I'm losing him

I'm here because I'm horribly distraught. My long-term relationship with my boyfriend is hanging by a thread. We've been living together for 6 years now. When we first met, it was an instant click: I was immediately comfortable being myself around him-- I could open up and tell him things like I could never do with any other person, we had the same sense of humor and spent our first date swapping Farside anecdotes and laughing and crying. We were fast friends and then lovers.

We've had our problems since then. We separated for a very brief time 2 summers ago, but we ended up together again. I'd worked past my reservations about the relationship- I was very young when we got together and I was always a little ansy about being in a permanent committment, but I guess during the tumultous time during and following our separation I reflected and realized that I was done with being a kid, that bouncing from relationship to relationship was getting pretty pointless, and that I was finally ready to settle down and build a meaningful life together with another person-- more particularly, with HIM, because I could see our future together as a married couple with a family and it just seemed so wonderful and so right. And he was on good behavior again, too-- he was sweet and thougtful towards me-- just like he was before things started getting rough. Apparently, he was on the brink of proposal, and then...something happened. I don't know what. Out of the the blue one day, just as I thought things were going pretty swell, he tells me that he's having doubts about our relationship AGAIN. This was about a year ago.

Ever since, he's been flaking out on me. One moment we're talking about having kids, and next the topic's dropped. On two occassions we've gone house hunting, and then excuses start building up-- no house ever seems to be right, don't have enough money for a down payment... and then there's the personal ads-- it seems that he's been receiving correspondence from women on dating websites (we share an email account, so I see the email he receives). I've confronted him about this on two occassions, and both times he's told me that he posted an ad during our separation, but that the only responses he received were from women who were too old, or unnattractive, or promotions from sex sites, so nothing ever came from it... which didn't fully explain why he was still visiting these websites daily, browsing dozens of ads (as I discovered from the internet history one day). Most profoundly, he hasn't said, "I love you," in the last couple months.

Since Christmas, he's been exceptionally quiet and mopey (even for him). I keep pestering him to tell me what's wrong, but he won't. One Friday, he spent the evening at his computer, chatting with someone online. The next day my cat brought a crumpled piece of paper to me. I opened it and found a girl's screenname and phone number on it. I decided I'd had enough, logged onto his computer and went browsing through his archived email messages.

That's when I found more than I'd bargained for. There was a message to a good friend of his describing his deep and undying love for one of his coworkers. Apparently, this girl who he's been close to for a couple years now is leaving his office and he can't contain his feelings for her anymore, so he dropped her a note. As far as I can tell, she is already involved with another person and hasn't responded affirmatively or negatively to my boyfriend's advances yet. There was also no mention of me in the note. Just the fact that his friend (with whom he's discussed this in depth) was right-- he's better than the person she's with currently.

I was devastated. I instantly saw my whole life, my dreams and my hopes for the future disentegrating around me. I was on the brink of packing up my bags and splitting, except I have nowhere to go on the fly. I stayed and he came home, and I said nothing to him even though I was visibly upset. When he asked what was wrong, I told him something else-- I couldn't confront him about his letter. I felt guilty about snooping.

So I've tried questioning him and finding out indirectly what he's thinking and where I stand with him. So far he's behaving as though everything's the same as usual. He seems to still care about me: I asked him why he's still with me and he replied, "because you're a nice person with great sense of humor and you do lots of thoughtful things for me, blah blah blah..." Of course, he's still not sure about a committment and he "has some big issues to work out on his own," that he can't discuss with me, but otherwise he going along cheerfully like nothing's wrong.

I've tried living in denial, but it's eating me up. Unfortunately, I snooped again today and found another note in his email archives-- from him to HER. He sent it two days ago. It's basically asking her what she thought about his note-- whether she's okay with it and they can still be friends, if she has any questions (implicitly-- does she feel the same way about him). I guess she still hasn't responded. I spent the afternoon bawling my eyes out. I don't know how long I can go on like this. It's killing me. I don't know what to do- can't confront him, can't leave (I'm in the middle of a semester in graduate school and I don't have TIME to look for another apartment), don't want to keep spying on him but I'm dying to know how she's going to respond...if it even matters at this point.

I guess what I want to know is...What the HECK is going on inside that convoluted male brain of his? How do you see this situation playing out? Is the girl going to take him up on his offer? Is there hope (assuming she rejects him) that we can work things out eventually and have a future together. And if things don't work out, what's going to become of me? Is there even the slightest hope for happiness in my future once I've lost the one person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with? Is there any hope in the dismal dating scene out there that I can ever find another person with whom I'm compatible as I am with him? I love the guy more than my luggage. sigh.

I apologize for the long message. Obviously this is catharsis for me.

******

had a long conversation with him last night. The other girl was not mentioned or referred to, but what he did reveal is the same thing that's been going on for the past year: he's having doubts about our relationship. Seems that in the long time he had to wait for me to be ready, he lost that spark that he once felt towards me and it hasn't come back. But he loves me too much to let me go. Basically, I have a man who can't make up his mind. I fear for how this situation is going to turn out because it seems to require some sort of drastic change. And it seems that the solution he's moving towards is the one that's going to break my heart. Whaaat is going to happen?

Show all stories by   Author:  47218 ( Click here )