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anonymous
writes: Are men always such arse holes???... or is it just my boyfriend? we have been together for over 4 years, yet recently it feels like there has been a great hole that has opened up between us and the atmosphere is very tense. without realising, my boyfriend has hurt me a lot over the past few months, expamles are i recently lost my grandad, whom i was very close to, and the day that i found out he spent about 15 minutes with me and then went off to work... never to be heard of again until the next day! also we have recently had our 4 year anniversary, i know that as we are not married then this is not really something that clintons has a card for!.... but he didnt even bother to get me a card, excuse being "on i forgot!", and the worse insult was the other day, we has just had sex and i mentioned to him that i felt like something was missing.... and his reply to this was "yeah... it felt like i was havin sex with a friend, not a girlfriend!", when all i was talking about was the fact that i hadnt been feeling that well so did not enjoy it as much!he always says that he does a lot for me, well if truth be told apart from picking me up from work on the occassional night during the week, there isnt really anything else that he does do, he cannot talk about the future with me, finds it very hard to commit to anything... we were up until recently engaged but i have called this off as i do not believe that it means the same to him as it does to me. this seems like a lot of moaning, and in truth it is... but my question is... how do you know the difference between loving someone, and being in love with someone? i use to think that there was a big difference between them, and that if anyone asked me then i would say that i was totally in love with my boyfriend, but now i am not so sure. i wanted the dream, the fairytale relationship, yet with him i have only been shown that it does not exist. to picture my life without him, i cannot do....yet is it right to stay with someone just because you cant imagine them not being in your life??? how do you know you love that person and that they are the one? are they the right person when all they try and do is hold you back?? is it possible to love the relationship and security more than the person?
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female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (20 January 2005):
 Yes, it certainly is possible to love the idea of a boyfriend more than the person, and it gets a lot women into major strife. And, no, all men are definitely not ar..holes.After 4 years of togetherness, you don't sound very happy in your relationship with him. In fact, your letter doesn't say anything nice about him at all, except that you're used to having him around. That's not a dig at you, by the way, but it does say volumes about the way you regard him. You don't say that you love him, either, which is interesting.And from your description of him, he doesn't seem to be trying very hard to be loveable. He sounds a bit callous and insensitive, though he could well grow out of that in a few years.I think you showed a lot of wisdom in calling off the marriage plans for the time being, because being married does NOT change things for the better if they're already bad. And you shouldn't just get married as a logical step, simply because you've been together for a while. In fact, I suggest that you two give each other some room to grow for a while, even years, if it takes that long. You need to date other people so you can get your feelings about your current boyfriend straightened out in your mind. You don't indicate how old you are, but four years is a long time to be exclusive with anyone and people change and mature a lot in their teens and 20s. It's not unusual to "outgrow" someone.Be well advised, though. Real, strong, loving, healthy relationships do not have fairytale components, and you'll be disillusioned if you expect to find them! There are no real "fairytale romances". There's a reason for that: we're not fairies. We're grubby, fallible, selfish human beings. We can learn to overcome those things, but it takes effort. If you recognise that most people have flaws and faults, and that most people are willing to try to improve their worst ones, you'll be in a much better frame of mind about relationships, generally.As to your particular one, I'd say this one's well into retirement age. You're unhappy and your boyfriend seems oblivious. Give it a rest and take some time out to learn to be happy on your own before you seek out another boyfriend.Hope that this helps.
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