Would it be a good decision to break up although we still love each other?

[chah]

My boyfriend and I have been a couple for a year and a half. We love each other very much and feel like we have a special bond, even though we have had relatively big fights - twice about my boyfriend being jealous, but he works on his jealousy. We get a long very well usually, but we have trouble talking about anything besides day-to-day-life and our relationship problems. We do have relatively similar wishes for the future concerning family and so on, but I can't be sure about that yet since we are pretty young still. We love cuddling each other, but we haven't really kissed in a year or were intimate beyond that. Still our relationship feels very intimate, but my boyfriend misses this kind of initmacy a lot, I miss kissing, but i can't enjoy it anymore and don't know why. I have felt slightly pressured before, but my boyfriend wouldn't want to break up me for that sole reason. I wonder if we sholud break-up so that my boyfriend would find someone who finds him attractive (so do I theoretically) and fulfills all his needs - also those that I don't feel I can fulfill - but he says that he only wants me but also can't see himself being happy if we are to never kiss or be further intimate again. I don't know if it's just a phase, because I did enjoy it in the beginning and now I theoretically do miss it, but I don't want to kiss him anymore. We do baby-talk quite a lot, which makes us both feel loved, but I feel like I can't properly see him as a 'normal' boyfriend anymore because he is more of a cute soulmate who I love to kiss on the cheeks and so on, but I don't want to kiss him on the mouth anymore. Losing him is a great fear of mine and I know that I would be devasteted and he feels similar, but I am afraid of him staying with me unhappily because he is hoping for something that I won't give him and I want him to be as happy as he can be. Do you have any tips on me not wanting that kind of intimacy with him currently or on what to do in general? My boyfriend and I have agreed on asking on the internet for advice as inspiration, we won't just do what we are advised here, but think about it carefully. Thank you!

[Wiseman2]

Are you dating or just friends? What is it that you want from the relationship if you do not want romance? Are you too young for sex or are you not attracted to him?

We love cuddling each other, but we haven't really kissed in a year or were intimate beyond that. I don't want to kiss him anymore.

We do baby-talk quite a lot, which makes us both feel loved, but I feel like I can't properly see him as a 'normal' boyfriend anymore because he is more of a cute soulmate who I love to kiss on the cheeks and so on, but I don't want to kiss him on the mouth anymore.

[Greg40s]

All of our experiences are unique so, as I answer this, please understand that you and your boyfriend are not me and my wife. But what you describe is very familiar to me - my wife misses our kisses (which you did up to a point) and I miss the intimacy which has built into a very, very big thing. We’re brilliant friends and get on wonderfully and I’d miss her dreadfully if she weren’t around... but we’re over ten years into a marriage now and, while so much of our life is right, there is a very deep pain where those things are missing and it feels like maybe they were never supposed to be there in the first place. As you say, you’re still pretty young and you have only been together a year and a half - I know that’s a long time but it’s not in the grand scheme of things.

I think if you look at what is wrong now and project that into the future, into a possible marriage and your wishes regarding family and consider that these things might never get better and may build into larger holes inside both of you and the possible resentment that you both missed out on these things, maybe it’s worth considering that you are not a fit for this stuff. Maybe you were meant to be great friends and it became something more. I know if I could go back to an earlier point without all the complications that a long life together brings, I’d cut it off without a second thought because it would have been better for both of us.

But you are not us and maybe these are things that can be worked on. From your words, it feels to me that something just isn’t there that should be there but only you know the full context so, yes, think about it carefully.

[chah]

Concerning the support and love we are a couple, just the romantic component is missing. I think the first-mentioned atrributes are crucial, but I fear that they are not enough because we theoretically both want romance. We are not too young for sex and especially in my partner's view our relationship lacks it. I am not asexual, sometimes I miss kissing and I think my boyfriend is beautiful, but I'm somehow not attracted in that way to him anymore.

[chah]

Thank you, Greg40s, for sharing your experience.

[Wiseman2]

Then it's time to break up. Are you a virgin/afraid of sex?

We are not too young for sex. I'm somehow not attracted in that way to him anymore.

[MissCanuck]

This relationship has run its course for you. You are too young to stay with someone you see only as a friend now.

The best thing to do, in my experience, is end it so you can both be free to find a more compatible match.

[Tinydance]

I think you love him as a good friend, but that's not the same as actually loving someone romantically. It's more or less the sexual attraction that makes a partner different from just a friend and it doesn't sound like you're sexually attracted to him. I think you'd know it if you were because you'd feel turned on. If you break up, do you think eventually you'd be able to stay friends?

[ThatwasThen]

I think that you two are so addicted to having one another in your lives that you should just stay together because if you breakup, you will never sever your ties to one another and that will cause problems in any romantic relationship you manage to get yourselves involved in. No new partner is going to want to be the third wheel in your addiction to one another.

That being said, I think that you would do well to talk to someone professional about your addiction to him and why you are afraid to give up your drug of choice ~ Him. Your a-sexual relationship will likely get old fast once you two are past your feelings of new relationship energy.

Bottom Line: Perhaps you are A-sexual (?) but if he isn't then you are incompatible and odds are high that he will cheat on you when another woman makes it clear she is physically attracted to him. (even if he says "I would never do that.") Not saying he will 100% just that the odds are high that he will.

Do you feel you are a-sexual or that you've just lost physical attraction to your current b/f?

[chah]

I don't see him so much as an addiction, I don't go crazy if I don't see him for two weeks, if that's what you mean. I don't want to let him go, because I love him and besides the missing romantic intimacy we enrich each others lives. I don't think we could just go from being a couple to being friends because we are intimate when we kiss each other on the cheeks or forehead and cuddle - we do that quite often-, we support each other a lot and to me that feels like more than friendship. I am not asexual, every now and then I do miss kissing and sometimes also advanced romantic intimacy, but my boyfriend misses this physical component more than I do, I think. I still think he is beautiful, but I just don't feel that kind of physical attraction that makes me want to kiss him on the lips and be romantically intimate anymore, although I wish I still felt it.