No Longer Attracted To Boyfriend of 4 Years.

[BirdsNest]

Hi all,

 

This is my first time posting on this forum, and it is because I have a problem and am wondering what to do. I am 23 years old, and I have been together with my boyfriend for over 4 years now. He is my first real boyfriend and also the first (and only) person I have ever had sex with. I have not felt like I am in love with him for a while now. I love him dearly, but it just misses the entire physical attraction part. Earlier this year I quit my birth control, because I was feeling rather depressed and thought it had something to do with that. Now, about six months later, I am definitely feeling better. I was always quite secluded and shut off from others, something that might have been due to my depression. Now I am doing well in school and work, made new friends who I enjoy spending time with. And lately I have been feeling very unhappy in my relationship, I do not want sex with my boyfriend anymore, and my mind keeps wondering what it would be like to have sex with others. I am becoming very aware of this, and feel like I should act on it and tell my boyfriend I would like a break or would like to end it. I am afraid it will be a mistake, and that it is just a phase. But I am also afraid that I will be unhappy for the rest of my life if I do not act on these feelings.

 

I have been reading about how quitting birth control can change your attraction to others, and think it has something to do with this. Or maybe it just all faded, and I think of him in a purely friendship type of way now. I feel awful for even considering sleeping with others while in a relationship, and don't really have that many people to talk to about this matter. Hoping you can help me with your own experiences!

[Wiseman2]

Don't stay out of guilt or nostalgia. If you need to sow your wild oats then set yourself and him free. Becoming complacent could breed resentment.

[MissCanuck]

This is very common in relationships when couples are young. He is all you know, and you've outgrown it. It doesn't make you a bad person, but it does mean you're not ready to commit to just him forever. People change a lot in their late teens and early twenties, and you are ready to spread your wings.

 

I was you once, exactly at your age, and after 5 years with my then-boyfriend too. This isn't because of birth control. It's because you are young and curious and want to experience more.

 

I think you are going to find that you need to set each other free. It won't be easy or pleasant, but neither will remaining in a relationship you don't really want to be in anymore.

[catfeeder]

At your age I felt the same way about my long time BF and stayed in the relationship for 3 reasons: 1) I was afraid of being solo, 2) I was afraid of being perceived (by the whole WORLD!) as a villain for wanting out, and 3) whenever I'd approach the subject of breaking up, I would allow BF to guilt me into staying.

 

The whole sick dynamic made me depressed, and I felt trapped. I didn't realize that my lack of experience combined with cultural norms I had inflated beyond their usefulness (the whole WORLD? Really?) plus reading books and magazines geared toward married couples, which implied a sense of urgency to 'work on' a relationship where vows of permanency and perhaps property and children were involved, all worked together to reinforce my beliefs that I was stuck deep in 'this thing' forever.

 

I didn't realize that liberating myself was far simpler than I could have imagined, and I wish someone would have told me this. But nobody else is living your love life FOR you, so nobody else gets a vote. That includes BF, his family, your family, or anybody else you've tricked into believing that you're a 'perfect couple'. Frankly, 'people' care far less about your relationship than you've imagined--so disabuse yourself of the idea that your relationship choices will impact the future of anyone else in the larger scheme of their own lives. Any drama you may imagine about the fallout of a breakup is purely exaggerated and only temporary.

 

You have isolated yourself into a protective 'bubble' with this guy far too young, and this has prevented you for learning that all relationships are voluntary. You don't need a 'good enough' reason to leave one. There is no judge or jury to whom you must build and present a 'case' in order to exit. The simple fact alone that you aren't happy and the relationship no longer works for you is all you need to know (or say) to free yourself.

 

Please don't make the mistake I did. We never get any wasted time back to live over again, and if you narrow the scope of your youth to provincial beliefs about the only relationship you know today, you'll only deprive yourself of happiness both today and in the future. And for what, exactly?

 

Head high, and write more if it helps.

[Vanishing Girl]

Like the others, I was there too with my first boyfriend. I was afraid I’d make a mistake if I broke up with him and later regret it, so I stayed another year and a half. The only regret I have is not having broke up with him sooner.

 

It won’t be easy but liberate yourself. Especially if this has been an ongoing or reoccurring thought/feeling on your end.

[retropedaler]

I was in the same boat with my first boyfriend at your age, and similar to Vanishing Girl, I delayed on ending the 3 year relationship by about a year because I was scared my instincts were wrong. While I do not regret the last year I spent with him, I do think it would have been fairer and healthier for myself and on him to have ended it after 3 years instead of 4; the final few months of the 4th year were simply painful, I was distant and didn't want to put any energy into our relationship and we barely spoke.

 

My boyfriend did not want anything to do with me when we broke up (that was hard to take, but understandable and made things much easier and healthier in the long run). In all honesty, I still miss him to this day - but as a good friend I once had rather than as a life partner. Unfortunately you sometimes have to lose things to gain others, and I am a much happier and more authentic person now than I was when I dated him. I am grateful to my first boyfriend for the fun times we had together and I know he taught me many things about love that have stuck with me until now, and have helped me to make the right choices in my current life.

 

If you do decide to break up with your boyfriend, I will caution you on the following:

 

1. Be VERY careful getting into your next serious relationship. I would recommend taking as much as a year off from dating (you don't have to be strict on this, but at least give it a try) to figure out who YOU are independent of a relationship. A year of being single and/or casually dating/meeting people will be so good for you right now. When you do meet someone, take it very very slowly so you can be sure you are committing to a guy who really loves you and vice versa. I did not do this, and instead jumped right into a very serious relationship with the first attractive and 'different' guy who came along after my breakup, and it ended very very badly for me. I then had to dedicate a whole year to getting to know myself before I finally started meeting decent and loving men again. Although you have been in a relationship for 4 years, you are probably inexperienced with men (as I was). You will be vulnerable after this breakup, so make sure you take time to become your own person and to know yourself before you enter into your next relationship .... otherwise you may risk attracting guys who think they can control you.

 

2. Be kind to your boyfriend if you do end it with him. Celebrate all of the good things about him in your mind and don't end it on a sour note. Be clear on your one major reason for breaking up. Don't give him multiple reasons - just explain that you no longer see him as a partner. You didn't mention any other negatives in your message about your boyfriend except for your own lack of attraction (which is valid), so I gauge that he has been a good boyfriend and is a good man. Treat him as such even in your parting words.

 

3. Don't allow yourself to feel guilt or shame for following your own desires. Life is for living and know that you are not a bad person for setting your boyfriend free from a potentially loveless relationship. Be grateful for all of the things that you have learned from these 4 years and use them with integrity and wisdom going forward into your new dating life. If you do have doubts about yourself, get professional help and work through them so that you can give yourself the best possible future.

 

I wish you all the best.

[Longview01]

As someone who was on the other side to this I have to encourage you do the same as above and end it, my girlfriend years ago lost interest in me about a year before we split and we dragged the relationship out and were both miserable, best to end it and do yourself and him a favour

 

Good luck

[mack1490]

This might sound cold, but I don't mean it to be at all. I just tell things like it is without sugarcoating things.

 

I'm 27 years old and this is why I don't date women younger than 24 or 25, because most of them are not ready to settle down and you seem to be an example of that. You clearly are not ready to commit with anyone yet, because you're at the phase now where you don't know what you want, and now your boyfriend is going to have to pay the price for it. If I were your boyfriend in that situation, I would tell you to get lost and then I would move on. When you break up with him, don't expect him to want to be friends with you, it just seems to me that you've been dragging this man along for the last year, and it's also clear that he most likely loves you. He probably thinks that everything's going good in the relationship, but he's about to get the bomb dropped on him soon. I actually feel really, really sorry for him right now, because I've felt his pain before, and it sucks, really bad. My ex dragged me along for a long time, and I still hate her to this day for it. If I could tell her how much I hate her, I would, but I don't talk to her anymore, and she was your age when we started dating.

 

Again, not trying to be cold at all, I just tell it like it is.

[Swede Levov]

I hope so badly this guy is rid of you in the near future. The good news is that he will likely move on and find someone better. And if that doesn't work, have 4-6 more shots to make it happen in the future. You on the other hand, with meander around in your young-chick selfish oblivion, thinking that you hold are the cards, and abruptly have the same thing happen. But serendipitous, you'll be out of quarters. You'll have lost the majority of your mating currency, likely have not developed any real skills, acquired any assets, or maintained any sense of self-substantiation, and realize that your future will consist exclusivity of downgraded expectations, increasing sentiments of uselessness, and inexroable decline in to oblivion.

 

I see the 35 year old versions of you all the time -- and I feel no remorse for scoffing them. Your arrogance and lack of forward thinking and compassion will ultimately be the figurative cement shoes that sink you deep in to the lonely abyss. And the sad irony is that you're going to read this and say, "eff that guy," he doesn't know about me, and carry on as usual. Right until you're face to face with a figurative brick wall.

[ShatteredMan]

OP: Let the guy go with decency and respect. If he's still in love with you and you're already emotionally cheating with someone else who is making you wonder if the grass is greener on the other side, do this immediately.

 

In case you're going to immediately jump into a relationship with someone else to "explore your new found freedom", block your soon-to-be-ex on every form of social media so that he doesn't have to see you posting about all the things you're doing with the new guy. Don't leave any doors open so that you can use him as a fallback or give him a false sense of hope about reconciliation. If you have mutual friends with the ex, tell them that you'd like them to (respectfully) not gossip, pass information back and forth, etc. so that your soon-to-be-ex can start to heal from the bomb you're about to drop on him (that is, if he doesn't suspect that you're feeling this way).

 

If you guys are living together in the same place, please move out and away as well. This will help you both to move on faster.

 

Also, if and when your soon-to-be-ex finds someone new and you have discovered that the grass actually wasn't greener on the other side after exploring new experiences with other men, please don't reach out to him or try to interfere with his new relationship.