is it worth it?

LegacyUser

i've been in a relationship for a year now, and cause it's been so long (for me) i think i'm starting to get an early seven year itch. i don't love the guy i'm with but he loves me but i'm happy, i'd say content, but it doesnt feel quite right. this has happened in my last few relationships, they'll last about a year and i wont be in love with the other person and end up breaking up with them, they get so hurt and theres a huge fallout. so is it worth it? i've nothing to gain by being single, and i dont think there's anyone out there that can make me feel better than the guy i'm with. he's dead nice and hasnt a clue that i'm not crazy about him although i dont tell him i love him when he tells me he loves me.
it seems easy to just stay where i am and let time pass until he's fallen out of love with me and it wont hurt him (or me) as bad to break up. but something inside tells me i'm wrong.
is it worth it to breakup? or should i stay on the end of the slowing ride?

xx

Wook

maybe you are asking the wrong questions ?
Perhaps you should look deep into yourself and be honest and ask yourself why that happens to you ?
Understand yourself in this and then you might be able to answer the questions you have asked us to answer for you

Beruthiel

I'm quite sure you already know the answers yourself...

is it worth it to breakup?
if you don't love him, yes
no one likes to be taken for a ride and he deserves to find someone who will love him back

or should i stay on the end of the slowing ride?
you would be wasting his time as well as your own

LegacyUser

i dont know why this keeps happening to me, i really want to be in love with him, to be able to love him back, he knows i dont love him, but he's content with me liking him and being relatively happy in the relationship.
i wish i knew why i cant be in love with him or anyone.

Wook

maybe you just go for the wrong guy's and need a change in attitude ? or character

xx

Question is, can you handle being single? I don't think you can and thats why you've been in so many loveless relationships. You just jump from one to the other (albeit each of them lasting circa a year). Try the single life for a while maybe, it'll give your love life some perspective.

LoGiE

Well I think you should let this guy go it's not really fair on him as he could (As has been mentioned) find someone who does love him back. Sure your going to hurt him as he's invested a lot of his time in you, but in the end he'll be far better off.

I've been in three long term relationships each lasting two years and I finished all of them because I just didn't love the person enough and was staying in the relationship out of habit.

Theres plenty to ge gained by being single by the way.
I've been single now since may2002 and have never been happier. Having no attachments has allowed me to go abroad for a few months and do whatever I liked, Widen my circle of friends, and save a packet;)

WhiteWashMan

why are you in a relationship when you dont really want to be?

you are wasting his time more than his own.

selfish.

eth0_

For once I agree with WWM!
You're being very callous staying in a relationship with someone you don't love, and every time you tell him you love him and don't mean it is only making it worse.

What do you mean by 'I have nothing to gain by being single'? What do you think single people get, a prize? You sound like you're not mature enough to handle a long term relationship, I don't mean that in a rude way but to stay in a relationship you don't want to be in is damaging to you and to him. Tell him how you feel, I say.

You can't wait for someone to fall out of love with you. That's a very odd thing to say.

LegacyUser

i said i wasnt telling him i loved him. 6 months ago i told him that i wasnt sure if i was in love with him and that i wouldnt lie to him and say i loved him when i didnt. he told me that that was fine and that as long as i was happy then so was he. it's not that i dont want to be in the relationship, i'm happy but not overly so.
i dont think being single gets you a "prize" but i dont think i'd be any happier single than i am now, thats all i meant.
i guess i'll talk to him about not being in love with him, but i am genuinely fond of him and i really wish i could be in love with him.
for those who'dtalking about "jumping" from relationship to relationship, there's been on average 5-6 months between relationships and then i fall for someone but the feeling just turns into something milder after a few months.
i guess my real problem is trusting in a relationship, i dont like hurting the people who tell me that they're in love with me just because i dont feel the exact same. i'm starting to not see a point in going out with people at all and it's just making me feel lonely.
thanks for all the advice.

xx

DapperGent

To be honest I think it's probably hurting him more every he says he loves you and you don't say it back. Must be like a knife in the vitals I'd say. As for him professing to not mind that you don't love him as long as you're happy, is to be blunt, bull****.

Dump him, a good aul dose of unrequited love and heartbreak is good for the average bloke, it builds character. He probably won't want to be in the same room as you for a couple of years or something but that comes with the territory.

In fairness this sounds like something which blokes normally pull, ie ambling along in a slowy decaying relationship until the other person gets sick of it and dumps you. You don't have to do the actual breaking so you're not the asshole. It's quite convenient betimes. I wouldn't advise doing this as it wastes a lot of time.

Trojan

WWM & Eth0: you guys obviously have thicker skin than some other people here. It can be extremely difficult for someone to end this type of relationship when they care about the other person in the relationship, and worry about the hurt that the breakup will inevitably cause.

I'm not saying you guys are wrong, but remember other people don't have quite the same approach to things as you may have, and may need more time to work this out.

Poster: this may be a hard decision, but the writing's on the wall I think. Just a question of implementation.

Al.

RampagingBadger

I personally don't like all this talk of meeting "The one". I don't believe everyone has the capability to fall in love. To my mind a caring relationship that I'm content in is all I'm after. I think it's wrong to think that you'll somehow have some type of cathartic experience with someone you're in a relationship with for that relationship to be worth persueing (sorry about the spelling). If your happy to continue the relationship then do. Go with what feels right. Don't break it up just because you haven't been struck by lightning. If nobody had ever mentioned the word love to you would you be wondering whether or not to end it now? I don't think so. I personally know very few couples that I'd consider to be truly in love.

Typedef

I agree with WWM.

If you cared about this guy you would call it off with him in the knowledge that you don't return his feelings and not doing so is ultimately selfish.

So stringing him along, no matter how honest you profess you have been about that stringing along, is still stringing along.

Don't be so damned concerned about what 'you' will do when the relationship is over, you don't love this dude and he loves you. Therefore you should end it, because what you are doing is exploiting his love for you, so that you may have companionship.

Believe me, I have done that enough times to know better, then to do it, shall I tell you why?

Because what goes around comes around baby. You keep treating this guy like a doormat and eventually, that is what will happen to you, because that is the sort of relationship you will invariably end up in, except it will eventually be you, who ends up getting used.

Make your decision, if you want to be in a using relationship, then the only sort of relationship you will ever be in, is a using one.
If you don't look for, the one, then you don't deserve to find him.

What do you think life lands in your lap?

Mewzel

sounds to me like you want to stay with him because you do love him, but only as a friend, that you're not actually IN love with him. (if you get what i mean?...)
but if you're not IN love with him, then its not really going to go anywhere is it? the 2 of you might as well part now and get over it all now sooner than later so you'll both have more of a chance of finding someone else.

thedrowner

To be honest I think it's probably hurting him more every he says he loves you and you don't say it back. Must be like a knife in the vitals I'd say.

that is so true....i was out with a male friend last week who had just told his girlf he loved her for the first time. and she didnt say it back. he was absoultely gutted and just wanted to end the relationship straight away coz he felt there was no point.


You sound like you're not mature enough to handle a long term relationship

it could be that, i know ive definately felt like that before. maybe youre not letting yourself love people either. i know i used to be like that for ages, i would never get emotionally attached because i didnt want to get hurt, but i didnt want to be single. you either just have to break free of that or find someoe who makes you overcome it.

i remember doing the exact same thing, i went out with a guy for enarly a year, and everyone around me could see that i wasnt really in love with him, i just stayed with him to ahve someone i guess-i dont think i even realised i wasnt in love with him. and then one day i woke up and realised there was no point in the relationship, and that i didnt really enjoy spending time with him and i was just leading him on.

i knew it wasnt fair to him so i ended things straight away, but i got really upset after the break up that i would never find anyone who i could love, i thought i just didnt have it in me. i proved myself wrong a while after that, i did have it in me, it just took the right person, and also the courage to overcome my fears of getting hurt.

Kell

Originally posted by nousernamed
i guess my real problem is trusting in a relationship,

All you need to do is trust that he is not going to fu*k the first thing in sight when out with the lads nor deliberately hurt you. Why the fu*k do so many people bang on about trust these days? I went out with a whiney b*tch for nearly two years and everything was trust this, trust that, until it became trust you're ass now f*ck off.

I went into my current relationship of four years (now happily engaged) thinking "one day at a time man, one day at a time" and everything has gone swimmingly. Why confuse the issue with "I dont know if I can trust him" bullsh*t. I trust everyone till they fu*k me over, then I fu*k them over tenfold, but thats off the topic. Yes you are a f*cker if you keep him tagging along. Make a choice. Drop him first of all, do some soul searching and find out what it is you want in love, then forget all about it and spurn all male advances. One day, when you're really not expecting it, it'll smash you in the head like a 12kg mallet and hey presto you'll be up the aisle in no time.

GUI

i dont know why this keeps happening to me, i really want to be in love with him, to be able to love him back, he knows i dont love him, but he's content with me liking him and being relatively happy in the relationship.

Like i didnt even read any of the posts after i read u saying that..

i dont know a guy whos content with his girlfriend liking him..
gotta be some love and meaning in a relationship for it to get by some time, that much i definitely know..
like your totally prolonging the end of this relationship.
If you loved the guy, you would be in love with him by now..
You shouldnt be dating a guy for this period to wake up in the morning and say "by golly i am in love with him" ..

nope doesnt work like that..

I think maybe u should break it off with him and stay single for a few months,u will learn a bit more about urself. :-)

Dont be stressing to much about it ok :-)
Life is alot more fun when its easy ,
thats the way i like it :-)
20 male here by the way :-)

Mutz

Speaking from experience, Dump him and let him sort himself out sooner rather than later.

I agree with the whole knife in the vitals thing, It makes you feel sick because every time you say "I Love You", you're believing that "maybe this time they'll say it...".

WhiteWashMan

Originally posted by Trojan
WWM & Eth0: you guys obviously have thicker skin than some other people here. It can be extremely difficult for someone to end this type of relationship when they care about the other person in the relationship, and worry about the hurt that the breakup will inevitably cause.

I'm not saying you guys are wrong, but remember other people don't have quite the same approach to things as you may have, and may need more time to work this out.

Poster: this may be a hard decision, but the writing's on the wall I think. Just a question of implementation.

Al.

i broke up a three year realtionship last year trojan.
im talking from experience.
theres no point in being a relationship where you are only there so you arent hurting the other person.

in the end, you both lose out.
and you waste the others person time if you continue after oyu figured it out....

Gordon

Original poster:

please just love yourself.

Mewzel

good point actually. if you dont love yourself you'll never be able to love anyone else properly.

GUI

thats what i was saying
figure out what u do want from a guy
and then start chasing :-)