Stressed to being sick over relationship

[Lenneaux]

I'm brand new here but I really need advice.

I'm 21 and I've been in a relationship with one of my childhood friends for 3 and a half years and it's been great. He's a very good person and has been through a lot emotionally as have I. We are essentially each others best friends and bf/gf and I'm close to his family. However lately I feel like I've been avoiding him, it started off first that our work schedules were conflicting with each other but now they've been lax and we've had more time to see each other. Yet I've been enjoying the time away and now when he says he misses me and gets upset that he can't see me or when I tell him I want to work on my own endeavors, I get angry.

Why do I get angry? And when he wants to kiss or acts suggestively with me, I get really angry and all I can do is clam up to prevent myself from telling him to back off. I thought maybe I have intimacy issues, but I don't think thats the case because during our second year we were pretty sexually active and now I almost abhor it. Also a month before we started seeing each other less, I'd get irritated with him more often. I thought maybe since I was stressed and have an aggressive attitude, I'm just preying on his passive one and THAT doesn't make sense either because I was very stressed out during out first year and didn't take it out nearly as much on him now.

I'm afraid now I'm falling out of love and just want to be single because I have no desire to be with anyone else. I care about him a great deal and it's stressing me out day and night literally to the point where I cannot function. Last time I told him I thought I needed to break up I had a panic attack because he got so upset. I do love him but I'm not sure if it's romantic love anymore. I feel like I might be staying with him now out of sympathy and idealism. We were friends in elementary school and met again when I was going to college. And now he's depressed over quite a bit of things in his life and while he won't admit it, we don't click about things we used to anymore. I worry as well since he's had bad relationships in the past and that we were friends when young that he's hung up on that.

I don't know anymore. Someone please help, I really need an opinion on this.

[VincenzoG91]

You're at an age where it's normal to go through a lot of changes, so it's unrealistic to think that you will stay together though those changes. Give yourself permission to break up with him and move on. Do it in the nicest way possible, but do it, and then you two can at least keep some fond memories. You're not responsible for his earlier relationships going bad, but you can at least be gentle in ending this one.

[MerryH]

You really just came here to have people tell you that you should break up with him, right? Because after reading that, I don't see how anyone (including you!) could say that you should keep this relationship going. It's not really fair to either of you. He has to have at least some inkling that practically shudder at his touch, and it probably hurts him a lot. Put it out of its misery.

[Horseyguy]

Yeah I agree, let him go, you don't sound like you are that in to him anymore, and that's OK!! Totally normal at your age and you can't base your relationship on his feelings, or should I say stay in it because of his feelings.

Worry about yourself and what you want and if that's not him then walk away and how he reacts / deals with it is really his issue not yours

[Lenneaux]

I'm not sure what I want really, I think I do, but I'm not sure because I feel like the change is sudden for how urgent the emotions are. IF I truly knew I wanted to break up with him, I would have, I've enjoyed having no relationships before and broke ones off I felt I didn't want to be in. However I tried talking to him about it three times before and the night that I posted this and i keep coming up with different conclusions.

Last night, it made me think maybe I've been putting a lot of emphasis on our relationship because there's so little going on in my life right now. I'm working part time and no longer going to school because of financial issues, I have high expectations of myself and it tears me up that I'm no longer going. And whenever he talks about how much he loves me and wants to spend his life with me if possible it makes me sad and kinda freaks me out, it didn't use to but I wonder if I'm just freaking out because my life feels on hold. I've thought/sub consciously tried to break up with him while I'm talking to him about the whole thing but I freak out and get really sad, I can't think about being without him but at the same time I still vy to find my ideal relationship. I've said before, he's a great guy and does so much for me and he literally doesn't do anything wrong but I still feel...I don't know like i'm floating. When I try to 'break up' with him, I break down and just want to hug him and give him a kiss, not a passionate one but a normal kiss. Has he possibly become a family member to me...?