I am confused, falling out of love?

this is my first time posting on any forum but have been reading alot of them for the past two months, i am currently struggling with my feelings for my boyfriend and would like advice. i have now been with him for 4 and a half years, first two years were on and off as we were both very young however there has always been a lot of love and care. we have had ups and downs, arguments and both been clingy from time to time but have always got through it and somehow got stronger! i have never really had a stable life, childhood problems etc and am very sensitive emotionally. for some reason from april this year until september my life has been the best that it has ever been, i was out of education, my relationship was great and had strong friendships. however i started back up with full time education in september and thats when everything changed. i became exhausted, irritable, and just all around down, i also no longer had any friends as they moved away. i started to notice i was feeling a lot of anxiety. normally my boyfriend would be the one to cheer me up in these situations however he just couldnt. this is when i started to have panick attacks at the thought that i no longer loved him. this distressed me so much and i was house bound for a good week, i finally came to the conclusion that this was NOT because of him as when he was around i felt more calm, relaxed and was even able to eat (i completely lost my appetite). a month later things have gotten better however i am still worried, i am able to be with him a lot more and even feel happiness around him at times but tings arent the same. I know i want to be with him, when we are together we have fun, we are still sexually active and at times everything is great. i am terrified that i am falling out of love with him as i really do not want this to be the case, i dont feel overly excited to see him anymore and dont feel butterflies, i also am not particukarly happy with the rest of my life either which could be a factor, my counciller thinks im depressed...

I honestly dont know why i think im falling out of love with him, everything was fine until i got that thought 'all this is because you dont love him' followed by the panic attacks. after that for a while i couldn't go out or do anything with him because if i wasnt feeling happy i would be like 'its because i dont love him' and have another panic attack. i just donit understand why because i honestly feel i love him and honestly WANT to be with him, i enjoy my time with him (unless im having a bad day) and he is like my best friend! but just ever since that irrational thought popped up i have felt uneasy and obsessed over it a bit:/ other things to mention, i have random crying spells over nothing, im hypersensitive at the moment, cannot concentrate on school work and have no motivation. oh one other reason i thought i was falling out of love is because we were kind of in another honeymoon phase in our relationship before this, you know that strong lust feeling you have, i no longer feel this. i know this is normal and can disappear and reapear in a relationship.

When we don't have an answer for why we feel a certain way, rather than sit in Haven't Got A Clue-ville, we'll pick on anything that (with a bit of shoehorning) would seem to fit... and then believe that self-kidding exercise will put paid to any more discomfort. Only it doesn't, does it. Course not, because it's not reality, is just a self-delusion, and self-delusions don't work. If you were falling out of love with your boyfriend, rather than just leaving the Honeymoon Period ready to enter a new phase, you wouldn't feel better with him around, like you are. You'd feel WORSE. Plus, when you ARE in transit between two major phases (despite the last HP got a sudden fleeting re-surge like a battery that's about to run out of juice), you're neither in one nor the other, are in Nowhere Land. And that in itself can be acutely alarming and angsting or chronically disturbing if you've never before gone beyond the Honeymoon phase (or never with someone you felt this deeply connected with). So let's eliminate that one from the table, shall we? Yes, you sound depressed. But to me, it sounds characteristic of when your hormones have become unbalanced. (However, this begs the question, which is the chicken and which is the egg?) Are you getting enough exposure to daylight now that you've started back in full-time education (which I presume keeps you mainly indoors all day)? How's your menstrual cycle been? And have you noticed any physical changes about you lately? Also, do you tend to feel much happier for anywhere between up to a few hours or a full day following you and he having had a really good sex session? Or do you suppose you could be panicking because with your friends gone - people with whom sharing your attentions meant your relationship got subjected to a little bit of 'watering down', making it somehow safer and less crucial to you - means that you've suddenly been forced to newly realise just how vulnerable you are should anything ever go wrong between you?

many people have said that to me.. that i am linking my feelings to my relationship as it is a big part of my life and is easy to blame and i do take that into consideration! i guess i have never been in this place in my life (despite being with him for 4 years) that there are absolutly no problems with our relationship and things are great(without the HP period) which could contribute to me thinking 'i don't love him' but yes i do feel better when around him, sometimes he is my only source or calmness. And no i am not getting much daylight, since i have started feeling down in my mood i tend come in from school and hide in my room. as for my menstrual cycle, im not sure after a month of feeling this way i came off my birth control to see if that was affecting me. physical changes yes, i have never been fit but lately i have felt physically weak and exhausted, i have lost weight due to my almost none existent appetite and have had a lot of chest problems. the sex session thing, although i have said we are still sexually active, which i do enjoy, my sex drive has decreased a lot! but i think that is because of everything on my mind, my anxieties have always affected my libido. And maybe yes, he is basically all i have now socially and i know that isnt healthy. i keep thinking that maybe if i work on myself as well as the relationship and become less dependent on him, this will help?

It sounds like there are a cocktail of factors involved here comprised of everything mentioned, and that you might be particularly sensitive to a lack of Vit D as exacerbates or creates your PROPENSITY to 'let' these other factors get you down where otherwise they might not. However - you came off the pill? Are you pregnant? Or could you have experienced a very early miscarriage without even having realised it, over which the background part of your mind is, unbeknownst to you, grieving? I think the best thing you could do is go visit your GP and let him/her get to the bottom of all of this much faster. Either that or what I'd HIGHLY recommend is your metallics-free EPA/DHA Super-Strength (1000mg) Omega 3 oil capsules; they're bloody miracle workers for this type of thing and have won actual awards. They treat everything from all kinds of depression and root causes of such (including to the extent of suicidal), to ADD, fatigue, hormonal imbalances including menopause, loss of libido, lessened ability to synthesise vits including D... You name it, they zap it (whether intrinsic or merely situationally-reactive) - a multiple-pincer approach! Put it this way: the original clinical researchers/testers opted to STOP the trial the minute doing so wouldn't leave the trial non-viable - reason being because they felt it *too cruel* to continue depriving the poor control group of its insta-yet long-term benefits! (LOL, sorry to sound like an advert but I'm a long-term user of them so I know what I'm talking about.) Go google for a reputable vits/supplements online outlet and give them a whirl, see if after 2 weeks you suddenly start to feel a whole lot better. If not - it's off to the doc's. Equally, the instigative factor (still treatable by said uber-Omegas) could be this 'unchartered territory' issue because (been there, done that, still doing it) it DOES make you feel unanchored and strangely lose/insecure when entering a totally new and unexpected life-aspect territory such as an amazing relationship ("for bloody once!"), and whether any ill ease begins in the mind, so-called psychosomatically, or in the flesh, makes no odds considering that the mind and body are the one same thing. For example, the latest research reckons that our mental consciousness is NOT limited to inside the brain but resides in every single little cell in our entire beings, and substantiates the claim (imagine that, and doesn't THAT explain a lot!). So I'd say an holistic approach is what's needed here, but that you should definitely make a doctor's appointment, just in case you have any thyroid issues. "he is basically all i have now socially and i know that isnt healthy" Don't agree with this, though. That's a very black & white, surface rule (usually bandied about by the chickens of this world who'd rather not do the hard, hard emotional work such permanently solid intimacy takes and/or feel safer in *numbers*... a pessimistic, 'just in case' viewpoint). Because ultimately it depends on [1] whether you're equally HIS world, [2] whether you're a complicated/changeable personality paired with your almost-exact counterpart, and therefore whether [3] all facets of your relationship are solid and healthy, including the friendship one. Put it this way: were you and he shipwrecked forever on some desert island, thereby with no CHOICE but to be each other's be-all-and-end-all, you would *not* both eventually go mad or see your relationship degenerate because of it. Case closed and the so-called rule adjusted to read, 'If the *relationship* isn't optimally healthy, putting all your eggs in one basket isn't healthy or sensible'. My husband/true soulmate and I have plenty of friends we could each spend separately with, including very long-term, since-childhood ones. But for the first time in our lives, thanks to finally having found our perfect match, we find that 99% of the time we *prefer* to be exclusively with each other, tending to see our social group more out of a sense of duty (our inner nagging mothers, LOL). And whenever we do, we just sit there feeling we wish we hadn't or that either of us were there and that none of our friends are HALF as entertaining/stimulating/mentally and emotionally satisfying. Seriously, we can even have PARTIES together, just he and I - and frequently have done and still do! Plus we work together as well. Basically, in each other's pockets practically 24/7. Sure, it's not for the weak or lazy, but we're neither, we've got big appetites so - folks and strokes. This incredible level of willing, voluntary closeness still constantly surprises us, as well as everyone else (we make most people puke, LOL), in terms of how it works and creates no problems (it's merely called separate rooms/separate amusements for however many hours if ever we feel we need a breather). In short, it's healthy if YOU (plural, triple including the relationship itself) are healthy. So if that's the brand of relationship you suspect you've got in bud format, that's BIG and, accordingly, can be a bit of an on/off mind-f**k whilst you're trying to mentally and physically adjust and adapt to it in the early stages. It's just not your comfort zone, not even a conceived-of comfort zone (these days, I mean). But adapt to it you do, so no worries if that's where your headed. The rewards most *definitely* make it worthwhile. So what I'm attempting to illustrate is this: there's such a thing as worrying about worrying, being bothered about feeling bothered, or slightly depressed about being (seemingly) slightly depressed...which obviously magnifies the original, otherwise handle-able issue which then means you can end up in this vicious cycle for no good reason. Whatever you do/in whichever direction you choose to deal with a problem, however, the golden rule is always this: Whatever/whichever it is, *DO IT PROPERLY*. If you do something properly, fully, consistently, you'll succeed. Berbom! So try EITHER - finding and forging new friendships (or re-forging old ones) OR ceasing to worry about having a whole bunch of friends/rellies rolled into one person, and throwing yourself even deeper into your relationship. After all, if you're bound for Coupledom you're inevitably going to want to start making friends with other COUPLES. So maybe this period is like a shedding of an old skin ready to grow a new, joint one? But yes, this advice doesn't obviously exclude on working and bettering yourself meanwhile; it just means any improvement/enriching exercise doesn't necessary have to be PEOPLE-orientated. How about him? Has he still got any friends to speak of or is he more like your typical man who's finally found his The One and isn't bothered one way or the other? Or what about asking him if he can introduce you to one or more of his own friends if he has them? I mean, he is your teammate so - your problems are now his problems and vice versa, right?

okay things took a bad turn with my boyfriend, after putting myself in a really bad mindset because of googling my feelings it added to my doubts. i am very young and he is my first boyfriend therefore people were saying that it will never and should never last etc, i need to be alone to figure out what i want and the doubts will never go away. this upset me so much and i honestly couldn't stop thinking g about it to the point where i believed it. this is ruining me, i love his so much and know if these doubts disappear and my overall mood was increased we could be very happy. I told him my doubts again last night as they became to seem so real and i couldnt help but cry, he left me saying i need to think of what i want and let him know, he'l undertsnad because he loves me etc. I cried all night and could not sleep, i do not want to give up i really dont i want to be with him, i know i am young but im not interested in other experiences with other people so why are these thoughts circuling me? i cant live without hi,=m he is actually my everything, we have grown up together and i love that, i love how our relationship was but my doubts have taken it over. i know i dont want to break up and im going to propose taking i9t slow to him? so i can work on myself at the same time, get me out of this deperssion and hopefully have a clear mindset. what do you think? i dont want this to end i really dont!

Oh dear. I'm afraid it looks as if you either needed to express your negative state of mind 'in the open' by basically smashing something of value, the only thing being to hand being your romance, or that you're over-responsible and liable to feelings of guilt as had you pushing him away to safety for his own good. Or perhaps you're by-trial trying to eliminate the relationship from the enquiry so as to finally know for certain that it isn't and wasn't ever a source of negative feeling for whatever reasons? Or maybe you needed something to give you permission to finally have a damn good cry, but couldn't do it without a concrete reason to tip you from 'not quite upset enough' to absolutely upset whereupon tears inevitably then follow? I don't know, only you'd know (which one 'pings!' in your mind when you read it - any of those?). I wouldn't have thought it were irreversible or the damage permanent, though. Especially going by what he said. That was a very brave move on his part, too...one I hope doesn't come back to haunt him in the coming days. I'd suggest you pre-emptively put paid to that possibility...email him to say you on the one hand deeply regret having taken your current conflict and confusion out on him and the relationship [I call it kicking the cat], but that a break and him getting out of your crosshairs is probably for the best thing you could have done for his sake just for the time being. I advise strongly against asking him to take things slower, rather than letting this period be a break from contact, because it's a common trigger word seen to be code for, 'I want to date other men'. Put his mind at ease so that he can remain relaxed enough to ENJOY this break, see it as a rare respite and bonus. If he knows there's light at the end of the tunnel and how many 'miles' off it's situated, he won't panic through the usual abovementioned paranoia in that situation as goes something like this: "Hhh! What if there's actually nothing wrong with her and it's really her ruse for creating the time and space to secretly date other men behind my back?!". This thought is bound to occur to him at some point, and what you DON'T want is that thought sticking or else *he'll* become infected with your same dis-ease (that's how it infects), and might *act* on it. So work out a reasonable deadline - or better yet, ask HIM what he'd deem manageable as a break period maximum and minimum (with a view to settling on one jointly after negotiation). This will leave him feeling sufficiently in control as well as capable of enduring the 'fast'. Meanwhile, back at the ranch... These thoughts are circling you - or rather, your mind is doing a circuit to nowhere over and over - because whatever it is is as yet too elusive and inarticulable (you're sensing it EARLY, are obviously overly in touch with still-unconscious signals), meaning only the things you already know and can 'see' can get into the suspects line-up. But you don't recognise the perpetrator because of course, he's not even there in the line-up yet. So you end up just walking up and down over and over, trying to MAKE one of the faces fit...followed by your need for the TRUTH kicking in and preventing you from saying, 'Him! He did it!'....and so there recommences the pacing up and down the line. Are you sure you've started walking in the right career direction? Could this be a source of anxiety, perhaps? Should you think about getting a job instead - even as a year-out from studying? What about a spell of back-packing? Do any of those ideas appeal? They say that travelling doesn't help you to escape problems because they live within you, meaning they follow you wherever you go. But this isn't true because, like life, generally, we have a relationship with the environment, meaning it's theory (mind) plus practical (situation) = experience. If you take yourself literally out and away from the situation, all you're left facing is the THEORY. On its own, theory isn't threatening or confusing, meaning your mind's that much freer thus cleverer and faster at working out what the problem actually was all along. Even one week away somewhere different might do the trick. In the first instance, though, get that doctor's appointment and *quick*. So your To-Do List for tomorrow is this: 1. Phone or email boyfriend (email is best to keep emotions largely out of it). 2. Phone your surgery for an emergency appointment (that it's affecting your day-to-day lifestyle, now, makes it a priority case). 3. Sit and write a three-columned list of all that could be bothering you (include *future* possibilities and inevitabilities like marriage and kids or a job you don't enjoy enough to make your career); all that doesn't feel like a likely candidate; and then a Don't Know column in the middle. To be reviewed daily. Get it OUT of your mind and onto paper. Probably you'll find once you've dumped this mess elsewhere, leaving your mind emptier and clearer, the reason or reasons will suddenly come into 'view'.

PS: Why did you call yourself Fairylights? And why the addition of 1?