Boyfriend unsure of feelings

Hello! I have a problem with my relationship and it is tearing me apart. I have been trying for a long time to analyze it rationally but I feel that I need help from an expert. My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 months, we are both 22 years old. He has been under a lot of stress with his job, family and friends. I have been supportive and caring. In July he got even an erectile dysfunction and lost appetite for sex so we have had sex for three times since. This shows that his stress is really bad. I have taken any pressure off him, thinking that he will get intimate again when he is ready. He has an appointment scheduled with a psychologist in November. I don't think that he has depression yet, because I study psychology at university and have personally had this disease before, but of course I am not sure, so I hope that a psychologist will suggest him going to psychiatrist if (s)he will think he might have it. But there has been an issue for me I cannot put my mind at ease with. Right from the start he has been rather reserved and not passionate, although we have talked about our lives a lot. He would kiss me only when we met and said goodbye. He wanted to take things slow right from the start, he wasn't sure about relationship. I gave him the time he needed and we ended up together. Now, after 5 months I finally asked him, what he felt for me and told him that for me to feel secure in a relationship, I need to know where we stand. We didn't have a fight, we discussed it for an hour, because I figured it was best being honest. During this hour he told me he didn't know what he felt towards me and it was complicated for him to open up about feelings. I asked him to think about it. Then we had this conversation again in a week. I told him about my fears about our relationship and that we have different personalities and commitment styles. I told him I would try to cope with our differences but I didn't know how long I could do that. He was very understanding and told me he understood well that I wanted him to communicate his feelings and he would try to do that, so I could help him with that. I agreed and was happy. A week after that he sent me text message that said "I still don't know what I feel towards you, but I am happy with you and I hope it will suffice in the mean time". I was heartbroken, because I have always had a fear of one-sided love and right now I feel like I am the only one in love. And I am not sure I can continue in this relationship, as I can't know for sure, if he'll ever love me. I have thoughts that if he really liked me, he would have known by now how he feels. I don't believe in everlasting love and we want different things in the future, so we don't have all the time in the world. He trusts me a lot and tells me about himself, he just doesn't know about his feelings towards me. We are very honest. Right now I'm thinking that I cannot be in a relationship, where my boyfriend acts just like a friend: he likes me and spends some time with me, but that's it (doesn't show his affection physically nor verbally). I can feel that my need for more intimacy is not the same with him. But because he is under a lot of stress I can't even see a possibility to take a break or end a relationship without his stress getting worse. What do You think? (Thank you for responding.)

First of all I don't think it is fair that you should be responsible for his stress levels. He is a grown man and you have only been together for 5 months. No way should you stay with someone just because you don't want to hurt them. If he has been distant from day one and is not sure how he feels about you my guy instinct tells me you should move on and find someone who does know how he feels and is willing to value you as a boyfriend should. If he is genuinely depressed maybe with help things in the relationship will improve. Maybe wait until he meets with the psychologist and see what comes of that? I personally would be hanging around forever though. Self preservation come a first. Don't allow his issues to chop away at your self worth etc. I think that once you are satisfied you have given it a chance and your best shot then you should definitely feel justified (if that's the right word) in deciding to move on to something better for YOU

Agree with Super Sarah. So that's the what to do. Here's the why in deeper form (in a one-off posting due to my having too many other threads on the go). And I'm going to focus on you first, not him. You got together end May/early June (5 months ago). For the alleged depression to have noticably affected his sex drive by July has to mean his alleged stresses and inability to better cope with them pre-existed your getting together as a couple. Men don't tend to like the thought of formal therapy. To them, it strikes as an admission of failure (please click on 'My wife is taking stress out on me' to hear this from one of the horses' own mouths). Normally, prior to attachment taking involuntary effect on them (as takes longer than it does on women), men pay for sex using a relationship...whilst women pay for a relationship using sex. But this is not the ONLY deal going on the shop shelf. It's therefore common for men to agree to going into a romantic relationship with you (because they can see that's what YOU more or less want (emphasis on more or less)), in the secret hope of getting free therapy (or extra leniency) into the bargain. This is par for the therapist's course, whether she be formally qualified or just have a natural-born talent at it. It is ESPECIALLY par for her course if she is commitment-shy. You admit yourself you've *never* believed in everlasting love (well, tough, because it certainly believes in you, same as in everyone). But you also say you're heartbroken. Also, that you've always feared one-sided love (i.e. you the short-changed one). It's not hard to join the dots: Before you'd had a chance to undergo bonding with him, you thought you could protect yourself against 100% heartbreak - whether drip-drip style heartbreak via uneven feelings or bang-crash-wallop heartbreak through a break-up - by finding someone capable of bonding some yet incapable of doing so to the fullest degree. This would explain why despite right from The Off the guy wasn't forthcoming or passionate (a symptom of weak attraction), you failed to reject the idea of proceeding further. You didn't bank on getting attached despite your best conscious efforts, though. Course you didn't. It was never a consciously-controllable process in the first place. Never is. So, now, suddenly, you find yourself wanting more. And instead you've found yourself with even less than you started with. Enter him finally having a formal session booked in November and, hey-ho-whaddaya-know, he suddenly finds himself strangely and inexplicably even less interested than before in nurturing or strengthening the relationship with you. Of course. Because X% of what little passion (= big reticence) you witnessed, was actually a burning need in romantic clothing...a need that had had nothing to do with love and romance in the first place, but which when added to the so-so genuine portion, felt like it. It was GRATITUDE for and a wish to sustain the free-of-charge, embarrassment-free counselling. He himself probably isn't even aware of this, hence is having trouble explaining himself through any other reasons that make strike as plausible and make perfect sense. At the same time, having in a corner of your mind realised you've been involuntarily falling more deeply for him, and that making you panic - you decided that having "The Talk" - that prematurely heavy type of conversation which is KNOWN both theoretically and instinctually for being majorly off-putting to the gender that needs challenge/risk and intrigue to keep them in the game long enough to bond - would be a convenient way to wriggle OUT of this now-threatening relationship with it's greater-than-50%-attachment-equals-heartache potential, whilst appearing to have been the victim to his perpetrator. After all, if you're the victim, you can go back to clinging onto your erstwhile, discomforting yet perversely comforting, heart-protective thought that true love simply doesn't exist for you. The long, short and curlies of this is that, despite you'd rather NOT have to go through that 50% painful detachment process in the first instance, as now looms, you are now more confident and readier to attract and accept a man who has one PURE need alone - that for LASTING MUTUAL LOVE. Not secret therapy, not just regular sex-on-tap, not someone to look after his kids or do his washing or keep friendless him company on a Saturday night and all public holidays ET-CETERA AD NAUSEUM. Just love. Remember your driving instructor used to tell you, Never focus on the oncoming cars, see them only using your peripheral vision, or you'll do the very thing you fear as has you over-focusing on them to begin with (crash into them)...and, Nor focus on the road too far ahead or immediately around the bonnet or you'll leave yourself incapable of noticing and responding to hazards and danger in the mid-ground (and will crash)? That's the likewise ironic thing about daring to enter 100% Pure Love (whilst neither trying to keep at a 'safe' distance nor force and rush closeness), KITSUNE. It tends NOT to lead to 100% heartbreak IN THE FIRST PLACE. Here endeth the lecture to yet another self-fulfilling negative prophesizer. ;-) Now dump the semi-dud and go get yourself/go get yourself gotten by your REAL deal. After all, he's quite capable of proving he ISN'T a dud and IS the real deal, a big, grown boy like him. It's called, The (Re-)Chase. ALTERNATIVELY, he might have had TWO impure needs to keep you around, other than that already abovementioned. It could be that this "depression" (as strikes you as strangely a bit too DIS-similar to your own past episode) is that old chestnut that goes: "It's not that I'm not that into you or secretly into/still into and seeing someone else/my ex whom I like better/want to get back with. It's because I'm DEPRESSED. So don't dump me [yet], will you. Stick around for longer [just until I'm ready to dump you] because otherwise you'll make me feel worse [which will make you a grade A cow]." This would equally explain his sexual disinterest/alleged impotence, wouldn't it (because he's getting it elsewhere). And, likewise, are any of the stresses he's been under genuine or just what he's told you (to justify his otherwise suspicious semi-disinterested behaviour)? So - ultimate question: do you know for a FACT he has a therapy session booked in November or did he just SAY he did? Define 'taken any pressure off him'. Does that mean, agreed to let him see me and/or take me out on dates less often? I obviously can't say for sure, but I suspect this is what was occurring to Super Sarah, especially apparent in her second paragraph. (That's my 2-penneth-worth; hope it helps. Now handing you back to SuperSarah (or any of the other advisers) because it sounds like she has a really good handle on the case.)

ok first of all i feel you should stop making excuses for yourself on his behalf to not let go of him, obviously hes not in the right state of mind to be taking you & your relationship with him seriously with whats been going on in his personal life. You cant force something/situation on a person that has far more important things in his life he needs to sort out and think of, I dont mean to put you down but if your telling us all this stuff then obviously you can see that your just adding more concerns to his problems. sounds like hes got all these obstacles being thrown at him & theres only one him that. for someone to be in this situation i dont think hes ready to be in a relationship and you even said that the love is only one sided, I feel if you were to ready what you typed you can see that all the odds are against yous and nows just not the right time to persue a relationship with someone who wont love you the way you want to be loved.