To leave my partner because of this?

[dilemma7]

Hi all,

I can't even begin to describe how messed up my head feels trying to process all of this. Hoping for advice and be please don't hold back in honesty, be harsh if needed.

I have been with my boyfriend 5 years and we get on well and have a great friendship too. We live together and have done 4 of those years. We now own a house. He is almost perfect, genuinely very hard to fault and everybody knows/thinks this about him. My main problem here is I have never found him attractive, but I guess in the beginning it was his charm and personality I fell for. I am quite laid back and suppose I just went with the flow and now we are here, and I feel truly awful for not realising sooner that this huge fundamental thing was missing. So here I am looking at my 'relationship' as just mates and feeling love towards him like my brother.

All our friends are getting married and starting families and I do not want either of those things, he wants both, mainly children. I've told him that's not happening but he loves the bones off me and will agree with anything I say!! Which infuriates me as I feel he has no guts to tell me what HE wants.

I spoke to him this week to tell him how I feel and that I am stopping him have the life he really wants. I don't know what I want in the long term to be quite honest, I've asked for time to figure this out. He is absolutely devastated I am thinking and feeling this way. I don't know what to do??

I am so restless in my relationship and feel almost doomed for fear of doing the wrong thing. I feel like I cannot win. Please help me

Op, you're too young to settle and you can't stay with him to make him and others happy, you'll be having affairs before you know it.

Just end it. As hard as it sounds just end it.

Hi OP,

You deserve happiness and you need to be selfish in this situation.
You need to end this relationship as it is not right for you. Your partner will not realise it now but its the best decision for him too. You are depriving him of having the life he wants with children and one day he will find someone who loves him and wants the same things as him, as will you. This person is not you.

I know it will be hard but trust me he will get over it and come out stronger.

Hope this helps x

When I broke up with my boyfriend, you know what my DM said? Well thank goodness you didn’t get married or have children. She was right.

I was in a very similar situation as you when I was in my mid-twenties. My boyfriend was kind, funny and my best friend. My whole family loved him and I knew I'd break his heart by breaking up with him. In the end though, I realised I was just delaying the agony. We had a messy, long and drawn out break up but are ultimately both now much happier with new partners.
My family missed him at first but they got over it!! I still stand by the comment I made to my Dad when he started going on about how lovely my ex was..."here's his number, if you like him so much YOU marry him".
You only get one life, don't spend it only being half happy.

I was in your situation too OP. I was with a guy for 6 years who loved me so much and 'ticked the tight boxes'.

But I always knew in the pit of my stomach that it wasn't right.

It was very hard to break it off with him as my parents thought we were going to get married and put a lot of pressure on me to stay. We were also financially entwined as well so that wasn't easy.

But I did break it off with him aged 26 and whilst the break up was horrible it was still the best decision I made for both of us.

You know this relationship is not right so it wouldn't be fair on him or you to continue it. He'll struggle, maybe it will take him a year to get over it. But eventually he'll meet someone else who wants kids with him.

BTW if is better as a clean break where you don't see / contact each other and try and do the friend thing. Just prolongs the misery. I wish I had had a clean break.

I had this with an ex. I used to have to think of others in order to be able to have sex with him. Having sex against your will is horrible. You're not being shallow - you can't just decide to 'switch off' your sexuality, especially at the age of 28! Even if you tried, it wouldn't work and you'd be attracted to others.

It might sound shallow, but looking at my DH and thinking how handsome he is, is one of the good things in life. And he's not necessarily a conventional movie-star type. Just very much my type.

A friend of mine was in a relationship similar to yours. They were together for 8 years, had been engaged for 4 but no wedding in sight. She just didn't love him but was scared of ending it and hurting him.
Finishing things was the best thing she could have done for him.
12 months later he was introduced to someone much better for him. They now have a baby and a much healthier relationship.
It will hurt short term but he is ready for a life you cannot give him. Do him a favour and cut him loose sooner rather than later.
This friend is also still in touch with her family. My DH is in touch with his ex's family. Does he have to disapear just because you aren't a couple?

If you stay, you will only be blocking the path for the woman who will love, fancy and adore him the way you know he deserves. Get out of her way and let him find her.

Don't give him hope by saying you need time. Rip the band aid off.

Do what makes you happy

You do know this is nothing to do with what he looks like don’t you?

I stayed in a relationship with someone I did not find attractive for 3 years. We were great friends, barely fought, but there was no sexual chemistry (on my part anyway)

My now husband can piss me off no end, at times. However, I find him incredibly attractive.

I don't think you can commit to a life with this man. There needs to be some kind of spark!

Its simple you want out and your hoping he gives you a way out by saying you want different things. You need to be straight with him as if you have waisted 4 years of his life already how much more are you going to waste he could miss the person he should be with because your comfortable.

The question i’d be asking myself is ‘Do I not want marriage and children at all or do I not want marriage and children with him?’ If it is the second then it isn’t fair to keep holding on. The sooner he moves on, the sooner he can find someone who wants to commit fully to him. It isn’t fair to deny yourself the life you want either.

If marriage and children aren’t for you then it may be a different conversation. He deserves to know how you feel and then you am make informed choices together about whether you are right together or whether to move on.

You mustn't stay with someone just because you don't want to upset them and their family. Why would you want to inflict so much unhappiness on yourself for the rest of your life?

You owe it to yourself to end this relationship now that you have realised your feelings. You also owe it to your boyfriend to cut him loose so that he can grieve your relationship and then move on with someone more suited to him.

Who knows, in time, you may be able to be good friends whilst both with other partners.

Feel for the guy. You’ve never found him attractive? But let him fall in love with you.

Let him go and find someone that does.

If you could consider staying if you felt more attracted to him I would suggest reading the book I love you but I'm not in love with you by Andrew Marshall. Limerance is the exciting passionate stage of love which people often imagine you can have permanent my if you find 'the one' but it always fades, however I do think you need to feel attracted to him for it to work. If you can't imagine staying and bring happy then you need to leave asap do you can both get on with your lives.

This is the one time you need to be selfish. You deserve not to feel so trapped. He deserves so.eone who loves him too. The house can be sold/rented out. It will be hard at first but you will BOTH get over it. Similar happened to me and he is very happily married now to a woman who loves him.

Wow thanks for all these replies. I was out last night with a friend and I've read through them all this morning.

I did meet up with someone from his side of the family last night as I had to speak to someone about this. She completely understands my situation and that sometimes even though someone is seemingly perfect on paper just isn't the one. I feel lots better about the possible aftermath from his side of the family at least now. She assured me I wouldn't be 'hated' and painted as the bad guy because I broke poor X's heart, which I was so worried about. I have made friends with a lot of the girls in his family and we often have days/nights out together which I would hate to lose. Obviously I can't expect to still be as much involved but the guys have never come to those types of things anyway, so I hoped I wouldn't lose those friends too but something I'd have to suck up as another consequence. Anyway my friend reassured me that wouldn't be the case and although she agreed it would hurt him incredibly that it is the right thing to end it before wasting any more years of both our lives. It is so sad because he is my best friend, I will miss him a lot. I would love him to stay in touch with my family and his nephews but I know he won't. He has already told me if I finish it then he'd 'disappear' and I'd never hear from him again. That at 30 he is too old to find someone else and start over, this was his last chance apparently I am definitely going to destroy everything he thought was certain about his life, everything he has worked for and built up with me. I can barely live with myself as it stands never mind once the deed is done!

greatduck I fell in love with him too. I love and care about him like no other.

He is clearly desperate to keep you. Telling you that he'll disappear, too old to start over (bollocks at 30!). This might sound mean, but his theatrics would put me off him even more!

Just do what's best for you. I promise he will be ok and I reckon he won't stay single for too long either.

It really sounds like you know what you have to do. Please be kind to the man and do it quickly. All this uncertainty is very cruel to him. Rip the plaster off.

He does sound over dramatic with saying he will never find anyone else but he has had his heart broken so I suppose we have to forgive him!

Be kind, get it done and let him move on. Try and get his friends to rally round him in the first instance.

Can you move out while selling the house? If he has to keep seeing you that would be harder for him.

Yes I agree he comes across as a bit dramatic saying things like that but like you say he is heartbroken at the prospect of losing me, so maybe that is justified? I don't know how I would feel if the tables were turned and I was head over heels for him and he told me he was probably going to leave me. I guess I'd react irrationally too.

I'm not sure if he knows by saying things like that it will hurt me too much to hear and in turn make me stay? But equally, surely you wouldn't want your other half to stay with you solely because you guilt tripped them? I think I'd have a little more dignity and say 'ok he doesn't want me' and suck it up as hard as that may be. If I am being honest, the fact he is allowing me to control his life so drastically is a little off putting. I am a strong willed person (although I don't feel it right now ) and need someone to challenge me. Someone to match that.

I've been both sides of this...

It's really far better to rip the plaster off and deal with fallout now, than stagger on for the inevitable to happen in 1/5/10 years time.

Two of my friends broke up some years ago. They had been together years and lived together but were incompatible. She left him and he was a mess. It was awful. He was heartbroken, his family were angry with her, it caused problems financially because of their house, she lost a lot of their mutual friends as he refused to socialise with both her and them and it was awkward for everyone. But they got through it. They're both now very happy with their respective partners and he's married with kids. He'd never admit it but she did him a favour. Don't waste both of your lives. It will be horrible at first but eventually you'll both be better off.