I think about marriage I want to be sure.

The main problem I'm having is that I'm content, but I'm not always happy, or sure that what we have is more than just a good friendship. At the same time, because it's a good friendship, it makes me wonder what really separates a friendship from love. Though, if I can't figure that out, it leads me to believe that I'm not in love.

And she's a great person: she doesn't flirt with other guys, she is really nice and caring, I can picture her being a really good mom/wife, and we hardly ever argue. But at the same time, it kind of feels like we're just good friends that occasionally have sex. And past our first year of dating, I haven't really felt any strong passion in the relationship. For example, I used to feel like I needed to spend every minute with her, and I thought about her all the time. I still get urges to hang out if we haven't seen each other for several days, but it's nothing like it used to be. And I used to be really prone to jealousy, whereas now I would be okay with her having and hanging out with guy friends even if I wasn't there.

We don't have many of the same interests, I love to read, write, play video games, exercise—she likes to spend time with me, spend time with her family, and watch T.V some I guess(and she'll play games with me sometimes). A lot of times I feel like I have my own identity and my own hobbies, but she doesn't really have anything that interests her other than spending time with me and her family, which can be frustrating.

I'm also fairly certain that she "loves" me more than I "love" her. I put love in quotes because sometimes I don't see how she or I could call what we have "love". It sounds cold, but I feel like we're two passive/pushover types that fell into a relationship, and we got along, so we have just stayed in it. We're both the types that usually get broken up with rather than break up with people, and I honestly can't ever picture her breaking up with me unless I did something horrible. She is also usually really reluctant to have sex, except on rare occasions. She usually says it hurts, and that she still feels guilty for having sex before marriage etc.

So basically, emotionally, I feel like we just get along well, more than we need to be together. At least from my perspective. Physically, I don't feel like there's as much passion as there should be for two people who are supposedly in love. And I'm really worried that we're both making a mistake. I really care about her too, it's not like I hate her or have any negative feelings towards her. I'm just not sure that either of us really love each other like we've kind of convinced ourselves we do. And she's super sensitive, so it would kill me to break up with her without it being somewhat of a mutual consent type of thing.

It feels like I've been waiting for the spark/passion to come back for around three years now. I mean, a lot of days I'm content with my life and everything, but every couple weeks something will trigger me to think about it. It's almost like I subconsciously push the reality of it to the back of my mind so I don't have to deal with it. But if I talk to a girl in class or something and feel a spark, it makes me doubt everything I'm doing. There are so many things that I can't talk about with my girlfriend. I can talk about writing and reading for hours with people who are interested. If I try to explain an idea or a story I'm working on to my girlfriend, I can hear her losing interest within minutes. I also love to think about space, existence, the future, and things beyond just getting from point a to point b on a daily basis, and who is mad at who; but when I try to talk to my girlfriend about those things, I can tell she is just humoring me—sometimes she doesn't even bother humoring me and openly shows her disinterest.

A typical day of us hanging out has become spending time in my room, thinking about what to do, going and getting some food and eating it while we watch something. Then we think about what to do again, we might play a game for thirty minutes or an hour, and then we're back to thinking about what to do. At that point, we usually go do something like see a movie if anything good is out. And then at the end of the night if her head doesn't hurt, or she's not on her period, or she's not feeling particularly guilty, or she's not sleepy, or whatever it may be, we'll have sex. I've talked to her about how I don't feel like our physical relationship is in good shape, she cried a little because she felt guilty I guess. But I've never talked to her about our emotional relationship.

The first problem is I can't think of an easy way to lead into, "do you think we really love eachother?". And the second problem is, even if I did find a way to lead into it smoothly, I'd be a little worried that the conversation would spiral out of control pretty fast. I would probably say what I'm thinking, which is basically the above—and I doubt she'd take that well—and we might end up breaking up. But I guess if us sitting down and really speaking our minds led to a breakup, there is a problem anyway. The other problem is I don't think it's something she or I can fix, even if we successfully talked about it. She can't make herself interested in what I'm interested in, and magically fix the lack of passion. So essentially, I need to decide if I should stay with her before I have that conversation, not during it.

From everything I've said, you might start to wonder if she can really love me while I'm feeling all this. And I wonder the same thing. I can tell I've been distant for the past couple of months too. I wonder if she could possibly be feeling the same way. We were talking about the sex thing once, and I forget the context, but she said, "and I feel great about our relationship". But the way she said it while blinking and then kind of averting her eyes during "great" made me wonder if she's as unsure as I am.

Right now, the only sort of beacon of hope in the future is when we move. I can see it being possible that either our relationship would get a lot better, or a lot worse if we lived together. But I don't really know where to draw the line on waiting to see how it turns out before I'm forty years old and still feeling things out. I'll also have to be engaged to her at that point, and she doesn't want to wait extremely long after living together to get married. Sometimes I think I'd be happiest to see her start to like someone else that shares more of her interests. I wouldn't be able to stand breaking up with her if I knew that she might not find someone who she could be happy with again. Because I really do care for her.

I'm trying not to ramble, but it's a little hard. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out if a lack of passion is a good enough reason. I know a lot of people have much more significant problems in their relationships, and I'm wondering if I'm being too picky. But is there really such a thing as being too picky about the person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with? I'm not even convinced I need a girlfriend to be happy, though that is a lot easier to say when you're in a relationship, which I've learned from experience. I just feel like there's part of me that is trapped right now, like I want to do something impulsive and just move away on my own and start a new life.

So, it's pretty obvious that I'm confused and I'm not even sure what I want. But if anyone can give me their input, I'd really appreciate it. Should I stay with her? Should I talk to her about it? Is there something I could do to improve things without talking to her about it? Should I wait and see?

[Memurii]

I think you should talk about it to her. If you don't do anything nothing will change. Everything will be the same like now.
So ,I guess, you would still confused. Anyway... do you know how she exactly feel? I think you guys must talk about each others feeling.
In my opinion.First ask her about her feelings and about your relationship.

[Fr_Chuck]

You need to move out from mom and dad and live on your own for a while. You are also having issues of dealing with being use to being "at home" not having to take care ofyourself.

Put off moving in with each other and start a life of your own,

[Askingquestion]

Yeah I don't know how she feels for sure. I can only really guess based on what I see. Though my guess is that she isn't nearly as confused as me, but you're right. I can't know unless I talk to her about it. I'm just not sure how to approach the topic without it spiraling out of control and leading to a break up.

Also, I'm going to be done with college next semester and moving to a new state. And my parents' house is 20 minutes from campus, so moving out on my own right now would feel good, but I'd just be packing everything up and moving again in a couple months. So it wouldn't be very practical to do. Right now I'm paying for all my stuff and food, working 30 hours a week and taking 15 credit hours - I'm just not paying rent/utilities (which is nice).

[izzbizz]

Having the advantage of age, I can speak from personal experience, and you already have the best advice from FR_chuck: "In my opinion.First ask her about her feelings and about your relationship.".

Next weekend, do something different, just the two of you, maybe go for a long walk together, or a picnic, it'll be cool, and you'll have a great time together... talk about everything... home, college, your future, but especially her and her future... listen to what she says. Everyone has dreams, ask her about hers and don't lose the plot if she has a dream that has nothing to do with you... it's normal ;-)
You guys are young, and yes, you may stick it out together forever, but you may not, and I don't think either of you should get too hung up about that, most people have a whole bunch of relationships before they settle down. Going your separate ways is never easy, but you may find that talking about the possibility of not continuing the relationship may work out. In my experience, you may be playing catch-up on the idea... but that's probably just my experience ;-)

In any event, no matter how it works out, you are young, and you'll probably have a whole bunch more heatbreak situations to cope with in the next few years.

Don't worry, you'll come out stronger and better for it ;-)

Just keep talking ;-)

[talaniman]

Besides talking honestly about how you feel, I don't have much advice to add except, don't move in together, or make a commitment, or promise that you can't keep.

After 4 years I am sure you have talked about marriage, but I advise against making plans.

Just between me and you, stop having sex. Maybe its not that often, but I think it does confuse your thinking, and hers too. Females (and some guys) put a lot of stock and future hopes in having sex.

Radical idea I know, but in the long run, may shed some light on your feelings for each other without the physical influence.

[Homegirl 50]

I think you two are like and old pair of shoes. You are comfortable in them, you don't get blisters they are a perfect fit. Trouble is, they are out of date, they are not your favorite pair any more but you hate to throw them away because they are so comfortable.

She may not be as happy as you think. She could be suffering from "old shoe" syndrome too.
Talk to her, tell her how you are feeling and then you two take a break from each other. You are not doing her any favors by staying because you think she is more hung up on you. Be honest with her and do the break thing. It may be the best thing for both of you.