My boyfriend and I have been together for almost a year. In the first 6 months or so he was very upfront about his feelings for me and went out of his way to do little things for me all the time. I was a bit apprehensive about the relationship because I hadn’t been in one for a while and was scared of getting hurt. Around 6 months, he told me he could see himself marrying me someday. This really freaked me out, but by 9 months I finally came around to the idea and realized my feelings and that I was just being scared.
Around this time, my boyfriend started to become emotionally distant. In October he started a new job in a city about an hour and a half away from me which probably didn’t help, but he said at times he feels bored with the relationship and feels like he just isn’t really an emotional person. His parents’ relationship with him and with each other is not very emotional which could affect his views of relationships, but I am confused how he could be so upfront about his emotions in the beginning, but all of a sudden change. He grew up in a military family, so he thinks he sees people as temporary and craves newness in relationships. He has been having a semi-flirty relationship with a woman at his new job. He is a bit self-conscious and thinks that this search for “newness” is really more because he likes the chase because once he finally “wins” a woman over, he feels validated.
He has been seeing a therapist for about a month and she thinks he is scared of intimacy. At his therapist’s orders, he is supposed to avoid talking to the woman at work, which he has told me he is doing. Not very much has seemed to change. A few days after he sees his therapist he seems to get a bit better and try more, but then reverts back to old behavior.
His therapist is unable to meet with him again until the beginning of March and told us to stick it out and stay together until then, but I don’t know how much longer I can. I have tried very hard these past couple months to be understanding and work on my own issues. I am aware I have been a little needy, but I think his behavior makes me more needy than normal because I am so desperately seeking emotional support and intimacy from him. I love him very much and I want him to get better so we can be together and be happy, but I don’t know if that is possible.
Are his issues too deeply-engrained to be fixed? Is it possible we can be happy like we were earlier in or relationship?
Sorry this is so long. 😀
