A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:How do you feel after you've been in a relationship over a year? I'm struggling with what love actually is. My boyfriend and I are about to the point where in the next year or so we might marry, but I don't know if I love him back in the right way. He loves me and shows me he cares in various ways he knows how. I sometimes just want to randomly leave him. I want to work on other things in my life, like art, and not a relationship. I feel like at times I could leave him and be fine. However, sometimes I have nightmares where he leaves me or I lose him and I have a real fear about it, I wake up and call him, or if I'm with him hug him in bed, and actually am full of fear of losing him. I love him in that way at least. When I'm away from him for maybe a day or so, I start to like him less, I get depressed about our future, when I'm around him I start to like him more. I have a hard time retaining my feelings when I'm away from him. I'd never cheat on him, I'd never look at other men as candidates, in fact if not this guy I'd probably never date again. I've never really desired a relationship. But I don't know, is that love? I do love him, and will always be honest and treat him right, but I just feel depressed when he isn't around about our relationship. Is that normal? Do other couples have that? What do people do when then get in a route like that? We've spoken about it, and he said he knows he can make everything work, and make me happy. That he will always be with me regardless and work on whatever issues I have with us. I feel like he is too in love with me, and I don't love him back that much. I want too. How can I? What can I work on to love him like that back? Could his loving me so much be fake? How long can you fake being that in love with someone? If anyone can relate to any of this any advice on how to work on our relationship or myself would be greatly appreciated.
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male
reader, SensitiveBloke +, writes (26 June 2015):
 It sounds like you are not really in love with him. You can't love someone more by willing it to happen. It would be totally wrong to consider marriage. He may love you very much, but you need to be in love with him too.
The best thing to do it to end this relationship and pursue your dreams. It's not fair on him to be with someone who can't love him back.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (26 June 2015): See I was exactly like this.I don't know if it was how love is "portrayed" in many ways (books,films,novels, discussions with friends and family) that it kinda doesn't prepare you for the real thing (like many things in life).I'm still not sure what love is/ is supposed to be like!I think, personally, that it is when you stop focusing on yourself and stop putting your emotions, desires and needs first.As in, when you are able to think,NOT "How will this affect ME when/if we split up? BUT rather :"How will this affect HIM?"So in essence being able to put another human being' interests before your own.Btw,I was like this for very long,and I loved him,but I don't think I was in love with him after a while. He was a great guy (like nice,considerate etc) and I did really love him and we never really argued about things so I let him convince me to stay a couple of times and I really regret this now.I now know that for ME passion is not all, but you can not manufacture it either and it seems like something I need.I couldn't leave at the time because I did not want to hurt him and he was saying things like:"But I love you. I really think you're the one for me. WE can work on fixing you being unhappy with this". etc. etc.Which is al reasonable. Things come in cycles.Ebbs and flows.BUT the thing is IF he was the one being UNHAPPY would he tell you? Would he be upfront so that you can help him resolve it??Coz in my case I was very upfront and direct and straightforward, whereas when he was unhappy (I did realise he was unhappy and I kept asking him about it), the replies that came my way were always :"Oh,I'm really unhappy about my job.I think I'll quit it", "Oh,I'm just tired.", "OH,I'm unhappy to be away from you" etc. BUT never "I'm unhappy with us".If you don't know there is an issue, there is no chance to solve it.I think the compromises we were both making took their toll.So my advice? Don't make too many compromises...Let someone show you their love by making compromises for you.
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A
female
reader, Honeygirl  +, writes (26 June 2015):
 "We've spoken about it, and he said he knows he can make everything work, and make me happy."
Yes, he might be able to make you happy temporarily, but you will never be happy within yourself.
Suggestion is for you to see a counsellor to discuss your feelings, also chat to your Doctor, you might be suffering from mild depression.
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A
male
reader, mfj78 +, writes (26 June 2015):
Hi there,
I would certainly hold off any thought of marriage until you are in a more settled mind set over this. You are both still very young, its only been a year or so together which seems a long time when you are young, but as you get just a bit older a year is nothing.
It sound from your post, and I may be wrong, that the thoughts of marriage are less about love, security and wanting to be together for the long term, and more about perhaps, for the want of a better expression, ticking the next box and assuming marriage is the natural next step anyway?
Some couples in your situation get married as a conscious or subconscious attempt to change a relationship or in the hope it will stop the insecurities....it never does. Only marry for the right reasons, never to fix a relationship or emotions. Never marry if you feel like leaving your partner or wonder if his love is fake or if you love him enough. All that will do is heighten the issues and leave you in a mess!
You are both at an age where you are still becoming adults. Your both still changing, developing, finding your feet as adults and what you want from life, relationships and so forth NOW is not always the same as what you wanted six months ago or indeed six months hence.
Its one thing for him to say you can both make it work, he will make you happy, over come any obstacle, and so on but those things are easy to say and a lot harder to actually do. That's naïve and unrealistic.
Saying he will be with you always regardless has to be taken with a pinch of salt, not in terms of him lying or telling you what you want to hear, but in that it the optimism of a young guy in love rather than the reality. I don't think his love is fake, just niave in all honesty.
It sounds like you have hit a stage where you have probably spent most of your adult life so far with this guy. On one hand you feel scared of facing adult life without him as you only know adult life together. To split from that would take a lot of courage. On the other hand you now appreciate that there are other things in life you want to experience. Things you easily and happily passed on a year or two ago now seem like something you could miss out on if you don't achieve them now. You are seeing the bigger picture of life beyond your relationship.
Basically you are maturing away from the idealistic view of the relationship and realizing its not what you have both resented it to each other as being. You are coming to realize its one thing to say you love someone, another to understand your emotions fully.
What you are experiencing is perfectly normal and something many couples go through at your age.
Have you considered the fact you may love him in the wrong way? Like a brother or a best friend perhaps? Lots of couples love each other but are not "In love" and those that stay together rarely make it work as the love is skewed into a territory where they don't want to loose that person but never feel the true in love feeling towards each other.
You say that if it wasn't for him you would never date again but in reality people do move on. You will change as you get older and things that seem so important now will be very different further don the line. When I split from my GF when I was 23 I felt my world had fallen down. I didn't think I could ever love again by I did....several times in fact.
To be blunt I think at the very least you need to take a big step back from this. Hold off the talk of marriage and relax. The bottom line is that you are two young people who have been together just over a year. That's in now way to disvalue your relationship but at this stage in your life and your relationship whether he means he will always be with you or whether he is faking to some extent is not overly important.
Chances are a year from now you will both have developed into two very different people with different needs. You are both still very young, although you wont feel that way now, and have a lot of changes in your life that may either bring you closer or further apart but at present I think you are to introspective to be healthy in a relationship. I know as I have been there.
If you feel you don't love him enough then really the writing is on the wall. Its not about working on loving him more, working on yourself or finding a magic cure. Its about accepting that your love for him is not at the same level as his love for you, and probably never will be. But by focusing on this relationship and feelings and emotions too much you can end up stuck in a situation where it seems overwhelming.
I'm guessing he is your first proper, intense relationship? If so then you have nothing to compare it to. The only way we can be sure if we love someone, and just as importantly love them in the right way, is usually to experience a few different adult relationships before settling down. The other thing we all must do is learn to fid ourselves, our confidence and learn to love our self. Only then can we truly love others.
I wont tell you to leave him as that's not my choice. But it seems that you realize you don't love him enough and want to focus on other things in life before they pass you by. That's fine. Most of us go through the same thing which is why most relationships we have when young adults don't last into the long term.
When your not around him you feel bad because at present you have only faced adult life with him by your side and the thought of loosing that security and, for the want of a better word, routine is scary.
Ive seen too many young relationships, short ones at that, that tip into big commitments out of misguided loyalty and naivity about love concurring any problem. Please don't let yours be one of them.
All the best
Mark
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