long term relationship advice

manalive10

This is long winded but here goes
My girlfriend and I have been together for 5 years, I never believed in love at first sight till i met her she is an absolute stunner beautiful inside and out. I don’t think 2 people could ever have been more in love we spent the first 3 months together in bed never leaving one another for more than a few days. Id text her first thing in the morning nd last thing at night, I was truly madly and deeply in love with her, i Would have married her and had kids with her spent my life with her. Id text her the reasons i loved her love poems all this soppy stuff, im not ordinarily a soppy man.
We started to drift apart we stopped having sex (medical issue) (unfortunately i have a high sex drive so this led to issues) stopped texting as much stopped talking on the phone as much stopped getting excited at the prospect of seeing her. We split up for a while and then got back together but now its gone the same way again im not as excited by her and she says she loves me but i know she isn’t as excited or happy as she should be, to compound the issue i find myself thinking about another girl i was seeing for a few weeks when we split up, although i Know il never go back to her, I love my girlfriend I want nothing more than to be head over heels in love with her like i was, she deserves everything from life.
Is it possible to get what we had back???
Can you make yourself fall in love again?
Has anyone any experience any wisdom to offer me?

Ellsbells

It can't be like first love forever!!!! Are ye back having sex? Any plans to move in etc? Sometimes if no progress is being made in relationships they can become stale. Sounds like you crave the excitement from the start of a relationship but you can't always have that in a long termer - doesn't mean it's not a good relationship though.

dannyc31

you need to realise that relationships are not like they are in the movies or in fairly tales. there's a saying "that its not a good idea to be too in love with someone". what i mean by that is that statistics out of the US show that those couples who married so madly in love to the extent you described above were the most likely to end in seperations/divorces after a couple of years. its not realistic to think this is how you would feel about someone after 10years etc. relationships take work and there will be ups and downs all the way, if you think its suppose to be rose petals and butterflies all the way you are not being very realistic. i'd say lower your expectations and work on the normal day to day stuff of a relationship.

on the other hand you just might not be ready for a long term commitment and prefer the excitment of the honeymoon stage with a new partner every few months. if so stick to that for a while.

Oryx

manalive10 wrote: »

Can you make yourself fall in love again?

Ah, but what you described was the madness of passion and lust that takes you over at the start of a new relationship, and not love, as such. That initial stage is crazy, overpowering and wonderful, but it is naturally temporary. Thats not to say that you can't continue to have a brilliant relationship with someone, just don't expect it to be rip-your-clothes-off passion all the time. You guys have to do the normal stuff, too.

I'm not saying that things go stale, far from it. But you have to allow things to move on, and for normality to intervene. You both get to see all aspects of the other person over time, and it changes things.

Sometimes, when that passion eases and you learn more about your partner, you realise that lust is all there was. Other times, you realise that you do care deeply for the person quite apart from the purely physical side, and that you enjoy each other in many other ways.

You are very lucky to have such brilliant chemistry with this girl, and trust me, if you have that initially it bodes well for your sex life, but you need to allow it to evolve. You need to figure out if you both have enough in common generally to maintain something between you that is not dependant on sex.

manalive10

Thanks for the advice folks, I know I love my girlfriend I want her to be happy, for me to make her happy, part of the issue is that I'm not attracted to her as I was its like we have moved into the friend zone, i just need a plan to snap out of it and get back to seeing her how she is a beautiful smart woman,
It's more than lust between us,I have no illusions about love or relationships being anything like they are shown in movies. I know what's possible with love, perhaps we've just lost our way a little both of us have had a lot to deal with the past year, I presume I'm not the first man to have this problem before and won't be the last
Thanks again

Dubhan

That's deep man. Know in some way your mixed up feelings. You may never have again what you had, as we all get older and see life in different ways beyond the bed years. So this is now, if you love her tell her so, and go with what she says? Wish you well, xx

Piliger

manalive10 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice folks, I know I love my girlfriend I want her to be happy, for me to make her happy, part of the issue is that I'm not attracted to her as I was its like we have moved into the friend zone, i just need a plan to snap out of it and get back to seeing her how she is a beautiful smart woman,
It's more than lust between us,I have no illusions about love or relationships being anything like they are shown in movies. I know what's possible with love, perhaps we've just lost our way a little both of us have had a lot to deal with the past year, I presume I'm not the first man to have this problem before and won't be the last
Thanks again

Sorry to be negative here OP. But love isn't always enough. It just isn't. They tell us love conquers all. But that is simply not true.

And another truth is that sometimes relationships ....well ... they just peter out and come to a natural end. Often these are the ones that burn brightest ... like a super nova.

I don't know if this is what is happening here. Only you can know that. And also you don't say if this medical issue that caused you to stop having sex is now sorted ?

But please don't assume that because a relationship was fantastical at ONE time ... then it must automatically continue indefinitely, and if it hits the rocks then it is just a matter of a kickstart and off you go. That's not the way the world works - that's not the way human beings work.

If I were in your shoes I would be looking at it like this. I would take on board what I wrote above firstly . Then I would move straight to a really good counsellor. What I would like to find out is whether there is some unspoken issue that is at the core of this fracture. Is there some hidden resentment or hidden frustration that is at the core of this. Absent the medical issue I would then face a choice of facing up to the prospect that this super nova may just have burnt itself out and it's time to accept how wonderful it was and move on.