A Bit Confused

Hey all,

So for a lack of friends who are any good at this kind of thing, I thought I'd post here for a bit of advice.

So for a bit of background, I'm a 27yo male I broke up with my girlfriend of 5 years last Feb (she was cheating on me.) We were living together at the time but I broke it off pretty sharply - I haven't said a word to her since. I dated casually with a few people after that, but struggled with any kind of commitment. I spent a month traveling with someone (let's call her Jane), thinking that it was a temporary thing, she continued traveling and I left for home. It was pretty heartbreaking leaving her but the distance was too great. I got together with a few people after that, but when she came back into the country I ended up in a relationship with Jane. This was early April.

Things have been great - she's awesome in every way, but recently I've been having doubts. I still think of my ex regularly, and often find myself getting her name confused with Jane (when I'm sleepy or whatever) and often dream of them as if they were one person. I'm also finding that I'm not that interested in sex, which has never been a problem for me before. I love our time together but I'm just not feeling much passion. I'm her first real boyfriend (she's dated casually but never anything long term.) We've been making plans to move in together and I'm really worried that I'll end up hurting her.

I know this probably seems quite trivial compared to some of the problems people are facing, but I could really use some advice.

Many thanks

L

Wow. Jane must really like you to put up with you calling her by your old girlfriend's name (or she's just looking for a place to stay for a while).

Look, you're still mourning the loss of your old GF. You're not over her. It often takes two years to get over a relationship that lasted so long as yours. It sounds like you just wish she'd call and you'd take her back in a heartbeat. But I'll tell you, when a girl cheats on you, she's either over you (and that's one way to let you know about it), or you're not fulfilling some emotional need and she went looking elsewhere. Your lack of interest in sex could also be telling you that you don't completely trust Jane. That you're trying not to get hurt again by keeping Jane at arm's length, which may cause you to lose her. And you might regret losing her later on especially if she truly loves you.

It's a dilemma. You probably needed more time to recover after your long relationship with your old GF, but you found Jane too quickly. Your brain hasn't had time to process everything and that's killing your sex drive. And you will wind up hurting Jane if you can't have a fulfilling relationship with her.

So first you have to accept that your old GF has dropped you and she's not coming back. You then have to find out whether you can trust Jane. That she's not just using you because she needs a place to live for a year. And you have figure out if Jane loves you more than you love her. Two people in a relationship never love each other with the same intensity. That's not a bad position to be in because then you remain in control and you know she will be loyal to you, unless you break that trust she has with you. But another angle to think about is you really haven't known Jane for too long, and it's pretty quick to move in together.

So this isn't a trivial problem. This is actually a big problem made up of a lot of fairly big problems itself. You've got a lot of figuring out you have to do. I hope my answer helps you see the problems more clearly and can address them.