Long Term relationship - fading love

Dear All,

Not very good at this sort of thing, so please bear with me and the long post.

I am in a long-term relationship with someone. We have been together 7 years. We have been living together for about a year.

For much of the past 7 years, I have been a bit uneasy about how it is going. We get on really well and are comfortable in each others company, we laugh together a lot, but I don't feel a
spark anymore.

I have a few worries:

1] We have a terrible and upsetting sex life. It is almost pathological in how bad it is.

Occasionally we make some effort to improve things, but we slip back into a routine. She is religious and I am not. I knew from the start that she would not want sex before marriage, but we have been together so long without getting married that it means that we have been celibate for a long time. I am not comfortable with the emotional closeness and physical distance. We do everything else apart from actual intercourse.

I have tried to talk this through with her and explain that it is no longer tolerable for me, and she doesn't know why she is still scared of doing this thing. She thinks she is worried about being judged by her parents and about becoming unclean. I now feel as though I have developed sexual hang-ups because of this. I also feel that this cannot be saved by her changing her mind because I now feel as though I have pestered her into sex.

The net result is that I do not find her sexy anymore - I have had to work very hard to separate sex from my girlfriend.

Sure - we refer to each other as "cute" but almost in the cuddly-toy sense of the word, never sexy...

When I want to take her in my arms, it doesn't feel passionate it just feels safe. It doesn't feel like it is part of a fire deep within me, it just feels like when you give into a stretch when you yawn. Maybe this is normal after a long time.


2] We have very different interests. I am scared of ending up like my parents who have totally separate lives but share a house only.

3] When she works, I am her pressure valve - she takes out her work stress on me rather than making positive changes at work to sort it out. I doesn't mean that I don't want to hear her worries - I believe in sharing problems, I actually mean that I take abuse for stress she's feeling at work. She'll admit it an apologise sometimes, but it should stop.

4] I feel as though I am living in an eternal "present". That there is only now and no future. We aren't planning anything. We don't know what we want from each other, I don't think. We certainly don't have the same dreams. I definitely feel as though we're not united against the world - we're separately dealing with the world and each other. We're not a team.

5] Personally, I think I also need a bit of time to learn to understand myself again - work out who I am and what I want out of life. I definitely feel as though I am drifting and I think I need some headspace to sort it out.


All of this was churning along for about 2 years. I actually thought that moving in together would resolve a lot of this because we would show that we had commited to each other and that there was nothing to worry about and we could safely explore and resolve these issues. Since we've moved in together, we've put off talking about these things again and again.

I decided to push the issues abour 6 weeks ago and talked through most of the the points above.

She agreed that we needed to sort them out but didn't know how to. We agreed to talk about things once a week and get it all out in the open. For various reasons we've missed a few here and there, but we have also talked quite a lot.

We're at the point where I don't think anything is going to happen to make this work for me. I really don't want to break up with her. I still love her (in what way I love her is now confused). I have invested so much in this relationship and we are very much a part of each others emotional makeup.

My girlfriend has also expressed concerns about where she would live if we broke up as we are sharing a rented apartment. Whilst I care about her welfare, this isn't the issue to me.

She's trying so hard as well - I can really tell.

I guess my real fear is that we will end up endlessly mulling over these things and making each other miserable. I have suggested some deadlines to sort these things out. Question is: Do I stick to them?

Is it normal to lose this passion with someone after a long time?

Finally, I met someone else. I think I could be happy with and we are both very strongly attracted to each other. These feelings have been totally absent from my current relationship for a long time and have made me realise that something is missing. I know that "the grass is greener" etc. and I would much rather resolve what I have in this relationship than just drop it and move on. I also want her to be able to find someone who can commit properly to her without any baggage. For this reason, I have suggested that we do not contact each other again. She has agreed. It has broken my heart to do it, but I think it is the right thing. We have agreed that if we ever get in touch again it will be because I am ready for her.

I'd really like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading.

If i were you i would let her go, if you cannot be happy with her.
I've never been i a relationship like yours so i'm not sure what i'm talking about.
But i dont think it cant be save, theres to much bad feeling that wont go away

Having read your thread I think you already know what you really want to do.

You don't sound happy with the place where your relationship is and you don't seem to think that it will get any better. Only you can make the decision about your relationship but you need to take a step back and decide what you want from life, are you happy settling for something where you don't feel like you're a team and appear to have already talked till you're blue in the face without actually resolving anything? BUT, and this is the hardest thing, you have to take this decision thinking about you and only you, you can't decide not to split with her because it will make her unhappy (to be harsh she'll get over it, everyone does eventually) and not because you want to try something new with this other girl (I admire your actions though I wish my ex had been more honourable).

With my ex and I it ended up that we were always talking and trying to sort things out and I think that he was sort of where you were. He just didn't want to be there anymore. To be honest I wish he'd been as straight as you appear to have been with your girlfriend. In the end he ended up cheating on me and told me a whole pack of lies so that I misconstrued any comments I overheard and then on deciding he didn't want to be in a relationship with me anymore decided that, as he was posted to Germany, he'd let us grow apart but that's a whole other story.

SOrry this is sort of a long post for a very simple answer which is really just that you need to sit down and make a decision, it sounds like you aren't happy in the relationship and don't think you are going to the same place - a good enough reason to call it quits for me. You then no matter how hard it is need to stick by the decision, NO MATTER WHAT.

If you do decide to split up, you then need to take some time out, be single. DOn't hook up with this other girl on the rebound just cool it, have some fun, take stock and then decide on that one.

Hope this helps.

Thanks MJK for your response and thanks Cbee for the reassurance. It is hard having to define a moral compass for yourself in situations and do the right thing and at the same time do what you feel you want to do.

Some of the main issues aside, could any of this be to do with the fact that we have been together so long? Is it normal for the passion to fade in a relationship of this duration?

I just had a look through my diary and this has been going on for at least a year in its current form. Sometimes the problems fall into the background and I am happy. Other times, the problems seem to come back.

I am not sure if the problems are mine now or if they originate from her. If my reference point and source of feedback for a lot of my actions is her, then I'm not sure if my actions/ thoughts are what is causing my unhappiness or her reactions to me.

Perhaps this means that I need a break from her to sort my head out, although I'm not sure how I'll do that. Perhaps a break is just a wimp's version of a proper split.

I think you do need a break you are asking a whole load of questions no-one can help you with. e.g. whilst it is normal for the passion to fade do we actually have anything other than friendship left in this relationship? are we causing eachother more angst by being together than we would by being apart?

Breaks are cruel though. Is there anyway that you can arrange to be somewhere without her where you can think clearly? Go home to your parents for a week and decide at the end of that time you have to make a decision one way or another? That's another thing, at somepoint you are actually going to have to be firm with yourself, make a decision and stop agonising about what you've done. Yes it may be a mistake but you're human you make mistakes and you just have to learn from them.

Hmmm, don't really think that was much help, just me wittering on, but never mind!