EastPeak Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 I'm in a bit of a pickle here. I've been in a relationship with my current girlfriend for over 8 years now. We met when we were both pretty young (21/22) at university and have lived together for about 6 years. We also moved to another country (temporarily) together a few years back and still live there now but plan to return home in within the next year (more on that later). Mostly we've both been very happy together and as time has progressed conversations have naturally started progressing towards getting married and starting a family. I've generally felt ok about that prospect but also slightly daunted. There are however, a few problems with our relationship. Firstly, we have not been regularly intimate for at least a couple of years and this has become much more pronounced in the past few months. I've also had a nagging feeling for a long time that I don't love my girlfriend as much as she loves me. I've never really had the head over heels feeling, but a do love her a lot, especially after such a long time together and a lot of great shared memories. For example, if we spend time apart or she goes out in the evening with friends i'm never really jealous or worried about what she's up to and i quite enjoy spending time alone. I've always hoped that the lack of intimacy and apparent lack of extreme loving feelings were either normal or would improve over time. As you've probably gathered already, another issue is that neither of us have been particularly good at communicating and discussing these issues. Now, here's the big issue - more than once in the past few years i've been exposed to situations where I've met other women while away from my girlfriend in social circumstances. For some reason, i'm always reluctant to tell these women about my girlfriend, and this worries me greatly. A few times, i've ended up in a situation where some major flirting takes place, but i've always resisted taking it any further. I know that i should not engage in these activities while i'm in a committed relationship and i always feel guilty after it happens. These incidents are infrequent, so things usually just go back to normal with my girlfriend afterwards and often things get a little better, until the next time it happens. So here's my question - are my actions a sign that i really don't love my girlfriend enough and have just been unable or unwilling to discuss this properly with her or is it a by-product of the lack of intimacy, or both? I'm worried that i've stayed in the relationship too long and should have confronted this problem a long time ago, but i suppose i was reluctant to initiate that painful discussion and also hoped that things would improve. Recently we planned to move back home from abroad but this is also causing some friction - i would probably prefer to stay having built a good set of friends and an active social life, whereas my girlfriend would prefer to head home to be closer to her family having not made many good friends in the new location. There's also an expectation that we move back home and will soon get married and start a family (from both my girlfriend and both our families). I felt strongly that i should end my relationship with my girlfriend after the most recent incident of covert flirting; having decided that it clearly wasn't right between us and that sooner or later something worse would happen. We talked fairly openly last night about our intimacy problems and lack of communication but didn't make any real progress toward fixing the issues. i did however, feel terrible for causing so much upset (my girlfriend was not expecting to hear that i was having doubts about our relationship, although she did acknowledge the other issues). The discussion also made be very worried that i'd be making a terrible decision by ending it - should i really throw away 8+ years together with someone who i definitely love, but just perhaps not enough? Sorry, this became a much longer post than i hoped, but if anyone is able to persevere and offer any advice i'd be very happy to receive it.
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