Warning, long story.
Me and my Fiancee(both early 30's) have been together for 12 years and engaged for 7 of those years. We have been living together for 5 years. I have been feeling less like myself these days and have been feeling down often, so I started thinking hard to find out how I can try and fix it myself. I used to have friends I could talk to, but I only had 2 that close, but 1 is more of an acquaintance now and the other is sadly passed. Currently, me and my Fiancee work at the same place for 2 years, but before that we never worked together. I don't think this has anything to do with my mixed feelings, we spend most of our time together anyways and always have. But even though we are together most the time, we aren't always sharing our time together, if that makes sense to anyone.
The first thing I noticed when looking for problems is that I seem to be happy more often at work than when I'm home. Even though we work together, we aren't together that much. When I get home, I feel like I need to be doing something, but I don't always feel like I have the motivation. Sometimes I don't even have fun doing things I normally have fun doing. We work with the public, so we interact with new and familiar people all the time.
The second thing I noticed is that lately I feel annoyed by my Fiancee(not always, but more often than i should), and that makes me feel bad inside. Often I find I have to focus hard when she is talking to me, because I get bored before she can finish her story. I also noticed she hardly makes any suggestions to do things with me anymore, and when I ask her about it, she says it's because her ideas are stupid. She talks like this often lately and hasn't before in the past.
These things made me rethink my living arrangements and life. I Have drifted away from most of my friends and now spend most of my time with my fiancee. We don't go out much but when we do it usually is together. I don't like where I work and plan to leave to better myself, but my fiancee has no intentions on leaving her job, which doesn't pay well but she is happy there because she is used to it. Recently, I have been having doubts about our relationship and started to look for reasons why. The first thing I find that turns me off of the relationship is that she complains a lot about other people. The second is that she doesn't, in my eyes, seem to show much love for me. Yes, she does more than her share of work around the house and takes care of me and gives me kisses before work, but when we spend time together, it's like we are best friends. This next bit is well in the past but I think it's worth mentioning.
Before I met my Fiancee through a friend, I was after getting over a bad break up. I was with this girl for 5 years who I was madly in love with and was promised to be engaged to her, and considered it the same as an engagement. I was living with my gf because I moved in with her into an apartment to help her pay rent because her mother moved away and she had to either go with her or fend for herself. She wanted to stay here, so I skipped the idea of college and took care of her. We planned to start a family. One night we were going to go out to a club with some friends when I caught the flu, so I had to cancel last minute. I told her that she could go without me and that I would wait up for her. I waited until 6am and couldn't stay awake any longer. When i woke the next day she was asleep on the couch in the living room along with one of her girl friends. When she woke up she went straight in the room and continued to sleep for almost the entire day. While she was asleep, her friend told me that she was dancing with one of their friends cousins all night and that they all went to his house after the club. She said they looked pretty close. When I confronted her she dumped me, so devastated, I took an overnight bag and went to my parents house for the night. The next day I drove back to the apartment to find a car parked there. I passed the guy that she spent the night with on the way in. She told me to move my stuff out and that she is not taking me back.
After I moved some of my stuff out, I decided to call her again and demand a reason to why she was doing this to me, and she said it was because I raised my hand to her. We had an argument one day that resulted in her waving something at me and I put my hand up to block an incoming perceived swing, which was misinterpreted as an attempt at domestic abuse. She shouted "yes, you want to hit me" and I laughed and said "watch me" and gave her a playful tap on the bum, then explained that I wasn't raising my hand to her and tried to hug her which resulted in her pushing me away from her. This was a couple of days before the club night. She proceeded to ask me to help move her stuff, and I told her to get her new man to do it. She told me he can do more than I ever could, meaning she slept with him the day of the break up(we never slept together because she told me she wanted to wait, so I respected that). She told me to stop calling, so I did. Later on, she made it a point to announce her pregnancy where i could hear it just to hurt me, only weeks after the break up. This took a huge emotional toll on me, and made me feel like no woman could ever love me, until I met my Fiancee. My Fiancee made me feel like a man again.
When I met my Fiancee, I was in debt and had to go work away from home to pay it off. The first 7 years of our relationship was a long distance one, 14 days at a time with 5 days home. I knew I could trust her, with some people you just know. We were just friends at first, I even told her I didn't want to date her after her showing interest, because I wasn't sure I was ready for another relationship yet. After a while, my friend convinced me to date her, even if it was just for fun, so I did. We ended up seeing each other every time I came home from work every day I was home. After 5 years of this, I decided she was the one for me because she has proved to be faithful to me unlike my last relationship and I felt confident that she wouldn't betray my trust, which became my most important trait to look for. She was also very nice when I first met her, wouldn't even swear. After 5 years, we ended up going on a vacation together and I decided to propose, because I was planning to stay home and start a family in the near future. We have been living together for 5 years now, and I don't feel like I want to have kids with her. I instead am now wondering if I got engaged for the wrong reasons. I never did feel "in love" with her, but I do love her and care for her well being and I know she feels the same. I've always said(to myself) that love has been ruined for me because of my previous bad experience, so I just searched for a good woman(who will respect me for who I am and would never betray my trust) instead of trying to fall in love.
I wonder now if maybe I made a mistake or if I'm just stressed out and overthinking things. I used to look away from other women that I found attractive, thinking that it was wrong to look while with someone. But after many times catching my Fiancee giving a good stare at a handsome man, I started to wonder if I should have dated instead of going straight into another long term relationship. She also likes to talk to other men and carry on(physical acts of play), but it's always clean and I know I can trust her. Lately I find I like to talk to other women and get to know them, and I find some of them interesting to talk to, and feel bad because I don't find my Fiancee as interesting. I then get uncomfortable and stop talking because I feel like I'm disrespecting my Fiancee. I've been thinking a lot about the possibility of breaking up with her and I can't bear the thought of breaking her heart like mine was years ago. I feel like I owe it to her to try and fall in love with her but she feels more like a friend to me these days, and I feel horrible for it. I don't want to talk to her about it yet because I don't want to cause her any stress if I'm uncertain. I worry that maybe I proposed because it was expected of me on both sides of the family.
This is tearing me up inside and this might be my only place to talk about it. I eagerly await any insights.
April 26, 2019, 04:51:56 AM
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