complicated relationship problem

Post Reply New Topic

I've got this wonderful girlfriend who loves the s*** out of me and I don't love her so much anymore. Thats the simplified version. Here's the rest:

We've been together for I dunno maybe 8 months and we moved fast. I proposed to her and we can talk about anything and we're really close. She is the consummate assistant, companion, friend, buddy, cheerleader, ego-checker, and everything else important. she's got superior morals and a heart that is bigger than the house she lives in. However my love for her is inexplicably fading. yet if I were to dump her, I have this nagging feeling it would be the dumbest thing i ever did.

Also I really am the only good thing in her life right now. Her home situation where she lives with her aunt and uncle is lousy; they are A-holes and are exploitative and verbally abusive and on occasion physically as well, even though they are senior citizens. She can't get her family to help her out because it always gets back to the aunt and the aunt will take it out on her. She has the resources to move out but is terrified of living on her own because of abandonment anxiety - her mom put her in a foster home when she was little because she got bored of having her and her sister around, not because the father was sexually abusing the older sister and might switch to the younger when she gets old enough, no: because she was bored. The mother got kicked out of the family for that.

Anyhow my girlfriend is now on meds and is doing extremely well as far as some aspects of being independent and functional goes. She is a wonderful person, unlike many who come through crappy experiences like this. I am extremely lucky to have her in my life. Also she's got a sex drive to match mine and is almost superhumanly understanding of any sexual difficulties I may have at any time. Actually she's extremely understanding about any difficulty i have of any kind save for an inability to get anywhere on time.

She is also extremely forgiving of offenses, like slips of the tongue, insults, fights, etc.

The only downsides i can think of are that she is clingy sometimes and has more gas than the gulf of mexico. The latter isn't really a concern for me. Clingy is only occasionally a problem.

Thing is I am loosing my love for her. It is diminishing. And there is no good reason for it. My brother who is wiser with relationships than I and much more experienced, and who also knows me extremely well, says I may have a "fickle heart." The thing is whenever i get into a relationship, its monogamous to a fault. I get very passionate about it and committed. depending on the personality type I am dealing with, my interest can a pretty long time. This is the first relationship I have ever had that was properly sexual, and the sex isn't even the most important thing in the relationship. far from. On paper it all sounds ideal. But my heart just isn't in it anymore.

I'm afraid that if I break off the engagement, it will be the end of the relationship. Also she is just so good to me that to loose her would be a disaster. I refuse to exploit her and always reciprocate her kindnesses. When I am with her my interest is a little more present.

I am afraid also that if I were to end the relationship, she would kill herself. Seriously. I am the only good thing in her life right now. The only thing!

What the hell do I do?!

Sounds like a good girlfriend to me, you would probably regret leaving her and besides you did say that you proposed to her. What kind of man walks out on that kind of commitment?

The first thing you need to do is try look deep inside yourself and work out why. There will be a reason, think back to when you first started to feel this way and what was going on at the time. Something might have happened, that at the moment may seem completely irrelevant, but if you think about it some more then it might start to make more sense. There is always a trigger, no matter how major or minor it maybe.

I wouldn't be hasty and end the relationship, at least not yet. Sometimes people don't realise what they've got until it's gone and it's more then likely you would feel this way if you was to pull the plug now.

Don't make any rash decisions.

I don't think that you should do anything. I think that you should wait - don't do anything hastily.

You say that your love for her is 'fading' - what does this mean exactly? If I said that about someone I loved, it would mean that I didn't care any more about their feelings, about what happened to them, and about the role I played in their lives . . . yet, from what you say, it sounds like you do care about all of these things.

Would you miss her if she wasn't your girlfriend? Would you be lonely for her company?

How do you feel about the idea of never seeing her again?

I don't think you should consider breaking up with her until you can say with certainty that you wouldn't miss her, and that you wouldn't care if you didn't see her again - because that might be what ends up happening. If someone proposed to me and called it off, I would be so hurt and confused - I don't think I'd want to be around them.

People as wonderful as this girl you describe are rare and should be cherished. But you know that. Again, my advice is to wait.

^exactly this

You haven't given any real reason for going off her, which makes me wonder if its a phase that could pass quite quickly? Maybe you are a bit overwhelmed by her situation, and the fact you're engaged? If that the case, you might need to spend a bit more time on your own, or with other friends.

Hmm, first instinct is to be quite harsh here; there's been a number of posts here from aspie guys that have gotten 'bored' of their girlfriend. But you're decent enough to try and spare her from your doubts at the moment, and you do sound concerned about her, so I'll try to go easy.

I'll be honest though. I think you are very fortunate and breaking it off would be a huge mistake. If you don't realise that now, you will later on.

Part of your restlessness may be that it's too good. You've gotten complacent. You've got her down as nice and forgiving and all that, so no matter what you do, she'll still be there. Maybe she is too forgiving. Sometimes people need a boot up the behind to realise what they've got and what they'll miss (I'm generalising here, not just picking on you).

If she's the first serious relationship you've had, it's worth noting that relationships do settle around the one year mark. It's not a sign the relationship's over, just that you've gotten comfortable with each other and the initial crush has matured into (hopefully) deeper feelings. You do need to work at staying in love though. There's advice for that on the internet, so I won't offer suggestions here.

I'm not sure what to do about the engagement. I've never been engaged so I don't know what that feels like. I imagine quite scary if you're not 100% about it. The others are right though, she is likely to be extremely hurt if you revoke it, especially with no warning.

Too much information. Come on, if that's really not a problem, did you really have to put that in? Poor girl. It might be nerves. Stress can give people GI problems.

You are put off by "gas"? What are you, 10 years old? If you love someone that doesn't matter. Break up with her and let her find someone who is worth her time.

You don't deserve her.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but its the truth.

Reading comprehension required, I think.

An unhappy one. Duh.


Staying in a relationship with someone you don't love is not fair to you or them. I don't recommend you do anything hasty, it does sound like you've got a good thing, but if your heart is not in it, there's no reason to keep pretending. The more you force yourself to stay in a relationship that isn't making you happy, the more its going to start making you (and by extension her) downright unhappy.

The notion that she'd kill herself if you broke up with her is IMHO a bit egotistic. If that's the case, then your relationship is far from a healthy and happy situation already.

I've pointed this out before and it always gets a hostile reaction from the peanut gallery, but its true: This is a fairly common Aspie problem with relationships. The whole 'lack of empathy' handicap makes being supportive and maintaining intimate bonds over a long period very difficult. We may be capable of forming bonds and enjoying intimacy, but over time, our Autistic qualities tend to win out, causing us to gradually withdraw back into our own little world and begin to resent our partner's need for attention and support - and before anyone starts to argue with this, I refer you to the very definition of Autism itself. Married women log on here every day to complain about this very problem in their marriages to men with AS. It happens A LOT.

It is something to consider if you find yourself in a replicating pattern, both for your own sake and for the happiness of others. Above all else, Be honest with yourself.

I get some of this, although I remain hopeful that we're capable of finding ways to make it work if we stick with it.

When in the first few months of a relationship so many things are still new and exciting. You fall in love, the sex is good, a lot of the things you do together you're doing for the first time as a couple, etc.

As time goes on you start to get in more of a routine. Things become less interesting and more stale. This is often where many couples end up breaking up, because they feel like they don't love their partner as much, they want that new exciting feeling again. So, they split and search for a new mate so they can have that "new relationship" feeling again. But eventually it just happens all over again.

I think that might be what is going on here, you have a lessening of your feelings for her and aren't sure why. I'd say stick it out for a while, and see how things go. You may just be craving that new relationship feeling again, and the fact that you don't feel as strongly as you did when you first started dating could be due to that.

In time you might realize that you do still love her, the love has just grown in a way, so that it's not the exact same as when you first started going out, but it's still there. It seems to me that you still care a lot about her from what you've posted.

Two things, firstly, that is not what he said, try reading his post again. He said that the gas is no big deal, it is the clinginess that bothers him.

Secondly, holy crap are you cynical and quick to judge. I generally try not to make huge inferences about other people, but some guy must have really treated you like crap for you to be as bitter as you are.

He is posting and asking for peoples advice because he cares about her and doesn't want to hurt her, and you are acting like he is Jack the Ripper just because he said she farts often.

Last edited by Variant on 11 Jul 2010, 5:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I'm actually sorta on hale's side. Being capable of assessing a situation in a timely manner is not a crime.

I read what he said. The fact he brought the gas up at all is immature and petty. Its possible he only wants that so he does not feel guilty. It's a foolish thing to ask someone to marry you if this sort of thing happens a short time later.

Reading between the lines you pick up things people say which show their true colours. More people should learn to do that.

I was going to add the following to my previous post, but you've already replied so I'll just put it here:

hale_bopp, I am not trying to be antagonistic with you, so I apologize if I am coming across that way in topics lately. I just find some of your responses to be somewhat shocking, so any incendiary wording is likely due to that.

Now then, as to your response. Reading between the lines, that can be useful, however, that is not what I would call what you are doing. You are making assumptions and leaping to wild conclusions based on those assumptions. He mentions that his girlfriend farts, it could've been a throw away comment, he was trying to think things to list about her that he disliked, and those were the only two he could come up with.

But to you, him mentioning farting equals that he is not good enough for her and wasting her time. I think you are too quick to accept your own inferences as true, and don't really give them adequate time to simmer.

Hardly. If he said there were absolutely no downsides, that would be unrealistic. People - all people, regardless of how wonderful they are - have some sort of fault. I highly doubt where there's some kind of relationship where you love (not be ok with, but love) each and every thing that the other person does, no matter how much you love them. The fact that he is able to objectively say hey, these are faults, but they don't bother me gives credibility to his desire for advice. He's able to say that these are things he can identify as negatives, but they aren't the cause of his diminishing love.

When you project your own emotions on to someone else, you're not reading their true colors.

Its a bodily function, not a personality trait. Its like saying I don't like my partner, because, um, she has freckles in the wrong places or something.

If my partner came onto a forum and made a comment like that I would be horrorfied, its almost like hes making fun of her.

It really stood out to me out of everything else in his post.

Hes asked someone to marry him who he now doesn't want to be with, which is fine, and if it really is the case, he should break up with her straight away because if you're really into someone you don't go off them like this.

I've been in his place with men, and they were the wrong men. Foolish to stay with them.