Idk what to do

[LostAndAnxious]

My boyfriend and I have been together for Two and a half years now. At first everything was perfect we clicked immediately. We spend all our time together. And we talked about the future A Lot. He wanted to get married soon after I turned 18. We had disagreements but always talked about them until they were resolved. 1 year in and we started looking at promise rings and everything was going well. It's hard for me to pinpoint where things stopped going so smoothly but I think it was around the end of year two. He started to get depressed and distanced himself from me. I asked him why he wasn't happy anymore and he told me he felt overwhelmed because I wasn't doing enough around the house (cleaning and cooking etc.). So I started doing more and after a month I asked him again why he wasn't happy. He said that it still wasn't enough and that If I didn't do more he would break up with me because he couldn't continue to feel that way. So I started doing A LOT more around the house. It got to the point where if I stopped cleaning I would have a panic attack thinking it wasn't enough and he was going to leave me. I asked him about the future and if he still wanted to marry me and he said he wasn't sure. He started spending time at a female friends house so that he had sometime to himself to just hang out with friends. Whenever anything bad happens between us or he is having a bad day he talks to her about it instead of me.*** So then I have no idea what is wrong. I'm not allowed to read the messages because he says their are some things he doesn't want to tell me and he just has to get off his chest. So I have no idea what they are talking about. But Im his girlfriend?? Whenever he wants to see my phone or read my messages he just does. If he sees me typing he asks who I'm talking to and what we are talking about. But if I ask him the same question he looks at me like I'm crazy and answers in a questioning tone like it's none of my buisness. He texts her more than he talks to me. He doesn't kiss me unless I initiate it. He never says "I love you" anymore. He used to touch my butt and flirt with me but not anymore. He used to cuddle me and tell me he loved me in his sleep but that has stopped too. We stopped having sex for 3 or so months due to a medical thing but he is recovered now and we still don't do it, and as far as I know he doesn't have a desire to do it. I call him handsome and sexy all the time but he never says it back to me. It's at a point where I'm in a constant state of anxiety whenever he isn't happy. It feels like a breakup is just around the corner. He says he still loves me and wants to make it work and I love him so so much I just don't know what to do. I don't want to end this relationship. (No I don't think he is cheating) Help Please.

[DalM0m]

Break up. You may not think he's cheating but you're wrong. If nothing was going on, he would let you read the messages. If you are his GF he should be able to tell you anything. Instead he tells this other woman. She is therefore more important then you.

You should not have a panic attack that if you don't clean he'll break up with you. That's crazy. It's like you have Stockholm syndrome or something.

You are far too young to even be discussing marriage. That is probably part of why this isn't working. You both put too much pressure on the relationship & now that you have outgrown each other feel stuck.

Just walk away Your whole future is ahead of you.

[Minikimini]

My dear, you got demoted to "mom the house cleaner".

Cleaning up after him, cooking for him, looking after him just like a mother would do--- no emotionally healthy man is attracted to "mother". That is why he's going outside your relationship for emotional connection because you've turned into "mom".

Let him hire someone to clean his house. Move back home with your parents and make yourself scarce. Stop playing wifey to someone who doesn't deserve it if we're going by how he's treating you.

He is emotionally cheating on you, if he hasn't yet entered into physically cheating on you.

And consider my tag line below:

[KaleidoscopePic]

Precious, precious friend,



I am so sorry that you are hurting this way. Your relationship has changed, and it is bewildering and frightening to you. Sweet, sweet girl, I am really concerned when you say that he is turning to this female friend more than you. Something very similar happened with me and my husband. He reconnected with an old female friend from high school on Facebook. Soon he was talking to her on Facebook every day, and I saw her posts on his Facebook account, and I did not think anything of it, because she was a female friend. He had a remote job, which meant he worked from home on the computer. What he began doing is logging into his job, minimizing the window and spending hours and hours talking with this “friend.” He shared things with her that he did not share with me. When our then six-year-old son confronted him, and said, “Daddy, you love Facebook more than you do me,” he snapped, “You don’t have a right to say that to me. Your mom has a right to complain, but you don’t.” I even joked with him that I was going to put in a prayer request at church that he was addicted to Facebook, never suspecting it was real and our relationship was in deep trouble. Long story short, he left me and our two children for this platonic female friend, who became more.



Sweet girl, all I can tell you is that I do not think male/female friendships are wise when one is in especially a marriage relationship. No one starts out saying, “I think I’ll go to work today, and then I’ll pick up my clothes from the dry cleaners, and then I’ll go buy groceries, and after I get done with that, then I’ll go wreck my life and destroy my relationship by having an affair today.” It develops over time, little by little. When I was married to my husband, we had a friend Ben, and the three of us hung out together a lot, or the two of them, my husband and Ben, hung out together. Ben and I did not hang out together alone, because over time that is just asking to be put in temptation’s way.



Something I learned which I found really interesting by listening to a radio program some years ago is that when we are in the infatuation stage, and we are giddy about each other, we secrete this bonding hormone called oxytocin, which makes us head over heels with one another, and we overlook one another’s faults, and we do not see that other person for who he or she is; we see him/her for what we want him/her to be. Love cannot be sustained at the oxytocin level. Usually, between 18 months and 2 years into the relationship, those oxytocin, giddy, infatuation feelings die down. What these scientists found in their study is that when a couple has sex, the female continues to secrete oxytocin, and that causes her to continue to want to bond with the man. It did not matter if they were married or not. The contrast that they found is that if the man was married to the woman, he would continue to secrete oxytocin as well, when they had sex. But, if the man and the woman were not actually married, while the woman continued to secrete oxytocin, which bonded her to the man, the unmarried man would secrete higher levels of testosterone, which made him want to go outside the relationship to fulfill his needs.



One thing you have to realize is that your boyfriend does not live with this female friend. He does not live the nitty gritty day-to-day life with her. He doesn’t see her dirty underwear or socks on the floor. He does not pay bills with her and worry about the month to month expenses. He does not have to deal with dirty dishes in the sink with her or who is going to make the bed or get the oil changed in the car. She is an escape from the not so fun day-to-day reality he lives with you. He knows all your faults, and he knows only what she shows him. Currently, she’s putting her best foot forward with him, as he is with her. He’s past that with you. Like you, precious friend, when I found out my husband was having an emotional affair which turned into more, I thought if I am just Martha Stewart, then he won’t leave us, so I made sure the house was cleaned, nice meals were cooked; I did all I could around the house, but it did not help.



Sweetheart, I know this is terribly difficult for you; it’s absolutely heartbreaking. And I know what that feels like when the one you thought you’d spend your life with forever does not love you in that same way. I know what it is like when the female friend turns into more than a friend, and you tell yourself he’d never be unfaithful, because you trust him, and he pulls away from you. I know what it is like when what you had planned for your life turns 180 degrees and now you have to face a new reality.

I truly encourage you to get couple’s counseling if he is willing. If not, I encourage you to go alone to work on you, but I also want you to realize it might not turn out the way you want it to. I want you to know that if it does not turn out the way you want it to, there is life and there is hope after a relationship falls apart.



There’s a professional counselor who has a radio talk show to whom I listen quite frequently. Her name is June Hunt, and the program she produces is called Hope for the Heart. I encourage you to check her program out, because she has a lot of wisdom and great insights. One thing she says over and over again is, “Never have as your foundation anything that can be taken from you.” In other words, do not pin all your hopes and dreams on a person, because people are human, and they will let you down.



There’s a book I really, really encourage you to get. It is by Chip Ingram. It is called Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships. It has some really great insights into how to build relationships that last.



Precious girl, I am so sorry you are hurting. My heart goes out to you. Precious friend, I want you to know that there is a purpose in your life. There is a plan for your life, and it is so much bigger than putting all your hopes and dreams on a relationship. You have gifts and talents that are yours to use to make this world a better place. And you are not alone, sweetheart. You are not alone.



I am praying for you

[Hooo!]

Please use paragraphs for a start.

Also: is there a tl/dr Version?

And also: the answer to „what do I do?“ is always the same: „what do you want?“