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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

when you feel you don't love someone anymore...

10 replies

littlelamb · 09/07/2006 16:19

...what are you meant to do? I have been going out with my boyfriend for over a year now, and have known him nearly three and I have been feeling for a few months now that I don't love him anymore. I know that as relationships progress things change, but this isn't like that. I have realised that we don't really talk and i have never truly opened up to him, which is a huge problem as there is so much I want to share. This is further complicated by the fact that I think I might be in love with someone else This is someone who was on my degree course, and I have always been attracted to him. In fact, I almost didn't get with my boyfriend in the first place because of how I felt about this other guy, but I now realise that I was peerhaps just too unsure of myself to realise that this other guy felt the same, which he has made quite clear recently. So, now I feel like an uber-bitch, and I really do feel for my boyfriend, but I think we may be better suited as friends. I just keep thinking to myself that I should respect myself enough to get out of a relationship if I am not happy, but it just feels so complicated

OP posts:

warthog · 09/07/2006 19:53

i've been in a similar situation to you littlelamb. part of me felt guilt at liking someone else, and i felt i should really give my relationship a proper chance even though deep down i knew it wasn't working. i ignored my feelings for this other guy for 2 years until i finally had the courage to end the relationship. the other guy is now my husband and i don't regret it one bit!

end things sooner rather than later. you don't have children with your dp, you're not married, you know he's not right. get out while you haven't made any commitments and go for someone who 'ticks more boxes' for you.

Original poster

littlelamb · 09/07/2006 20:03

Thank you for that. I feel so bad about it though, but I know staying in this relationship will get me nowhere. Sadly I suffer from believing I can change my boyfriend, and I really do love the man he has potential to be. But he is not that man, and nor do I see him becoming him anytime soon. But we are both young and I cant blame him for anything but his attitude- I find laziness a very ugly trait in people. I read a really good thing hte other day though; when you are immature, you love someone because you need them. Mature love, you need them because you love them. That's what this feels like. I have to stop being so down on myself, because I have always kind of thought, well. why is this person with me? and felt quite insecure. This other person makes me see the good in myself.

OP posts:

warthog · 09/07/2006 20:17

think of it differently - if he's not right for you, you're not right for him. it's only fair to end it so that he also has the chance to find someone. it's very hard i know.

do you live together?

Original poster

littlelamb · 09/07/2006 20:26

no, we are both students. I have a dd who has just turned two, and we live a few streets away. I have just graduated but he has a lot of resits. It is sad because I know if he put some effort into life things might be different, but as it is he smokes too much weed, doesn't ge tout of bed until mid afternoon and won't get a job. Not something I feel should drag me down too

OP posts:

warthog · 09/07/2006 20:31

no, definitely not. sounds like you know what you have to do, just need to do it! best do it sooner rather than later so it doesn't drag on and you don't feel trapped. my relationship was 5 years long and i realised after the first year that my xp wasn't what i wanted him to be. so hung around in the hope that he'd change. never did, and still hasn't as far as i know. wish i hadn't wasted the time, but happy with things now.

Original poster

littlelamb · 09/07/2006 20:33

Its funny, reading back what I've written it seems such a no brainer. I have never had to end a relationship before though. Dreading it

OP posts:

ginmummy · 09/07/2006 20:40

I know it's easy to judge things from the outside and that it's hard when you still have feelings for someone, but the last part of your last thread said it all - not just the fact that he smokes too much weed but the fact that he smokes it at all and the fact that he won't do things for himself. It's one of our huge failings as women, thinking that we can change our men. We can educate them - 'darling, a bag of crisps does not constitute a portion of fruit'; we can compromise to co-exist - 'lets put the toilet lid down after going, that way we both have to lift it up next time'; we can even nag - 'darling, could you perhaps see your way to pushing a hoover round whilst I'm at work?', but we will never change the fabric that makes them them.

Part of me thinks that your boyfriend is seriously depressed with life and that it would just take the love of a good woman to help him through, but you're not responsible for him, you're responsible for you and your dd. He's making his choices now by smoking weed and doing nothing with his life, and the way you've painted the picture that's not a nice environment for your dd to grow up in. She'll realise that you're not happy with this man and it'll effect her. You and your dd both deserve to be happy. You don't have to stay with someone if you know you honestly don't love them and don't see a future together just because you feel sorry for them.

Original poster

littlelamb · 09/07/2006 20:44

its more than that. Perhaps wrongly, I excuse a lot of his behaviour because he's a student and most people are doing the same thing. Its only now that uni is over I have realised that he is in no hurry to give that all up. Reading back what I've written about him makes him sound absolutely terrible, and that is not the case. When I first met him he was such an innocent and he has got in with the wrong crowd. I am also all too aware that breaking up with him could make things worse for him. I am the first girlfriend he has ever had and I really don't think he'll be able to understand why I feel this way.

OP posts:

warthog · 09/07/2006 21:07

he is not your responsibility. he has chosen to get in with the wrong crowd and hang around all day smoking weed. not you. have you told him what you don't like and has he tried to change?

ginmummy · 09/07/2006 21:12

Years ago I was in a serious relationship with my then boyfriend. We met when I was 16 and he was 18, we moved in together less than a year later (!!) and we split up 6 years later. I'd been desperately unhappy for the last 18 months of those 6 years, and it took me professional counselling to realise this. I wasn't happy and didn't see a future for us and the counsellor was shocked when I said that I didn't see him as the father of my children, but I was so frightened that he would try and commit suicide if I left that I stayed with him. I told the counsellor this and she said that I wasn't responsible for him, I was responsible for me, and in future I would be responsible for my children. I still cared for this man and just the fact that you've fallen out of love with him doesn't make him a bad person.

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