[KingofShticks]

I have been in my relationship with my girlfriend for 8 years. For the most part, it has been an incredibly stable, loving relationship. Of course we have had ups and downs, especially after the three year mark, but we have kind of settled into a very comfortable ‘groove’. It sounds like the ideal relationship. We have been living together for 7 years and I fully expected to marry her and have kids etc. However, in the last few months, I have developed some serious doubts which are making me seriously consider ending it with her. I will give a bit of background to the evolution of our relationship. We both got together when we were 25. we are now both 33. At the time, I lived in a house with three of my best guy friends, and we employed her as our cleaner for 4 years. During that time, we all were very attracted to her, but we were all in relationships, and it was clearly nothing more than a passing physical attraction. In this period, I had a short but very intense relationship with a work colleague which I won’t delve into too much, but we had started out as close friends who eventually fell for each other. It ended badly due to various reasons, but it gave me an insight into what ‘crazy’ love/lust felt like. I think we could have been a great couple, but she had too many issues, and the biggest problem was that she had cheated on her partner to be with me. The guilt on both sides meant we were doomed from the start. I was single for around 9 months, and when we decided to move out of the house, we decided to throw a huge house party to say goodbye. I invited the cleaner (my present girlfriend) to the party, as she had become an important element of the house. I had noticed that on the occasions that we bumbed into each other, there seemed to be a mutual attraction to me, although we never flirted, it was more awkawrd eye-contact and smiles. She didn’t speak much english at all at the time (she is Czech). To cut a long story short, we got together at the party and I decided that I liked her enough to continue seeing her. I was reticent to call her my girlfriend, and didn’t want to put a label on it and thought it would be cool just to go with it and have some fun. I think she was the same, as she had also been out of a relationship for several months. I feel it is important to note that at the time, I definitely wasn’t thinking about a long-term relationship. Anyway, our relationship really blossomed, and to all my friends, we were this real glamour couple who looked great together. My girlfriend is really stunning, and without tooting my own horn, I think I somehow complimented her. It was fun to get to know her as her english wasn’t great, so conversation was always this fun challenge which made talking about things much easier. The first 2 years were amazing – amazing sex, real chemistry, we were so loving towards each other, and made each other feel so secure and safe. However, there was always one niggling feeling always in the background. In the early stages of our relationship, my girlfriend asked me if I would be disappointed if she was still a cleaner in 5 years time. I told her in all honesty that I would – not because I looked down on her for being a cleaner, but more that I would have expected her to fullfill some of her ambitions in that time. And this is where the crux of my problem begins. I remember my friends would ask her what her dreams or goals were, and she would say that she had none. She has no real hobbies or interests apart from going out partying with her friends. Many people find this hard to comprehend – everyone must have some kind of ambition right? Well, my girlfriend has none. I figured that if I was going to be a great boyfriend or husband, I could be the one to try to inspire her to greater things, but I haven’t. Since we have been together, she has worked 7 days a week in two jobs – the cleaning job and as a sales associate in a posh fashion shop. I was working in finance but in 2009, I was made redundant and decided to take some time out. I ended up working as a sales associate in the same brand as my girlfriend, but in a different branch. It was only meant to be a temporary thing until I found another finance job, but it eventually turned into 5 years! To cut a long story short, We barely had time for each other due to our non existent free time together and she eventually started getting disallusioned with me not being in a ‘proper’ job. We still managed quality time sporadically, but usually, our free time was spent in front of the tv. She told me that she nearly broke up with me because she was frustrated that I was just stagnating in my job, and that I wasn’t spending enough time with her. We always managed to work things through though because at base level, we just enjoyed caring for each other. I should now clarify that the issues in my relationship are now on many different levels, and so unfortunately, my post is going to be quite lengthy so please bear with me. When we had our discussions about my career, I always brought up the fact that it was a bit hypocritical of her seeing as she had no intention of ever moving forward herself. She always said that she was happy doing what she was doing, so why stop and that she just wanted to live for the moment (I hate that saying so much). I would always say to her that if we were to have children, she couldn’t live on such a day to day basis, as you have to plan for your children’s futures, not just your own. My mum always told me that she would live for today, but still dream of tomorrow. My other gripe was that it felt like my GF was expecting me to support her soley if we were to have children. I told her that she would have to give up her cleaning and do her retail job full time so that at least she would qualify for maternity pay. We very much had the idea that we would get married and have kids, but it has never seemed practical, and now we are 8 years down the line and nowhere near being any closer to achieving anything. I’d like to point out that my GF is incredibly smart, but has no real education. She left school at 18 in the Czech republic, and didn’t go to uni, so she has no qualifications of note. She came to the UK when she was 21 and hasn’t achieved anything of note and now she will be 34 in december. She could easily have been a store manager by now or even more, but because she doesn’t want to quit her cleaning job – it pays well, she is still only part time at her retail job, which means she cannot apply for management positions. This brings me to the next problem – she is terrified of job interviews. She has on numerous occasions expressed a fleeting desire for a ‘good’ job, but she has no idea what she wants to do, or whether she would be good at it. Despite all her strengths, I think she fundamentally lacks a lot of confidence stemming from her lack of qualifications. Her english is very good now, but she feels it is still weak. I try to encourage her in so many ways to help boost her confidence but she feels like she can’t do anything. Her problem with job interviews is so bad that the moment someone asks her a question, her default answer is “I don’t know”. Even if she was to interview for her own job, she mentally freezes and can’t tell you what she does in her own job, and she is amazing at her job. I have tried so hard to coach her on how to do interviews, and so have many of her friends, but she just ends up getting frustrated and tells us she can’t do it and gives up. This is SO frustrating for me, because I know she can do it, but she has no resolve to fight past the first sign of difficulty. To some extent I have now given on her in this sense, and that I just need to get an amazing job and allow her to be an amazing house-wife. This leads on to our next problem – she wants a baby, but I told her, even if I were to get an amazing job that could support us both, she would have to give up smoking for at least a year, and to slow down in her partying before I allow even 1 sperm near her. Unfortunately, she is ‘not ready’ to do this, and I get the impression that she would only quite smoking if she was to actually get pregnant. That would be too late for me. I would now like to introduce another issue in our relationship. For the last 5 years, sex has been something of a problem. I have always had a very high sex drive, but hers less so. We used to have sex several times a week, but it has gradually subsided to once a month, if I am lucky. I would normally put it down to this being the norm in long term relationships except for one huge problem. A few years ago, we were having a casual conversation about sex, and she told me that if she was being honest, if we didn’t have sex, she wouldn’t really miss it. This was a huge bombshell that really destroyed me for months. Up until then, I felt that our sex life was great – she once told me that I was her sexual soulmate because I had pleasured her like noone before. Our problems started out that she would be reluctant to have sex due to being tired etc, which I was fine with, but after her bombshell statement, it really made me feel so undisirable. Despite this, we managed to talk about it and fight through it, and we managed to recover some semblance of a decent sex life. I have come to terms with the fact that we just need to do it less, and although she doesn’t really instigate anything, once I get her in the mood, she enjoys it and it is all fine…except I have never managed to get her statement out of my mind. As much as I have tried to bury it, it is still there bugging me, to the extent that after sex, I feel guilty, because I think deep down, she is forcing herself to have sex with me because she feels bad that she isn’t able to satisfy my needs. For the most part, I get over it, but when I think about a lifetime of this, this is when I have serious doubts about whether we a meant to be together. I know my girlfriend feels bad about this, and she admits that as much as she would like to make love all the time, she just doesn’t have that urge, and so it is up to me to get her in the mood all the time. She even told me that I could have six months to sleep with as many women as possible so that I could ‘get it out of my system’. I wasn’t sure whether she was being serious or not, but obviously, I never acted upon this offer. In 8 years, I have had my doubts, but I have never contemplated being with anyone else. Up until 3 months ago, I was still thinking that we would get married and have kids, but now I see that I have just been sweeping these niggling problems under the carpet, and now it has come to a real head.

So now we are up to the present day, an event occured that has made me seriously consider all aspects of my relationship. I recently resigned from my job, and in the last week, a girl came into my store to apply for a job. I can tell you that even before we even spoke to each other, there was this instant connection that I have never felt before in my life. She had a great CV and i called my store manager and told her to interview her there and then, as I knew that she would be a great addition to the store. She got the job there and then, and on her way out of the store, she made a point to come up to me to thank me for facilitating her getting the job. There was a real connection that I couldn’t put my finger on at the time (part of it was physical) but there seemed to be something deeper, and something inside me told me that I had to see her again. She was going to train for two weeks in another store, so I wouldn’t get an opportunity to work with her, so I invited her to my leaving party, and that was that. I would like to stress that I had no romantic inclinations, and I just felt that there was something really cool about her which made me want to get to know her. I have many female friends that I am strictly platonic with, so I didn’t see anthing different to them, apart from this instant spark which we had. On my last day at work, I was surprised to find out that she was actually spending the day in my store, and we really hit it off that day. In such a short space of time, there was a real chemistry between us, and we discovered that we had so much in common. On the flipside, my girlfriend and I have hardly anything in common, but I never really saw this as a problem as I don’t think that it is entirely essential to love the same things to have a good relationship. The problem arises in that for all the things that I love, my girlfriend hates many of my interests. I love horror films, she hates them. I love the outdoor and mountains and things, she hate them and only likes being on the beach. I am a musician, and regularly practice guitar – guess what she finds it really annoying when I practice guitar, because it sounds annoying to her and it means I’m not curled up with her on the sofa watching tv. I have always tried to introduce her to my interests in the hope that we can share something together, but I have always been unsuccesful. I would love to take part in any interests that she has, but she has none, apart from partying. Sometimes, we enjoy a game of tennis together, or have a casual bike ride, but these are few and far between, because she works 7 days a week, and is unwilling to give up the cleaning job. Our lack of mutual interests has always been a problem from the start, because it meant that I never felt that I had anything interesting to tell her. My girlfriend would always talk to me about every minute detail of her day, but I never felt inclined to do the same and she would always complain that I didn’t talk to her enough. It always felt awkward at that point because I would feel obliged to dredge up anything about my day just so that I had something to say – it just didn’t feel natural. I think this is a problem with me. I don’t really like talking on the phone, but we still call each other every day during work to see how each other is doing. This means that at home, I have already told her about half my day and there wouldn’t be much to talk about. Sometimes, a random topic would stick, but I feel that my GF has just come to accept this shortcoming, in the same way I have accepted our less-than-satisfactory sex life. So back to the girl at work – on my last day, I gave her my Facebook details, so that she could contact me if she needed any help or advice about work. She added me that evening and we started chatting. I’m not exaggerating when I say it escalated so quickly – literally in the space of a few hours, we had gone from totally platonic messaging to serious flirting. It was so quick that I didn’t even realise it until it was too late, and this was when I knew I had serious problems with my relationship. I had opportunities where I could have referrenced my girlfriend into the conversation and that would have ended any flirting, but I chose not to. Part of it was to do with the fact that I didn’t want to seem presumptious that the girl was interested in me in that way, but it got to the point that it was so clear and I still didn’t stop it. If I’m being honest with myself, this made me realise how stagnant my relationship had become and I unconsciously wanted something to happen to see if things were really that bad. My girlfriend had just gone on holiday back to Czech for a week, so I invited the girl out for pizza down my local pub, but I brought my housemate and a mutual friend along to keep the platonic vibe. My intention was that I would be forced to tell her about my girlfriend and then the flirting would stop. So we had a great time as friends and I invited her back to my place to crash as she lived very far away. I would like to stress that even at this point, because I had told her about my girlfriend, I had no intention of doing anything and I told her she could take my bed and I would sleep on the sofa. We watched a horror movie in my room, and the girl told me that it was fine for me to sleep in my bed, as there was enough room for us not to touch, and we could use separate duvees. I guess even at this point, I thought it was fine and nothing would happen. I have done this many times before with female friends and never been unfaithful. We lay in bed for several hours just talking about life etc, and we really had an amazing connection. I think in my head, I had already accepted that I had emotionally cheated on my girlfriend at this point, and I thought ‘what the hell’ and decided to just go with my feelings that night. We ended up kissing, but nothing else, but I told her everything that I have just explained about my relationship. It turns out the girl had been through an almost identical relationship and empathised with me. We also aknowledged that we already had a deep connection and attraction after just a few hours of meeting. I know this sounds incredibly naive, but I can honestly say that I have never had an urge to cheat on my girlfriend until this point, and then even then I didn’t want to. During my girlfriend’s week away, I have continued contact with this girl and I did not miss my girlfriend at all. The last few times she has been away, I actually looked forward to being on my own, and didn’t really miss her. I would like to stress that I have not slept with the girl, but we have just continued to have developed a very intense bond through our conversations. The girl is almost the opposite in that the has a degree, is equally smart but more ‘educated’ and has great ambition.

So that is my story. My relationship has been safe and comfortable, but in my mother’s own words, we “make a charming couple, but I don’t see a partnership – you haven’t achieved anything together in 8 years”. Now I have come to see all the shortcomings that are bearable on a day-to-day basis – the lack of ambition, the refusal to give up certain things for a greater goal, my difficulty in having decent conversation, the lack of common interests or quality time, and the strained sex-life – and when I try to imagine a lifetime of this, I now really doubt that I can see a future together. The fact that I have essentially done the previously unthinkable and cheated on her now makes me doubt the relationship even more. I obviously care for her a great deal, and I’m sure she does for me as well, but is this enough? I apologise for this huge story, but I think I need to make a life-changing decision and I would appreciate any advice before I potentially make the biggest mistake of my life

Thank you so much in advance.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Do you have a question for me?

[KingofShticks]

Hello there, yes. Based upon all that I have described in my original post, do you think my relationship is worth persisting with, or is it doomed to fail eventually? Thank you for your reply

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Your question skirts the issue of what it is YOU want for YOUR life. 😉 If you persist, you’ll have more of the same. If it’s doomed, you could still have more of the same, or you could break up. It feels like you’re just playing defense and falling into situations. You need an offensive plan that addresses your goals, your hopes and dreams and your future. 😉

You have spent a lot of energy telling your story, but you’ve buried the most important part in there — that you doubt the relationship, and your cheating on her has made you doubt it even more. Regardless, now, you have to decide if, [i]given what you want for yourself for your future[/i], and what you have with this woman, if you want to leave the relationship or not. However, if you do break up with her, my advice is not that you not rebound into another relationship. Instead, be single for a while and figure out, as clearly as you can, what you want for yourself in your life for the future, not just right now. 😉 Relationship success has a lot do with self knowledge. Knowing what you bring to the table, what you want from a woman, and what your deal breakers are — is crucial. I hope that helps!

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