Apathy, love & guilt

LegacyUser

Where to start.

I'm a 32-year-old who has been with the same girl for almost 6 years. I love her as much as I can love anybody and we are due to get married in the next year. On the plus side I'm 100% loyal and trustworthy and would never even think of being with anybody else. I'm very happy with her, and comfortable with her. I've never felt this degree of comfort or acceptance and I would love to have it for the rest of my life. I'm protective of her and empathise with her life and challenges. These emotions are as good as it gets in my world.

However, if she broke it off with me tomorrow I would feel a sense of relief. This is a truly horrible thing to say as I know she loves me to bits and has no problem showing it. I would think, on the other hand, of all the things I would be freer to do and of potential hurt which I have avoided in the future. It has absolutely nothing to do with her or my feelings for her: I have no doubt that I would feel precisely the same about anybody. Sometimes I force myself to ring her back simply out of a sense of fairness, but never out of a sense of fear of losing her or a desire to "fix" an issue. She tries more in this relationship, cares more and feels much more. I try, care and feel as much as I can. I'm instinctively a private person. As we get nearer our wedding date I feel more guilt about this contrast. At the risk of using a cliché: she deserves much better than this. In the past week, I've described myself as a 'cold prick' for the first time. I feel like Meursault in Camus's L’Étranger, detached, cold and somebody who angered me no end when I read that novel as a teenager. The irony is I am passionate about a wide range of things, none of which are close to me.

I suppose I'm just wondering how the hell can a guy love and care deeply about a girl and how unusual this sort of apathy in a relationship is. We definitely need counselling asap, but at present I can't afford it so it will have to wait a few months.

LegacyUser

Here is my opinion and it may not be popular but it is what I believe.
I don`t think a man will ever have the same level of feelings as a woman has in a relationship. I`m not saying that a man cannot care for a woman but I simply don`t believe it amounts to "love" as such.
You do not love your partner. I`m sorry to be blunt but to say that you love her and care deeply for her and then at the same time say you wouldn`t be particularly bothered if you lost her says it all. If you did love her, I mean truly love her, then you wouldn`t be able to see your life without her. You certainly wouldn`t be feeling tied down in any way by being with her or daydreaming about all the other women you could potentially have if you were not with her. So get it right--what you really feel may be security, it may be the comfort that comes from knowing you have someone who loves *you* and it may be attachment but it is not love.
I am female but let me tell you I was in a similar situation to you a few years ago. I was engaged to a man who was head over heels in love with me. All I kept thinking about as the wedding date drew closer was the freedom I was sacrificing and trying to think of little ways to "be seen for myself" etc, like getting a job on a ferry so I could be away for a week at a time at sea. In the end I broke it off. At times I regretted doing that but I relaized that I had never really been in love with that guy, it was the security of *his love for me* that I was in love with.
I wish I had not given him false hope. Now, as a female, Iam going to give you the other side of that as well as I have been on both sides of this situation:
I think a lot of men use the term "love" innapropriatly. Men say "I love her" but it can mean a variey of things. It rarely means that he is willing and ready to sacrifice all other women in the world for this woman for the rest of his life. But that is what true love means. And if you are going to promise yourself to this woman in marriage then being aware of what that is telling her: it is telling her "I REALLY love you, I love you so much that you are the only woman I want for the rest of my life. I will never cheat on you. I will never leave you. You are it for me". Read over that. Is that really how you feel? I don`t think so. You are not even married to the poor girl yet and already you are seeing her as some kind of a burden you might be better without. So think about how you use the words you`ve used to describe how you feel for her. You don`t understand what love really is yet and possibly never will. Tjis is not a slur on you but I do think there is a gender difference with regard to the capacity to feel emotions. As women, we assume (largely due to the media) that men feel just like we do, to the same extent we do, and that "love" feels the same for both genders. I now believe it doesn`t. While there are some men, like the ex of mine I mentioned, who do feel that heavy, all encompassing love for a parter that negates the need for others, I think for the most part that men don`t ever actually feel "love" as such for a women in the same way she can feel it for you. He can feel lust for her, friendship with her, and ultimatly over time, an attachment to her, but in my opinion, for the most part he will not ever feel the feeling of being "in love" that is so often shouted about. As a result, he may use the terms "I love her" when really he can mean a variety of other things. I know this is a new concept which has never been discussed, that the "in love" feeling is a feminine thing and men do not/can not experience it, but it explains a lot. For example, it explains why it always seems to be women who are more eager to get married, want a committed realtionship, etc whilst men often seem very concerned with holding onto the ability to "keep their options open" and hold onto their freedom". Because although they may really like/lust after/enjoy the company of a woman, they still want their "freedom" more (and lets be honest--"freedom in this context means the option of having other women as well) . The thing about it is though, when you are "in love" with someone, it means that they are more important to you then anyone else that you might meet in the future and that having this person feels more important than having the "freedom" to have others.
I`m not saying this applies to EVERY man, as I`ve said, but I think it applies to a lot.
So OP, you need to re-think your words and examine what is is you really want. And then you need to be honest with this girl. Marriage is a huge commitment and it should be. If you get yourself into it when your whole heart isn`t committed then you`ll regret it later on, and this girl will regret all the wasted years and youth she spent with a man who always wondered whethor he might just have been better without her.
Think carefully.

Aurora Borealis

The response to your thread has really got me thinking. I'm not sure I agree with the idea being put forward that being in love is largely a female condition if I'm reading what has been written correctly. Gonnna have to digest it a bit more though.

In reply to the OP. It does sound like companionship really rather than love and people often marry for this alone but I personally, as I have said here before, could not. Love is bloody brilliant when you find it and for me it would have to be the building block for me to even contemplate sharing my life with someone.

I really do believe in love though it clearly can be a giant head-wreck.. cf relationship issues forum :rolleyes: but if it's an emotion that I can feel than I'm sure as hell gonna tick that box before I'd ever commit.

But only you can decide if you really really love her. Obviously enough. Your apathy as you call it could also simply be a reflection of your comfort and security with her and just because you're not perhaps as demonstrative doesn't necessarily negate the veracity of the emotion. I would worry more if you were playing the part as it were and behaving as you thought you were expected to.

Much musing...

metrovelvet

You cannot love and be indifferent. They are opposites.

Aurora Borealis

Metrovelvet clearly you do not have hungover mind rambles today as I do. Very succinctly put and I concur.

extrinzic

Love is really tied up with both our emotions and our rational. I suspect your partner is in love with you because up until now she has made a series of choices that reinforce her relationship with you. She has developed an emotional bond with you through shared experiences, backed up by regular commitment to you. She feels an emotional love for you that could only exist through decisions to love you, in baby steps, over the course of your relationship. You seem to me to have largely gone along with these events without actually choosing for yourself, and so find yourself in the situation where you have to actually make a milestone choice (without precedent) through your planed future marriage. This is what existentialist writers sometimes refer to as bad faith. You should not marry this girl without actually committing to her, fully. If you are going to ever love her you need to make conscious decisions to do exactly that. The emotional aspects of love come through this authenticity, and are reinforced with every decision to commit. Remember that for Camus, the world is meaningless. It is the individual that gives the world meaning.

LegacyUser

I certainly don't that women love more; in every relationship there is the lover and lover, and the rolls are interchangeable between the man and the woman.

In this relationship you are the loved; in another you be the lover.

You have empathy caring, consideration etc. for this woman. It sounds like you are actually a romantic and you are missing the emotional high of being the lover. In my life I've chopped and changed these roles from one relationship to another. What this has thought me, is that while the emotional high of love absolutely exists, its not always worth chasing it, especially where you have so much else with this woman. I'm not saying love is an illusion, its not: but romantics like you and me put love on a plateau where its above all else in life and think that if we don't have that high then our relationships are not worth pursuing. That isn't the case.

Beruthiel

Notproud wrote: »

I suppose I'm just wondering how the hell can a guy love and care deeply about a girl and how unusual this sort of apathy in a relationship is. We definitely need counselling asap, but at present I can't afford it so it will have to wait a few months.

Is Accord free?
Ring them and ask at least.

Is this apathy soley towards her?
I ask, because maybe there's more behind this.
Are you a happy person in general?

Either way, you need to do something NOW.
You have written a long post there, however, this sentence stands out:

if she broke it off with me tomorrow I would feel a sense of relief

Read that a few times.

Realise that comment appears to say that you want out.
You cannot allow this wedding to continue if you are feeling like this now.
If you are miserable, it will show, eventually.
Plus, what way is that to live your one and only life?
Think about that - your one and only life.
Other peoples feelings aside, you must make sure that you are doing whatever makes you happy.
Only when you are happy can you truly love another person.

PaperandInk wrote:

don`t think a man will ever have the same level of feelings as a woman has in a relationship.

I completely disagree with that.
Everyone is different and in a very long term relationship we feel differently over periods of time.
We are always in flux.

LegacyUser

OP, you need to talk this through with someone....

I was in a similar situation (without the impending marriage though!) with my last boyfriend. On paper, he (and we) were perfect. He was loving, caring, funny, smart, gorgeous looking, just a really, really great guy! But when we were together, I just wasn't bothered. He was the one who made all our plans, I could go for days without getting in touch if he didn't pick up the phone. Yet when we were together, I was so contented with him, I felt like everything was grand with the world. After a year, there was talk of us maybe buying a house together. We went house-hunting, and the more places he liked, the more separated from him I felt. I could see our next twenty/thirty years together, and realised I didn't want them half as much as he did. In my mind, if we bought a house, then grand, we'll move in. If we didn't, grand, we'll just carry on as before.

Eventually, he called me on it. I hadn't realised it, but I had obviously been distancing myself from him throughout our time together. We split up, and I'm certainly much happier now than I was then. Your partner may already know there's something up with you, but doesn't know how to broach it.

Like you, I'm quite a private person, I don't really do "sharing emotions" but when it's something like this, which could have quite a devastating effect on her, and her future, I think it's something you need to share. You know her best, imagine how she'd feel if you told her what you've written here?

Accord do "cheap" counselling, just ring your local centre & tell them you're unemployed/broke. They just ask for a donation, I think it's €5/10? But ring them, they can help. I've used them, they really helped me get my head together-sometimes, you don't really understand the situation you're in until someone else spells it out for you.

Big hugs OP, it's not a nice situation to be in,XxXx

daisybelle2008

OP, I do not think there is anything wrong with the way you are feeling, you are being honest with yourself.
I think you are actually with her more out of obligation and expectation (hers). These feelings are real, if you ignore them I think they will get worse after you get married.
You could and may feel different with someone else. It does not matter, you need to think if you are selling yourself and her short now and in the future if you stay together.

booksale

i guess you will regret if let go of this girl, though you said you would be happy to have the freedom back. but you will also regret if you don't sort this out before you get married with her.

have you ever fallen in love with her? have you ever wanted to protect her and give the best you can to her? have you ever dreamed of your life with her? have you ever had a very happy moments with her?

hope you can sort this out before it's too late.

LegacyUser

PaperandInk wrote: »

You do not love your partner. I`m sorry to be blunt but to say that you love her and care deeply for her and then at the same time say you wouldn`t be particularly bothered if you lost her says it all.

In fairness, regarding this particular feeling I made it very clear that: 'It has absolutely nothing to do with her or my feelings for her: I have no doubt that I would feel precisely the same about anybody.'

In other words, it is my own inability to care sufficiently about anything or anybody which is really the issue here. On this point, and again reinforcing that I am the problem, I wouldn't be particularly bothered if I lost my own life. In no way am I being flippant here. If I were told tomorrow that I had six months to live, those six months would be the most liberating and emotionally rewarding of my life. I can't really explain that feeling, but I have felt like that for as long as I can remember. I just don't care enough. At a much slower pace and without the drink, it's a bit like the storyline in Leaving Las Vegas where Ben, having lost his family loses the will to live and goes to Las Vegas with the intention of drinking himself to death, which he duly does.

PaperandInk wrote: »

You certainly wouldn`t be ... daydreaming about all the other women you could potentially have if you were not with her.

I'm lost as to where you're getting the above from. I very clearly stated: 'On the plus side I'm 100% loyal and trustworthy and would never even think of being with anybody else. I'm very happy with her, and comfortable with her. I've never felt this degree of comfort or acceptance and I would love to have it for the rest of my life.'
I'd only be repeating myself to add further to that. But to elaborate: what really is the issue is whether marriage per se is for me. If I marry anybody, it will be this girl. On one level (the sexual level), I love the tension and intensity of a monogamous relationship. In clinical self-interest terms, I have no interest in having an affair with another woman because it would lack this intensity. On another level (the spiritual level) I want to escape into my 'cave' and recuperate from the "claustrophobia" of all people, socialising and expectation. This does not, and should not, reflect on anybody but me.

PaperandInk wrote: »

I think a lot of men use the term "love" innapropriatly. Men say "I love her" but it can mean a variey of things. It rarely means that he is willing and ready to sacrifice all other women in the world for this woman for the rest of his life. But that is what true love means. And if you are going to promise yourself to this woman in marriage then being aware of what that is telling her: it is telling her "I REALLY love you, I love you so much that you are the only woman I want for the rest of my life. I will never cheat on you. I will never leave you. You are it for me". Read over that.

But this degree of loyalty is precisely what I, personally, am willing to give. There are no other women and, once again, being in a sexually monogamous relationship is the ideal situation for me. Aside from this, my conscience couldn't live with any other situation. The "competition" is not from other women but rather from my own tendency to want to escape spiritually from this intensity. I could quite easily see myself spending years in relative isolation in a monastery in Tibet. Again, I am serious.

PaperandInk wrote: »

You are not even married to the poor girl yet and already you are seeing her as some kind of a burden you might be better without.

Fair point. That does sound really bad. But when it's in the context of my trying to run away from myself it should be clear that I am the problem.

PaperandInk wrote: »

You don`t understand what love really is yet and possibly never will.

You may be correct about today but for the future this is one thing that if I go down the marriage road I believe I will learn from both my wife and any kids we may have. At least I really hope I will learn it, and I know I'm open to it. I think I'm more self-absorbed damaged goods in need of repair rather than bad goods.

PaperandInk wrote: »

Because although they may really like/lust after/enjoy the company of a woman, they still want their "freedom" more (and lets be honest--"freedom in this context means the option of having other women as well) .

You could be on to something here except for the alternative option being other women. In my case it's not. I'm caught between loving the intensity of a single committed relationship and loving the spiritual freedom of being a single guy in the world free from fulfilling social expectations and social commitments. In between those two desires lies uncertainty, and conflict, which as you rightly say, I need to sort out very quickly.

Thanks. I'll try and respond to the rest of the (impressively philosophical) posts this evening but must get back to work now. Thanks again to all.

booksale

i know what you mean that there might be someone better for your fiance.

but for your woman, she definitely thinks that you are already the best for her despite your inability to love (completely). you can't think for her and deny her decision and comment that her decision is not a good one for herself. she is a mature woman. you dont need to worry that she deserves better or what.

focus back on yourself first.

God bless.