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Summary
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A person still loves and feels attracted to their girlfriend but misses the excitement of early dating. Frequent arguments and growing annoyance have led them to wonder whether they are falling out of love.
The response suggests that withholding dissatisfaction makes conflict harder to resolve and encourages honest communication about both partners' needs.
It describes early excitement as something that can develop into familiarity and deeper connection, without claiming that every relationship should continue.
Couples psychotherapy is offered if they need help understanding the conflict and working through it together.
Question
Reader · Identity withheldI’ve been dating this girl for about a year and a half, and I fell completely in love with her. She is very attractive, good sense of humor, overall just a great girlfriend. We get in a lot of fights, mostly because lately shes become sort of annoying to me.
\nI don’t want to admit this to her, because it’ll hurt her feelings of course. The main problem in our relationship is that I don’t feel that “spark” anymore and iImiss it terribly. I want to feel like I’m wanting to get into something exciting and new again.
\nLike the feeling you get when you just meet a girl and she’s really into you, and you start pursuing her, and you kiss her for the first time. I just love her way too much to break up with her, but I really want that spark. I feel like I’m starting to fall out of love, also. What should I do?
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Answer
Allan Schwartz, Ph.D.Part of the difficulty with which you are struggling is that you are witholding your thoughts and feelings from your girlfriend. You state that you do not want to hurt her feelings because you love her. While that may be commendable in certain ways, it is not helping your relationship. You are arguing with each other and the fact that there is discontent will not likely be a surprise to her. I rather guess that she does not like the arguing any better than you.
\nOf course, in discussing the problems in the relationship you may not want to tell her that you are thinking of breaking up. First, that could hurt her feelings or, she could be having the same thoughts as you. Second, while that initial sense of romantic excitement is very nice, it is supposed to mature into something even better. For one thing, sexual relationships should become more intense as two people grow in confidence and familiarity with each other.
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No one can tell you what to do because we are all very different and have different needs. Nevertheless, it is interesting that you report loving her very much and feeling very attracted. I sense (and I could be wrong) that you are wanting to run away because that is the easy thing to do.
\nCommunication is what keeps relationships alive. If there are things that you are not content with in bed with her, then, you need to speak to one another, instead of fleeing. Understand, that I am stating that you are having some sexual dissatisfaction that you are not expressing. If that is true, talk to her, talk to her in bed, tell her what you may want. Did you ever consider the notion that she may have discontents, along with you?
\nInstead of running away from something that sounds like it is really good, stay and work it out. At this moment, you are getting annoyed with her but not revealing the true sources of your unhappiness and not thinking that she has some issues as well as you.
\nIf you need help with this then talk to her about couples psychotherapy.
\nBest of Luck
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