[wishy0uwerehere]

My boyfriend and I were together for 2.5 years and just broke up last night. He is a great person...nice, fun, smart, has a good job and a house, etc. We hit it off right from our first date and he was just great to be around. Maybe 7 or 8 months into the relationship, things started to change for me. I was unsatisfied with sex. He couldn't last very long, so I never got off. But beyond that, it just didn't like we were very connected during, which was my bigger issue. This slowly made me lose interest in sex. We weren't really connected in non-sexual ways either. We texted throughout the day and talked on the phone at the end of the day, but the speaking conversations were usually "how was your day?" "oh this happened" "oh interesting" "did you watch the next episode of walking dead yet?" "no i will tonight" etc. Kind of the same in person. He didn't really have any interest in talking about current events or anything else that you can debate and I would never really get into an in-depth conversation with him. Only on certain topics that appealed to him. I just never felt a deep, emotional, soul-mate type connection. (I've only experienced that with one other partner and our relationship was too volatile and unstable.) He was also never serious and loved to joke around. Anything I said, any conversation I tried to start, elicited a joke from him. That slowly got old, and contributed to my sex drive issue. How can I feel romanced if everything either of us says has a sarcastic reply or punchline? For over a year, I fought my low sex drive and forced myself to do it with him. It wasn't bad, it was decent. But it wasn't good. I went off the BC pill, which helped a little, but it was probably too late at that point (had been a year of sex issues). He knew I didn't want it, which hurt and aggravated him. He didn't understand. He asked why I didn't love him, which hurt because I know I did but just couldn't show it that way. Everything snowballed from there. His jokes went from annoying to snarky, which made me even less in the mood, and we just went downhill over the past several months. I wondered to myself if I was truly in love with him and he wondered the same. The relationship became kind of boring. He lives on his own and I live at home, so our entire relationship consisted of me driving up to his house on Friday night and staying through Monday morning. It was fun to play house at first, but then things just got boring. I would help clean the house and do grocery shopping and help him with some work, and of course we would go out and do things some nights, but for the most part I was just participating in his life. We weren't creating our own life. Now, with all the negative things I said, there are positives: I know he loves me and I love him. Our relationship was stable and neither of us would cheat. We enjoyed being around each other and cuddling. I liked helping him around the house and going out with him. He made me laugh. Now that it is over, I am missing the positives and wondering if there is any way we can truly connect the way we need to. We are going to talk on Friday and I am going to see if he thinks we could have one last chance. I do not want to lose a good man, but I know the way it was going would not result in a marriage. Is there any way to change how you connect with your partner? If only I hadn't lost my sex drive, he wouldn't have gotten so aggravated with me and started being resentful, which made me pull away even more...if we could just go back and start fresh, change our mindsets, and work harder at interacting more positively. But I also know at some point you have to draw the line and say "we've tried to fix it and it's not working," because we have had this conversation 3 or 4 times before. We say we will fix our interactions yet it just never changes. I want it to. But as much as I seem to try it doesn't seem to work. I need him to change for me to change, but he needs me to change for him to change. I just don't know. Sorry this was so long, just wondering if any married women have any advice. Should I not be settling for a relationship that's good and look for one that's amazing? I know love isn't like the movies. But I can't imagine saying wedding vows to him, and that says something. Is there any way to fix a disconnected relationship of 2.5 years, or is it too far gone? Any advice would be very appreciated! Thank you!

[atskitty2]

If you want to be married some day, and you can't imagine taking vows with him, then move on.

You've given ample reasons, in my mind, to call it quits.

[Motorguy]

I myself see no hope for this relationship and for marriage this would have not lasted at all. You would have added to the fail marriage in less then a year in this country. You better off being friends with your ex boyfriends but not as a married couple. There is plenty of great guys out there you can start off fresh with and possible getting married some day and live very happily together good luck and God bless you.

[wishy0uwerehere]

I thank everyone for their advice so far. The way things were going, yes this was a relationship I had to move on from. But I truly believe we went down a bad path because we were not properly communicating and interacting. If we had did things differently it would have sent us on a different trajectory. I left out many of the good parts because I am complaining of the bad -- I do love this man. He makes me feel good and happy and I would not have stayed with him for nearly 3 years if I didn't think he could be the one. I think it is possible, but somehow we just did things wrong. Hasn't that happened to others? Marriages that are near failure are saved with marriage counseling or changes of heart. I was just hoping someone could give me advice on how we could try to interact better and get back to what brought us together in the first place.

[Motorguy]

You can only fix a relationship, if you both want to try and repair the damage within the relationship with counseling.Many guys never want to admit nothing wrong with them as it takes two to have issue in a relationship.So if you can get your ex boy friend to go to counseling with you.Then you both can start to just maybe fixing your issue together and possible getting back together. But again maybe your ex boyfriend has move on from you and wanted out of this relationship. So all this would be just wasting time but you don't know till you try. So good luck if you really still love this boy friend he will try as well with you too.

[atskitty2]

Of course it's possible, but you said things started going sour early on (7 months) in the relationship. I think if you're going to make an effort, it must be both of you making efforts, and probably best under the guidance of an unbiased professional.

[raindancer]

The problem I see is that you want him to change. I think that if you don't love a man the way he is, it's a lost cause. He may be a wonderful man and you may be a wonderful woman, but the two of you are incompatible.

Sad, isn't it? I send you a hug, because it sucks to be second guessing our decisions. It isn't easy.

[Something_Awesome]

“Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.”

- Albert Einstein

[wishy0uwerehere]

Thanks everyone for the advice. We met again tonight and are broken up for good. He said although he loved me and we enjoyed being together, we just didn't have the chemistry and connection we needed to make it. He said if it were meant to be we wouldn't have to try so hard. Unfortunately, I know he is right. It is a hard pill to swallow because I love him to death and want it to work, and I feel like I made some mistakes that hurt the relationship that I wish I could take back, but I also know I was trying my best to be a good girlfriend and things played out the way they were destined to. The hard part now is moving on after 3 years!

[raindancer]

Time heals. It's tough, but you'll manage. Take it one day at a time, moving on, moving on.