Falling out of love? Relationship anxiety? I'm so scared.

(English is not my first language. Sorry if it's difficult to understand.)

I've been dating my long distance boyfriend for almost 2 years. He is an amazing guy. He's kind, caring, cute and I can be myself when I'm with him and I absolutely love him. We were together for a year and we started long distance last year's September because he had to go back to uni. I visited him this February(20hr flight) for 2 weeks. It was the first time that I visited him and I really enjoyed spending time with him. But after I came back, I've been feeling miserable. I don't know why I just felt like I've never been happy. Looking at the pictures of us didn't really help, I could only focusing on negative moments and memories.(Boring moments of the dates, arguments and stuff) So I started doubting if I've ever been happy in the relationship even though I KNEW I was happy back then. I couldn't stop doubting since then, "Do I really love him?" "Is he right for me?" I couldn't stop googling "Signs you should end your relationship" "Love is effortless" "Doubt means don't" etc. I couldn't get out of the negative spiral.

One day, a new guy joined at my work. I thought he was cute, but the idea freaked me out. I didn't even do anything! I thought I was going to cheat on my boyfriend. I felt guilty about it and I avoided talking to my coworker. I was so worried that I'd wake up in the middle of the night and cry. Eventually, it turned out that I was making a big deal out of it and I knew I wouldn't cheat on my boyfriend because I love him and I can never do anything to hurt him.

I've been thinking about my relationship/boyfriend 24/7. I just can't stop thinking about it, I feel like my love for my boyfriend isn't enough and unfaithful. I tell my boyfriend everything and he's still supportive. He always tells me to calm down and relax and he says he knows I love him. He's always confident about his love feelings for me and it makes me feel guilty even more.

I thought I settled after the "I'm cheating on my boyfriend!" incident, however, I've been suffering from anxiety for the past 3 weeks. I've lost some weight and I can't sleep well. It's been bugging me all the time. At start, I felt like something's changed within me and it woke me up early in the morning. It feels like my feelings for my boyfriend and eagerness to see him completely disappear. It's really scaring me and freaking me out because I love him so much and I can't imagine my life without him. During the day, I text my boyfriend and try to remember happy moments to make myself feel better, and the numbness seems to go away but the same feelings haunt me again next morning.

According to my crazy googling results, I'm (1)suffering relationship anxiety (2)falling out of love.

I happened to find Sheryl Paul's blog "Conscious Transitions" and there are many women who seem to have the same experiences as me but I don't know. Some people say it's just an excuse to stick to an unhappy relationship. Am I just seeking for the reassurance? Am I just convincing myself that I love him?

If I'm really falling out of love, I'd like to put effort in it because I love him and I wanna be with him in the future. Love is a choice, right? I'd like to choose to love my boyfriend and stay. Or is it something that can't be helped? Leaving him is the only/best option? I think I'd regret if I left him.

I don't know what my problem is, but I'm sure that I love him and I don't wanna break up with him. It keeps me from collapsing.I was happy when I was with him. I wanna make it work. I worry so much that I feel like I can't enjoy other events in my life sometimes. I'm so tired. I just want my simple feelings back, simply excited to see him again. He's visiting in 2 months but I'm kind of scared to see him. I miss him but I'm scared if something's really changed. I can't remember how nice it feels to be together. I'm so scared and I don't know what to do.

Is it a relationship anxiety or I'm falling out of love? Does anyone have the same experience as me? Do you have any advice? Help.

I firmly believe that love is a choice, and that it's not always the easy one. That said, your relationship is a little more complicated by the nature of it being long-distance.

You see, we all go through a honeymoon period, and sometimes that extends into an elongated limerence period which is more of the same old, same old. You get butterflies whenever you think of your beloved. Everything is happy and butterflies and sunshine, or at least most of it is, and even those dark moments are tempered by the fact that you have such strong emotions for your SO.

The thing is, that's not "real" love. That's the emotion love, which is something we can't control. It comes and goes. Couples who are in relationships for long periods often report not always being "in love", despite never having stopped loving their SO. The first time you come across that drop in emotions, it's kind of tricky. Most of the time, the feelings begin to fade about two or three years into a relationship, and it can feel like your feelings are going away completely. The rub of it is that sometimes they do go away completely. Sometimes your feelings fade completely to reveal that there was never a substantive affection there, or at least not enough of one to make it worth staying together. Some marriage experts blame this limerence/honeymoon period on the number of divorces that happen within the first five years of a relationship: people are just sooooo in love that they have to get married ASAP, only for the initial emotions to fade and reveal that they don't actually love them.

The added complication with your relationship is that it's now long distance, presumably quite long. It's really hard to keep a relationship together from a distance, even if you were pretty steady before the distance happened. You may just not be able to do it, and there's nothing wrong or weak about not wanting to do long-distance.

So, to finally answer your questions: my guess is that you're just finally leaving the honeymoon phase of your relationship and starting to have doubts as a result. You still seem to have feelings for your boyfriend, or you wouldn't be so worried about this and reassuring us (and yourself) that you do love him. What you need to do is communicate your feelings to him. This won't be an easy conversation, but it's important that he knows instead of springing on a breakup that seems like it was out of nowhere later down the line, especially if this communicating means you can stop it in its tracks. Tell him that you're feeling a little weird in the relationship, and express that it's becoming harder to see the good even though you know it's there. If your boyfriend wants to fight for the relationship, he'll put in a little more effort (you'll obviously have to put in effort, too). If he doesn't, then the relationship was going to fade anyhow, because LDRs take a lot of work.

Additional plans include figuring out how long you have to be long distance. Is he coming back after he finishes school? Are you going to move to him? When are these things taking place? Also consider reading some relationship books (and perhaps send them to your boyfriend so he can read them, too) that focus on communicating. I'd recommend The Five Love Languages.

Good luck, OP.

This brings up triggers for me as I believe you can have both combined; relationship anxiety and falling out of love.

You see my ex and I had a honeymoon period that lasted seven years! We rushed our feelings right off the bat, I mean after our first date he told me he loved me and I felt the same. It was a great seven years! Was it real? I think we will always have love for each other but obviously that love we had before was never true to begin with. After 7 years we hit a brick in the wall. He started to get stressed we became engaged and was supposed to get married had a deposit down, his parents bought a house and he found out he couldn't hold down a job. So he started to unravel. With this came relationship anxiety which was the main cause of his unraveling.

The truth, the harsh brutal truth was after us playing ping pong for the last three years was with his guilt his obsessive thoughts like you have about your boyfriend, was that he fell out of love with me as quickly as he fell in love with me but didn't want to face that reality.

That's why I don't believe in love at first sight. True love needs time to gain enough perspective of two people in this chaotic life. We all continue to grow and change. Sure you can feel a connection or spark in the beginning but it's the honeymoon phase.

The trick is knowing how to get past what happens next after the newness and excitement wears off.

I believe that's where love if it's real love comes into play. A divorced guy I volunteered at the animal shelter with told me something wise.

"Love is knowing the worst thing about who you are with and loving them as much as knowing the best thing about them. That's the trick, how do we embrace someone for the bad just as much as the good? It's not about abuse because that's a separate entity of its own, it's about how we are all broken somehow, flawed human beings. If anyone can stay through the worst of you then you have a successful marriage." He told me that over and over.

He also said nothing is a failure, it's just you weren't right for that given person in any of that persons given situation.

So don't feel bad for falling out of love. You can't chose how you will fall in love or out of love.

My ex is much happier without me and that's okay. I wasn't his right person.

Your boyfriend if he's a good guy will see that as well.

Lisa

We broke up

Additional plans include figuring out how long you have to be long distance. Is he coming back after he finishes school? Are you going to move to him? When are these things taking place? Also consider reading some relationship books (and perhaps send them to your boyfriend so he can read them, too) that focus on communicating.

Thank you so much for your reply

I've already told my boyfriend about my feelings. He seemed confused and didn't know what to do, but he told me can get through this together, I'll always be here to support you." He's so supportive and it makes me feel so guilty...

I'll start job-hunting this year and I'd like to get a job which allows me moving to another country(my bf's country or other countries near my bf's). I don't know though...

If I can't solve this issue in long distance, then the love isn't strong enough, is it? I feel like the love is being tested. Or the long distance is just making everything difficult?

He's trying to get a medical degree so it's going to take at least 5 years to pursue his career.

He's going to visit me in 2 months. I miss him and I wanna see him but I'm scared if something's really changed. Do you think physical affection will trick me into thinking the love feelings is true? Or it'll just tell me the truth if I really have the feelings? I haven't had sex for 3 months and we'll definitely have sex when he visits so I'm worried if my feelings get tricked and confused. Hopefully we can get through this before he visits.

Ps: Thank you for the book recommendations! I'm going to talk to a counselor next week, too