Hi,I have been having problems with my boyfriend of two years for 4 months now. I no longer feel attracted to him physically. I know he is a good person. He also does everything for me: puts gas in my car, buys me groceries, buys me clothes, etc. I’m just a student and he has a well-paying full-time job.I appreciate the financial support, along with the emotional support, but in ways I feel like i am using him by allowing him to do all these things for me. I don’t see him because I want to see him, rather I feel obligated to see him. LIke I owe him for all that he does.I can’t even stand to kiss him anymore. We haven’t had sex for 7 months and I never want to. I don’t understand why I am no longer attracted to this person. I know he loves me very much, and I just feel so guilty.He wants to see me this weekend, and I wrote him in an email that I will be busy. I have problems being honest to him. He insists on coming over because his roomate is gone for the weekend and he doesn’t want to be alone. I just don’t want to see him. I know he’ll take me out to dinner, etc, movie, but in a way, I’ feel bored with him. I don’t know if i just need a break from him to see if my feelings for him will come back or if I should permanently end it. He asks me why I just don’t break up with him, and I am usually confused. I think I should, but I am also uncertain if the way I feel about him is real. Maybe if we are away from eachother for a while, I’ll realize I love him.I told him that I want a break and he gets so emotional about it. He wants to talk to me every day and see me every weekend. I just can’t take it anymore. I don’t have my own life. For the past two years that I’ve been with him, I have made no friends. It was just me and him. We were in our own little world, ignoring the rest of the world. We even lived together in the same apartment last year. I couldn’t wait for him to leave. I just enjoyed his companionship.Whenever I felt lonely, he was there. He was also there when I didn’t want to see him at all. Now I don’t even want to see him on the weekends. I feel burnd out. I have many personal problems. I am shy and have difficulty making friends. It’s easy for me to fall in a relationship as a result.Maybe I should get out of this relationship and work on my self-esteem and be single for a while, learn to make friends. I find myself running to him when I have no one else to turn to. I don’t have any friends at this school, which makes it easy for me to run to him. I think if i had friends, things would be different. I wouldn’t be using him just because I would be lonely.Another thing is, when I met him two years ago, I was severly depressed. I remember not wanting to be in a relationship at all. But he pursued me adamantly by buying me stuff, being very nice and supporting, accepting, the perfect guy. I feel for him. Maybe I was running away from the world by allowing myself to be so wonderfully pampered. In ways I think our interests clash. I always found something boring about him. He is too much of a homebody, and I am more active. That’s one thing about him I didn’t like: something was just boring.Please help..I don’t know what to do.Nicole
I totally understand your predicament. You fell for your boyfriend at a time in your life when you were depressed and needed propping up. You feel indebted to him for his help, but aren’t sure whether your relationship with him is based on love or dependency.So, you are wondering whether breaking up will tell you for sure whether he the man for you. According to your thinking, if you miss him when you are apart, then you will know for sure if he’s the one for you–and not just a crutch.But, what if it’s true that he is a good partner for you? Breaking up could be so damaging to the relationship that there could be no turning back! In other words, breaking up is a dangerous test.There is a safer way to find out what you want to know regarding your compatibility level. Take my Compatibility Test, version 2. With version two, you both take the test, separately, and then the computer matches up your responses and provides you with a Compatibility Score. The higher your score the better matched you are.If areas of incompatibility are detected, the test will tell you what they are. Then, once you know what these areas are, you can decide whether they can be resolved or not. For example, the problem of not sharing many common interests can be fixed if you both are willing to put your heads together and come up with new interests and activities that you both can enjoy together.If the test yields areas of incompatibility that can’t be fixed, such as a clash of basic values, then you will have to decide whether you two can accept these differences or not.I know that you were concerned that you are staying with him out of shyness and a fear of making new friends. If you find out that you are truly compatible, at least you can rest assured that you aren’t settling for the wrong man simply out of fear.At the same time you can begin to work on healing your dependency and shyness issues–start by reading the articles on shyness in my Advice Archives. But you don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water in order to heal. In other words, you can learn to be more independent and outgoing and still be in the relationship. There is no reason to have to give up a relationship and a person that nourishes you on many levels in order to force yourself to grow. That sounds like shock therapy or self torture.So, my advice is: 1) Take my test; 2) Discuss whether you can resolve the areas of incompatibility that the test reveals; and 3) Work on solving your personal issues while staying connected to him.Good luck.
