Is it time to end a 3 year relationship with my girlfriend ? Looking for some input - Complicated?

Your feelings are totally natural for someone of your age and maturity (from what you’ve described). From your details, it sounds like she is laying a lot of guilt on you for feeling the way you do. If that conflict and codependency is expected in the relationship, then it is not setting a good tone for things to come.

Your instincts are there for a reason; as a young adult, sometimes, instincts may be all you have to go on (lacking relationship and general life experience). Things do get better as you get older, but in the midst of all your social and educational activities, this seems like one thing that has the potential to affect all the other things in your life.

I’m not sure I’d hand over that level of trust to anyone who doesn’t have a sense of respect for how I feel, or respect enough (after three years) to open up and be more emotionally committed to the relationship.

Start your evaluation of the situation with how your communication channels are at this point in the relationship (after three years of commitment). You should feel you can set high standards for yourself if the goal is to find a long-term companion.

Then, figure out what your priorities are at this juncture of your life…advocate for yourself!

You have a lot of insight into the state of the relationship, which is good. I agree with sndfreQ that you shouldn’t feel guilty about however you feel—or about the fact that you don’t know how you feel.

I could try to give you more advice, and I hope others will, but mostly I think this is the type of situation that you should talk about with someone who you know and trust—a friend or family member, in person. Your description here is very smart, and you should repeat it or show it to someone in person who is familiar with your relationship. They will be able to give you more specific insight than we will.

First of all, I think you should search you heart and discover how you really feel about this girl, and where you would like things to go. Do you want this relationship to continue, or are you trying to repair things because of feelings of guilt?

One of the most important things in keeping a relationship going is good communication from both parties. If she is unwilling to talk things over, you can’t be expected to carry the load indefintely.

If you find that you are no longer in love with this girl, and you see no future in the relationship, you owe it to both of you to be fair and end it now before there is any further heartache. Don’t drag it out, because it will only lead to more pain for you both.

If, on the other hand you find that it is worth salvaging, you ned to sit down with her and tell her that you do love her, but you both need to work on some things, and she needs to learn to open up to discussing her feelings with you. if she is unwilling to do the work needed to repair the relationship, it’s senseless to waste anymore of either of your time.

You sound like an intelligent and caring young man, and I wish you all the best.

Woody Allen has a great line about relationships, “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”

From your description of the relationship, it sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about your relationship with your girlfriend, and this isn’t it for you at 23. You sound like you want time to go out, meet lots of new people, party, hang out—all normal activities for your 20’s—and your girlfriend is more of a homebody. You’re not in the same place. And that’s okay.

Do not commit to something that you are not ready to commit to. There’s plenty time ahead for choosing. You need to concentrate on figuring out who you really are, and fully transition into adulthood. That usually doesn’t happen until your late 20’s. You need to travel abroad, and do at least one thing thing that’s a leap of faith without having to ask anyone’s permission, before you think of settling down.

Breaking up will be hard on both of you, and it may actually be harder on you than on her, in ways that you really can’t imagine. You may decide that you really do love her, and she may have moved on by that point.

It’s okay to admit that you’re not in love with her. Just because you were in love with her, doesn’t mean you have to stay in love with her.

You began this relationship when your were only 20. At that age most people are not ready for the last new romance of their lives, the one that they will keep forever. At that age you can grow and change greatly in one year, never mind three. It sounds like you have. If at 23 you are asking how to restore the spark, what’s it going to be like in ten or twenty years? That’s an old guys’ question.

Comparing your girlfriend with others is probably misleading and unfair. There’s no hope for a relationship in which you constantly wish the other party were more like somebody else. You have to want her to be herself. At the same time, until the person you’re with looks better to you than anybody else out there, you are not in a position to make a commitment.

If you were 53 instead of 23, I would say there are ways you could work on this to come back from the edge of separation and close the distance between you. But you are very young. It sounds to me as if the best choice for both of you would be to move on. You still have plenty of time, both of you, to find new partners and form new relationships. You are both pushing in that direction in your own ways.

It is very good to see you taking responsibility for your share in how things have gone and to want to work on your part in it. Those are hard-learned lessons that will help you greatly when you move into a more mature relationship. For now, I think you have to understand that loving someone is not by itself enough of a reason to stay together, no matter how things look in the movies. I think you have already heard the answer in your own heart, and it comes through in your question. You just have to listen.

Other people have already given some primo advice. There’s only one thing I’d like to add. You say, I am constantly comparing her to other girls and thinking to myself; ‘why is she not like all the other girls?’ Not all the other girls are the same, and if you leave your girlfriend and date around, you’ll see all kinds. You might be experiencing a “grass is always greener on the other side” moment, but it’s not always that green up close.

One nice thing about strangers on the internet is that they’re willing to tell you to break up with her. Don’t search your heart for the answer. Your heart doesn’t have one answer, it’s confused and ambivalent. You, on the other hand, have the ability to think and decide what’s important to you. I think Jeruba’s right, and you already know the answer.

You may want to try and change, but that won’t really change how she feels (distrust, etc.). Stop hurting her and yourself. It’s time to move on. Be kind. I wish you the best.

listen I only had to skim through your question to figure out the answer to this question. You have been dating for 3 years, If you don’t know you want to marry her by now (because that’s probably the next step) then you need to stop wasting time and find someone else who makes you happy. if you don’t love her or arn’t sure, then you should break up with her out of fairness, because she deserves someone who loves her more than what you can provide her, and be fair to yourself. you both deserve a better relationship that isn’t just spinning its wheels in the mud.

You are obviously no longer invested in the reletionship or your future with this woman. Respect her, and yourself, and break it off as soon as possible. Eventually you are going to do it. When she finds out how long your thoughts were elsewhere, it’s going to hurt and anger her. There will be a lot of turmoil and clamor in your future, pay attention, and learn. Good luck.

I’m reading your description, and feeling an unhappy picture take place. You say you are OCD and you have treated your girlfriend badly. You say she doesn’t like to go out, and that she takes this treatment over and over, without leaving.

I’m putting disparate things together here, so this could really be far off the mark, but I’ll try, anyway. In my experience with mental problems (which is only a year or two old), I’ve found that certain types of folks seem to find themselves together.

Bipolar folk, for example, seem to get on very well with folks with ADD or OCD. Bipolar folks can’t see the trees for the forest, and ADD/OCD folks have difficulty seeing the forest for the trees. Put them together in working relationships, and you have a great team.

Well, personal relationships are a kind of team, although I’m not sure if it can be as workable as work relationships.

Anyway, your girlfriends sounds like she has low self-esteem. She’s willing to take the shit you dish out, and is afraid of losing you. Also she doesn’t like going out or to parties. This suggests shyness, certainly, but possibly also depression.

I don’t know if she has enough of these things to amount to a diagnosable illness, but it doesn’t seem to help. It causes you to disrespect her, and her to mistrust you, and now you’re in an ugly cycle where no one wants to commit to the other.

Despite all that, I’m getting a strong sense you wish the relationship was fixable, even if you have little in common. You say you love her though all that other crap that’s going on. You say you want that you want things to be ok, and to feel those feelings again.

I’m beginning to feel like a broken record here, but here’s the deal. If you really want to fix the relationship, the only thing that will help is communication. Serious communication where you both spill all the secret thoughts out, and then see how you can meet each others needs or wants. I’m afraid that this probably has to be done with a couples counsellor. You need someone as an expert listener, but also to make sure you both respect certain rules about communication. You have to listen, and you have to be ready to hear a lot of stuff that will piss you off, without holding a grudge or seeking revenge or getting defensive.

You’re young, and probably this is your first long term relationship. You probably weren’t expecting to hit a bump at three years, but this is a common time for relationships to founder. It will take a lot of hard work to rebuild your relationship, and I think most people here are sensing that it’s time to throw in the towel. They might be right. I’ll say this: if you aren’t ready to do some serious hard work on this relationship, then they’re right. Try again.

If you really want to work on things, then get help. Both you and your wife may have mental conditions that make relationships more of a challenge. You also, I believe, won’t be able to sort it out without professional help.

Like I said, I’m reading an awful lot into your comparatively short description, and I might be way off. Whatever happens, I wish the best to both of you.

You may need to talk to a therapist or other mental health professional about this, because “relationship” doubts are a very common OCD obsession/rumination. Sometimes, as you said, it is hard to tell where the OCD ends and reality begins.

I got through about the first two paragraphs of your explanation, that was enough for me, you need to talk to someone more about your ocd, and you need to not blame her for what you are thinking. She is her own person. You are yours. If you dont’ have much in common, then there is a great chance that you and she will never be able to carry out a real relationship, because you will always judge her for something that you shouldn’t care about to begin with. If I were you, you should be glad that she isn’t out there trying to party all the time, at least she is safe at home, and not taking risks with her life. I don’t think that you are giving her the credit that she deserves.
Many times people with ocd, will not realize that they are the problem with certain issues, you have that in your advantage. You know that you are both different and that you are not really meant for one another. Now you need to start realizing that you are holding the both of you back, and you should really let go of one another, because neither of you want to be miserable because you want to stay together. I think you are on the right track thinking about what you are doing and saying to her. Hope this helps, good luck to you and your lady.

Thank you all so much for your answers. I talked to her about the problem and we decided to open up to each other more and so far it is working great. I am beginning to feel better about her.

Stop blaming your OCD

own the situation

try personal responsibility

a relationship requires

honesty
loyalty
mutual interests AND mutual values
LOVE

(if you cannot date without sex it ain’t love)