Still waiting for I love you..

[jynkies]

5 years into the relationship!!

 

I've been with my boyfriend since 2005 as we're still very happily together but haven't said 'I love you" I've said it to him once about a year into the relationship and he said thank you..

 

I can't say it now, I'm too scared of what he'll not say in return, we have a great relationship and when we're together I have no doubts at all about his feelings.

 

We do live in different countries now - we met at university and he moved away about a year and a half into the relationship.

 

We talk twice a day for a couple of hours and have talked about moving to the same country - it's not a case of 'if it happens' anymore, it's a case of 'when it happens' but because he only has a short job contract it's really hard for me to move over because he may move again and it's really hard for me to get Visas.

 

I'm pretty certain he is only ever going to say those three words to one person and will have to be sure of his decision and that because we've been physically apart so much it's hard.

 

Really I'm just whining here because I don't want to pressure him by talking to him about it.. I know what he is like and have on many occasions referred to him as 'working on geological time' I'm really close with his family who are still here etc, we travel half way around the world to see each other and both put in a lot of work to make this relationship go, I don't doubt him it just bugs me sometimes.

 

We're both fairly young (24, 30) and still working on getting our lives and work sorted - well he is more then I am - I know I'm going to have to walk away from my job one day and I'm prepared for that but because he is still establishing his acedemic career it takes a lot of work and I personally am happy to give him the space he needs now to focus on that so that he is hppy with his decisions later.

 

We're happy to put the effort and time into this to make it work.. I just sometimes get impatient because that's my nature

[moving]

I agree with your not saying "I love you" to him, without knowing what his response will be at this point. But have you ever thought of discussing his views on "I love you" with him, and asking what it might take for him to feel ready to say it? You're very likely to get an honest answer that you may or may not want to hear - but I think it's better and healthier than not knowing.

[waveseer]

Here are the possibilities:

 

1. He loves you but can't/won't say it.

2. He doesn't love you but thinks he will someday.

3. He doesn't love you and knows he never will.

 

If I were you I'd definitely want to know which one it is.

[jynkies]

we have talked about it before which it why I know about the 'he must be totally, absolutely without a single doubt ever in his head' thing - also I suspect he really just doesn't know what to look for and given our current long distance circumstances it makes it even harder.

 

I _know_ he is exceptionally terrible at verbally expressing his feelings.. to give you an idea of how bad - it took 13 months AFTER we started dating for him to actually say 'I like you' and that was only after I corner him and outright asked him. He's pretty good at not verbally letting me know that he adores me etc.

 

The main reason it's not an overwhelming issue that eats away at me is I know how much effort he puts into the relationship and that for him to put the required amount of relationship it must actually mean something to him -afterall he is flying all the way from Scotland to New Zealand to see me later this year.

[majorgeek]

I have only been with my boyfriend for three months, and a few weeks ago, I started realizing that I was falling in love with him. I told him how I was feeling and his reply was that he had "very strong" feelings toward me" and that he was heading in the same direction.

I'm okay with being patient, but I just don't want to in the same position three months from now. I don't want to find out, after I have invested this much emotion into the relationship, that he can't ever feel those things for me. I know he can't make himself feel something he doesn't...and I don't want him to feel some misplaced obligation to me.

I told him that if he wasn't that into me, he could tell me...because both of us deserve to love and be loved. I told him we could cut our losses if he didn't think he could love me. He said he thinks he can love me. He said he needed more time to process it.

Do guys take longer for this stuff? What's the deal? Is this real or is it a guys way of avoiding the issue?

[jahur]

i know that "all good things come to those who wait" but this is taking it a bit to the extreme.... chances are he does and dont know how to say....... five years hes still with you? what do you think? did his parents act like this? maybe its an ingrained thing from his childhood, not his fault, if so...........

 

but he has the power to change it!

[jynkies]

to take a direct quote from his sister "it's not like I'm emotionally demonstrative to him, and Dad and Mum are gentle but quiet. Openly affectionate must seem like a breath of fresh air to him"

 

So yea it's pretty well ingrained in him.

 

5 years and we are still together, still going out of our ways to talk to each other despite living in a total of 4 different countries, a time zone of 11 hours, both working full time and having time consuming hobbies (same hobbies - just at different sides of the world)

 

When we first started dating I had just left a fairly good relationship with the person I had been with since I was in my final year of high school - my old boyfriend and I had a good 'thing' going but it really was just as friends.. and having the relationship was actually ruining the friendship.. we had been umming about breaking up but had been putting it off because we both felt 'safe' together.. but after I met my current partner I realised how unhappy I was in the relationship so my ex and we broke up and started dating other people straight away - there was an adjustment time while I figured my own head out and did an internal stocktake to look at how I really felt about my current partner so those words were left unsaid for a while - I had just been in Love.. but it was a totally different type of love and I wanted to be sure that I was romantically in love with current partner - ex boyfriend is now best friend and we are much happier in a totally plutonic relationship then we ever were together.

 

What do I think? Personally I think he's a pain in the arse who is methodical at working what he wants.. he's a much more patient person then I am and even I can see the widsom in not rushing the moving thing - we've talked about it and both agree that now is not a good time - I think we both know that we want this to work long term even if it means unhappiness short term - he's had to move to three different countries for work and usually has short notice and only confirmation that he will be in that job for 12 months or so.. I'm only 25 and when he left I was in a pretty bad state - not just because of his leaving but because of university and personal problems.. I wasn't ready to be dangled along like a much loved toy behind him as he flitted from job to job - I'm mostly recovered from that almost breakdown (I was medicated and didn't leave the house for over 6 months.. it's been a very long and slow process ) and I still have my unstable moments (man being emotionally tortured by flatmates really does suck you dry) so I'm not ready to go yet - and because he may be moving again at the end of the year... it's not a good time for him either. We've sat down and looked at the visa options and financial options etc and have actually discussed it and it's mutual decision to wait - it's just hard not knowing.

 

I adore my partner, he's an awesome guy (with a horrible sense of humour) and he must like me to still be sticking to it after all these years.. it's just an annoying and frustrating situation

[Circe]

I'm sorry but if you have been together for 5 years and he doesn't know 100% whether or not he loves you then there are going to be problems in your future. Probably resulting from him needing to go see if he can find love elsewhere.

 

Love isn't easy to define or describe. It's not unusual to question on occasion whether you do love someone or not (I think that's a result of not being able to easily define love). But over a 5 year period, you can at least say there should have been multiple times when he knew he loved you (if he did).

 

You say you have a good relationship and he never makes you feel like he doesn't love you. If this were true, I'd change my mind about the above. Unfortunately, I think if this were true, you wouldn't be posting here worrying if his inability to say he loves you means something bad.

[arcadefire]

I think 5 years is long enough for him to know whether or not he loves you. Tell him again and see what his response is. That is the only way you'll know.