Long distance relationship not going well

mtan · 2024-07-30T15:22:25+00:00

hello everyone! I’ve been in a relationship with the love of my life (or so I thought) for 2 years now, but recently, this year’s April, I moved from America to Japan and have been living here ever since. I thought I’d miss him badly, but as the days go by, I don’t feel anything for him at all. He’s coming to visit in October and I feel like enduring the situation just to see where it goes then. I don’t feel loved and I don’t feel him putting much effort in this relationship (he’s a man of few words, but we talked about it before I came and he said he’d surely get better at texting). We FaceTime twice a week and everything he does, kind of annoys me. I loved him dearly and we were inseparable when together, but right now I honestly don’t remember that feeling and neither the good moments. I know I should talk to him about this, as I feel he doesn’t have a clue, but I don’t want to loose feelings and end up breaking up. I’m upsettingly confused.

bosqueverde · 30/07/2024 16:55

That's a difficult one.
Clearly your relationship was good when you were close. But it's not when you are so far. Intimacy is a great help for most relationships, ask yourself what else would maintain yours.

About your enduring and his lack of effort. Let's think this through.

you moved thousand of miles
he believes you love him still
he's prepared to travel those many miles just to visit you
But... your commitment is waning.

From here (with partial information), it doesn't look nice. It feels to me like you have two kind options:

let him know your feelings are changing, so that he doesn't travel so far to find someone who has lost interest
Find your fire again, so that he travels to find someone worth travelling for

But right now you're going for a third one:

tell him f* all, smile pretty on camera, and wait until he's at your door with a bunch of flowers to slam it, then let him meditate on the value of true love On the flight back.

Seen that way (to repeat myself: with partial information), that's a pretty shitty choice to make.

For now, I'd say, communicate. Talk about your unease, see how he responds to it (defensively? does he share your discomfort? does he miss you? I assume he does... Enough to plan to travel), communicate. If it doesn't feel comfortable... Sorry dear, find your backbone and talk to the man you say you love.

Apologies if I don't analyse the situation correctly. Provide context if need be. There'll be other views on here too I'm sure.

Lmnop22 · 30/07/2024 17:03

Please don’t let him fly all the way to Japan to be dumped!

And please don’t just bury your head in the sand because it’s hard to admit or talk about. If you don’t ever tell him how you’re feeling, how is he supposed to know he needs to change anything?

Just talk to him, be honest and see what he says about it - maybe he’s been feeling the same way or maybe he will show some fight and you’ll get the fire back? Or maybe you’ll both decide to see how it goes in October but he will at very least know that it’s a last chance attempt to salvage the relationship so he can make an informed choice about whether to come.

Original poster

mtan · 31/07/2024 01:53

I’m not planning on breaking up, as well as I’m afraid of that… I have hope that when I see him, I’ll remember how I felt about everything and it goes back to how it was.

I’ve searched on quizzes and interesting and intimate questions for us when FaceTiming, and it was fun! But the feeling never long lasted.
I do have mentioned the situation to him once, that I was starting not to feel that way anymore and the love started to fade, and he said it’s on me to change it and he can’t do anything about it. Not a lie, but a part of me wanted him to say something else. After this conversation I just shut down on the issue and never talked about it again, but the problem is I can’t mask feelings. He has been noticing that change but doesn’t ask much. Despite our “together time” being a turn off, I don’t want to hurt him at all… I’m not a delicate person when it comes to words and talking about feelings, I’m very plainspoken.

OP posts:

Original poster

mtan · 31/07/2024 01:55

bosqueverde · 30/07/2024 16:55

That's a difficult one.
Clearly your relationship was good when you were close. But it's not when you are so far. Intimacy is a great help for most relationships, ask yourself what else would maintain yours.

About your enduring and his lack of effort. Let's think this through.

you moved thousand of miles
he believes you love him still
he's prepared to travel those many miles just to visit you
But... your commitment is waning.

From here (with partial information), it doesn't look nice. It feels to me like you have two kind options:

let him know your feelings are changing, so that he doesn't travel so far to find someone who has lost interest
Find your fire again, so that he travels to find someone worth travelling for

But right now you're going for a third one:

tell him f* all, smile pretty on camera, and wait until he's at your door with a bunch of flowers to slam it, then let him meditate on the value of true love On the flight back.

Seen that way (to repeat myself: with partial information), that's a pretty shitty choice to make.

For now, I'd say, communicate. Talk about your unease, see how he responds to it (defensively? does he share your discomfort? does he miss you? I assume he does... Enough to plan to travel), communicate. If it doesn't feel comfortable... Sorry dear, find your backbone and talk to the man you say you love.

Apologies if I don't analyse the situation correctly. Provide context if need be. There'll be other views on here too I'm sure.

I’m not planning on breaking up, as well as I’m afraid of that… I have hope that when I see him, I’ll remember how I felt about everything and it goes back to how it was.

I’ve searched on quizzes and interesting and intimate questions for us when FaceTiming, and it was fun! But the feeling never long lasted.
I do have mentioned the situation to him once, that I was starting not to feel that way anymore and the love started to fade, and he said it’s on me to change it and he can’t do anything about it. Not a lie, but a part of me wanted him to say something else. After this conversation I just shut down on the issue and never talked about it again, but the problem is I can’t mask feelings. He has been noticing that change but doesn’t ask much. Despite our “together time” being a turn off, I don’t want to hurt him at all… I’m not a delicate person when it comes to words and talking about feelings, I’m very plainspoken.

(double posting because I forgot to quote first)

OP posts:

suburberphobe · 31/07/2024 02:05

OP, I finished one that had gone on for 18 years. Still love him but it was going nowhere.

Same old, same old.

I had to cut the chords. And feel better for it.

Original poster

mtan · 31/07/2024 02:14

Lmnop22 · 30/07/2024 17:03

Please don’t let him fly all the way to Japan to be dumped!

And please don’t just bury your head in the sand because it’s hard to admit or talk about. If you don’t ever tell him how you’re feeling, how is he supposed to know he needs to change anything?

Just talk to him, be honest and see what he says about it - maybe he’s been feeling the same way or maybe he will show some fight and you’ll get the fire back? Or maybe you’ll both decide to see how it goes in October but he will at very least know that it’s a last chance attempt to salvage the relationship so he can make an informed choice about whether to come.

I wouldn’t! If we’re breaking up when he gets here, it’s gonna have to be common ground. I’ve said this in another post but I’ve talked about these fading feelings once and his response wasn’t the best (in my opinion).
For all I know, I don’t feel loved… and that may have caused my feelings to act “whatever”. But I feel like if I tell him that, he’s gonna get hurt, because he works a 6/1 shift, 12h a day and it only worsen the situation.

OP posts:

3CustardCreams · 31/07/2024 02:27

long distance won’t work long term. Not beyond a year or 2. You need to make plans to be in the same place or you’ll fall out of love

Aussieland · 31/07/2024 03:12

but I don’t want to loose feelings and end up breaking up

you can’t MAKE yourself have feelings. This sounds like it has hit the end of the road and that’s ok. Don’t drag it out or you will have a shit time away and it’s not fair on him.

Also Unless you are going back reasonably soon it’s unlikely this is going to last so it might be better to rip off the band aid

Opentooffers · 31/07/2024 08:33

How long are you in Japan for? You might be being over-optomistic about how far is reasonable for a LDR. This is a stretch unless it's a temporary situation.

HawthornLantern · 31/07/2024 12:49

My sympathies, LDRs are not easy. They can work but many don’t. Like any and all relationships, they need communication.

From what you have said, I wonder if you are feeling essentially isolated from your partner. You don’t feel that he’s putting any effort in and you are - this is a natural consequence - drifting away from him. When you try to raise the issue he tells you it’s your problem to solve your feelings, not his issue to put more into the relationship. For what it is worth, based on that snippet, it looks more like a him issue than a you issue.

I had a 4 year LDR. 1 year was transatlantic and 3 years were cross-Europe. And then we moved in together. We always knew that LDR couldn’t be permanent and, fortunately for us, at the point where the LDR would have gone back to having an ocean in the middle of it we were able to move together.

All along the way, we had much, much more contact than you seem to be able to extract from “the love of your life.” He wanted to be in contact daily. Even if just for 5 minutes. And this from someone who is hopeless at expressing emotion.

Your partner seems to think that the relationship can be popped into the salad drawer and will do just fine until he takes it out again when he sees you in October. But it won’t. If you were happy with the degree of engagement you were receiving from him and your feelings were not being alienated it would be fine, but you are not fine and you both need to put more into this if you are going to survive this.

A previous poster asked if your time apart has an end date or if it is open ended? That’s an important point. If you are away on a contract or an academic assignment for a year or two then you can navigate this. If Japan-US (with a 12-14 hour time zone difference), is permanent, then you may need to reconsider.

A lot of me wants to say, see how you both feel when you are together and can interact normally. And if you both want to call it quits because feelings have moved on use your time to have a great Japanese holiday as friends. But that’s a bit over optimistic. I think you need better communication before October.

Don’t waste an amazing opportunity of being in an incredible country like Japan because you have a partner who won’t partner you in a relationship and wants to leave it all to you. Give him a wake up call. If he won’t wake up, go and enjoy Japan instead.