Hi, I’d really appreciate some advice about my relationship - I’ll try and keep it brief.
I’ve been with my DP for 8 years, lived together for 6. I’m 36, he’s a few years older, and we don’t have kids. 2 years into our relationship my mother became ill, so I cared for her for the next 3 years until she died. My partner was amazing during this time and supported us throughout the whole thing.
Pretty soon after my mother’s death, we moved abroad as we both felt we needed to get away. We’ve been here for 3 years now, and I don’t know what to do.
Basically, we haven’t slept together in 2 years, and have been in separate bedrooms for about 6 months. We get on fine day to day, and to everyone else we look like a perfectly normal couple, but it feels more like I have a housemate than a boyfriend. I still love him, but I don’t even really want to sleep with him anymore, and I don’t know if there’s any way back from that.
The thing is, he doesn’t have a problem with it, it’s me who’s frustrated by the whole thing. I’ve tried to bring it up a few times but he just gets annoyed and says I’m being ridiculous. He doesn’t want to break up and always says things will get better. But I’m not sure that they will.
He denies it, but I get the impression he thinks I owe him for how supportive he was when my mother was ill, and I feel so bad for feeling unhappy with how things are now. On paper it should be fine, and it could be a lot worse because we do get on. He gets upset if I try to tell him I’m not happy, and says we can’t just throw away 8 years.
I can see his point, and I don’t want to be the one who ruins everything, but I can’t go on like this for another 8 years.
That turned out to be quite long, sorry! Has anyone else been in a similar situation?