AIBU to break up with a man that loves me deeply?

I was in a similar position when my first marriage ended. I met someone else. On paper he was perfect for me. He was also divorced with a DD the same age as mine. We laughed together a lot, got on well, had similar views and interests but on occasion he could be moody and distant and he would always say it was because of his ex and how she treated him. Looking from the outside everyone thought we were perfect together. He loved me and was good to me and he got on with my family. However, I just couldn't love him back. And I tried!! I wanted to love him and feel the same way about him but I just couldn't and didn't. I started to dread sleeping with him because I just wasn't sexually attracted to him.

Like you, I was apprehensive about leaving the relationship. I was older than you are now, early 30's, but I thought that I had found a guy who treated me well, had a child the same age, accepted me as a single mum and I was scared I would never find anyone else who wanted me and would love me like this.

However, one day I woke up and I dodged having sex with him and something inside me just knew that I couldn't go on the rest of my life like this. He was not right for me and I needed to end this relationship. Part of me got to a point where I thought I would rather be alone with my DD than be in a relationship where I wasn't fully invested. Yes I was scared no-one else would want me and that I wouldn't find someone else.

I ended things and moved back home and then rented somewhere for my DD and I and we lived happily on our own for a few months and then I met someone else. We fell in love, married, had a DD of our own and are soon to celebrate our 20 year wedding anniversary. We are very happily married.

Your 'person' is still out there waiting for you to meet him. Unfortunately you know already that the one you are currently with is not right for you. You just need to be brave.

OP, the real problem here is that you even needed to ask the question.

You're not attracted to him and you're incompatible both in terms of the lifestyle you want to live now, and the lifestyle you want in the future. Why are you in a relationship with him? Attraction and compatibility are fundamental to relationships. Without them there's no point. You need to ask yourself why you accepted a relationship that doesn't work for you on any level and how you can avoid it in the future.

I'm sure you do have a nice time with him sometimes and he makes you laugh. That applies to nearly all my friends. But I am not in a relationship with them because although they are great people who care for me, I am not attracted to them and we would not be compatible in a couple. Having a nice time with someone is not enough.

He sounds awful, OP. Clingy, obsessive, moody, bad-tempered and with poor MH? I don’t think so.

There’s a whole world out there. Explore it.

And don’t leap into another relationship too soon. Try to figure out what it is in your psyche that kept you dutifully having sex you had to force yourself into with a man you aren’t attracted to for two years!

This is what’s shocking in your OP, that you have chosen for two full years to prioritise his feelings over your own. Bluntly, so what if he loves you? So what if your family and friends like him? It’s your feelings you should be prioritising. Have some therapy.

Life is too short for obligation sex, and ducking man-moods daily. Head up North to be with your folk, and find yourself a kind, happy lad who will make you smile every day. See how much you miss this moping, miserable man, then. You will of course miss him initially, our brains are wired for comfort not discomfort so you will put him on a pedestal retrospectively, but just remember that you once took to the internet in the middle of the night to ask women you'd never met before for help. No-one does that unless they are really unhappy. I bet in a couple of years time, you will look back and feel such relief for choosing a better life for yourself.

@Confusedkelp being loved is very different to loving someone.

sounds patronising but you’re still very young you’ve got time to find your right person!

This. 100% This.

You've mentioned how much he loves you a few times, but never said that YOU are deeply, romantically in love with him. Even if you are, though, he doesn't sound like the right life partner for you. So, of course you're not unreasonable to end the relationship, no matter how badly that may initially hurt (him and you). You're a person, not a support system for another person. Live your life on your terms, not on someone else's who isn't even willing to discuss a difficult compromise.

You are young & you are settling. Both of you deserve to be with someone who you love deeply & loves you deeply back.
Let the boyfriend go & be with someone you love not pity.
Life is short so make the most of it!

You have to force yourself to sleep with him. That’s just wrong on so many levels. It’s over before it started.

I think many would be moody and cold if they knew their partner whom they loved deeply was forcing themselves to sleep with them. I think you need to end this for both your sakes.

If you’re a kind person, it’s hard to leave someone who loves you. We don’t want to hurt them or ourselves. Everyone wants to be loved.

But the pain of leaving someone who isn’t right for you heals very quickly, whereas the pain of staying in the wrong relationship continues and gets worse.

As long as you stay, you’re both stuck in something that’s not going to work. Ending it will be kinder to both of you in the long run.

You’ll never know until you try and don’t settle for maybe

It is very possible to be in a relationship AND feel lonely. I think being in the wrong relationship is much lonelier than being single.
You cannot sign up to a lifetime of sex with someone you already don't fancy. You can't sign up to a lifetime of living away from your own family so that someone who snaps at you can live near his friends.
This isn't what love looks like. You're fond of him. You don't love him with your whole heart. He is not the father of your future children. Do you want them to have a father with an unreasonable temper?
You're just scared of what comes next. Because breaking up is hard and you're going to have to be the bad guy and nobody likes that. But you can't spend your whole life in the wrong place with the wrong person because in order to avoid some awkward conversations. You need to pull on your big girl pants.

I just really worry that I won’t ever find anyone who I truly love, and that loves me Ok, so let’s think rationally about this. I don’t doubt that he has strong feelings for you, but he’s regularly snappy, moody and cold. Is all of that PTSD? Or is part of it just who he is? And, if so, what’s he doing about it so you aren’t subjected to it? And he knows you want to move back up north, but he’s made it clear that being near his friends is more important to him than you being near your family. Is that love? More importantly, if you have to force yourself to sleep with him, you are not in love with him. Yes, you might be fond of him. But this isn’t romantic love. What exactly would you be losing?

He writes me long love letters, he keeps a diary where he writes down everything he loves about me So what? I mean, it’s a grand gesture, but how much does it matter if he’s snappy, moody, cold and he doesn’t care what you want in your future; he won’t even consider giving it to you?

I just feel so guilty and nervous and scared of being alone and regretting ending You are not responsible for his happiness if it’s not making you happy too. And what if you are single for a while? You’ve got friends to have fun with and you never have to have sex you don’t want to have again. Why don’t you want to give yourself the chance to be happy? To want to tear the clothes off your partner because you fancy them so much? To agree on your future together? And he deserves that too, to have sex with someone whose flesh isn’t crawling at the thought of him. The second you end this, the over riding emotion you are going to feel is relief. We’ve all been there, guilt is never a reason to stay. You’re 26; you have all the time in the world.

We have so much fun together on many occasions, and my family and friends really like him I think you’ll find that they love you more than they like him. They want you to be happy and if you told them that you have to force yourself to be intimate with him, not one of them would want you to stay with him.

This is manipulative behaviour from him, if you look closely at it.

Does it make you feel happy and loved up and frisky to read his love letters? Or do you feel slightly guilty and trapped, and a bit uncomfortable?

It’s not usual for people to write their partners love letters all the time and write in their diary about how much they love them. This is obsessive and objectivising at best, and performative at worst - with the aim of keeping you with him through guilt and obligation.

This is the classic ‘nobody will love you as much as I do’ tactic, and you’re feeling exactly like he wants you to feel: scared to end it, worried this might be as good as it gets / as much as you can expect, and fearful that you will never be loved.

You don’t want to find another man who does intense things like this. You want to find a man you fancy, who doesn’t clip your wings, and who has a lust for life that matches yours.

If it’s not perfect now it’s not going to get better. Get out while you’re still so young. Why settle with meh when you don’t have too. Don’t keep him hanging on any longer than necessary also. Could cause bad feelings.

You should be all over each other in the bedroom at this stage- not making yourself do it for him. This is not the right relationship for you. Take it from someone who has been married a long time you will hit dry spells along the way- especially in peri but the memories of the early days keep you strong until you get back on track. Don't accept so many compromises- this is the time of your life when it should be problem free and just damn good fun.

You don’t fancy him. Of course you need to finish it. Him loving you makes that all the more important to end it because it’s not an equal relationship.

And if that wasn’t enough, the moodiness and not being willing to talk about things that are important to you are also reasons to finish it.

Time to move on.

You need to end things girl, you're not into him and if he's being moody and snappy, he can probably tell

You're young anyway, you'll find love. But its wrong to stay with someone that you don't want, because of how decent they are

Gosh, you must end it. You owe it to yourself and to him.
You can't stay with someone just because you're scared you won't find better. Healthy relationships don't work like that.
Besides, you're still so young!

Ah op that's hard, but if the relationship isn't working for you then I agree with pps you need to end it. You say you have to force yourself to sleep with him - that's awful for both of you. It sounds like you both want very very different things out of life so one way or another this will either come to an end, or there's years of resentment ahead.

First post nails it.

Don’t settle just because he seems to adore you. You are far too young to not be interested in sex with your partner. If it’s not apppealing now, once you have kids or peri menopause, you will find yourself in a sexless marriage.

It sounds like you have nothing in common and you & he are using his PTSD to excuse his bad behaviour.

Honestly? At 26 don’t waste another moment of your one precious life on him. You should be enjoying your freedom and living your best life. You live in London, where you can travel anywhere at the drop of a hat and have so many options and opportunities for fun and excitement available to you. Don’t waste your carefree 20s on this man. You will regret it.

You don’t want the same things in life, don’t leave it to drift for another ten years because you’re not sure if you’ll find someone else.
let this one go and move on quickly.

What’s more important is how you feel about him.

I think you should move on.