I'm new to the board in terms of posting, but I've used this forum for advice in the past and I just want to start by saying it's great to finally sign up and that a lot of you have already helped me with different things and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Good to be here It's unfortunate that my first post be what is is, but sometimes you just have to dive in This is a long story, so I apologize in advance and thank those who get through it in advance as well. It means a lot. I've been in a relationship for the last 4 plus years with an amazing woman who I love very much. We've been through so much together in just these 4 years, more than a lot of people in long marriages have been through. What I mean by that is my girlfriend and I both suffer from an illness. I don't want to get into the details of that as it's not important what the name is, it's a disease that destroys a lot of lives in many ways (not STD or terminal). We didn't have to deal with this at all for the first year and a half and everything was just amazing. We traveled, went to shows/festivals, camping, the beach, just doing the things that young people in love tend to do. Our love was strong, sex was great, and we were extremely happy. Things got different when we got ill. We found ourselves replacing the beach trips and concerts for hospital stays and long days in bed (not the long days in bed we had use to enjoy). However, our love never faltered. If anything it strengthened. We were both in our lower 20s when this all began and we both took pride in the fact that we stuck by each others side. We both felt that most younger people would have found an excuse to bail, I mean, who would rather sit around in the hospital for days with your gf/bf when you could be partying with friends and having fun? Us. We would rather have done that because we cared that much. We always felt that we are soul mates and we belong together. This continued for quite sometime, years actually. It forced me out of work for quite some time as i could hardly walk many days, and out of music which is my driving passion. She was able to work part time and try finishing school, but it always felt like one step forward and two steps back for both of us! Fast forward 2 1/2 years and here we are. Both are still very ill, not at all where we expected to be back so many years ago when we were so in love and full of goals and dreams. As you can imagine this has taken an incredible toll on our relationship, I feel like it would for anyone. It seems that we have focused so much of our time and energy into each other that we've neglected ourselves for quite a long time. The last year has been pretty bad. Fights. Doubts. Questioning. The things that come with having way too much time on your hands and no way to fix it.we started taking our love for granted. I think we started to think that because we've been through so much together that no matter what we did or said to one another, we'd never actually leave. Big mistake. Taking love for granted is one of the worst mistakes I've made in my young life, I'll never do it again. We broke up in February. We both saw it coming, it was just a matter of who pulled the trigger. She did, but I didn't blame her, nor did I fight her. Deep down, I felt the same way, she just had the courage to do it before I did. She told me she needed some space. Time to think things through and figure out how to rebuild her life. Now, I know a lot of times when a woman says she needs "space" that it means she's met someone and wants to see if it's worth exploring, but doesn't want to completely let go of the relationship she's in. I asked her if this was the case to which she said no. Honesty has always been an extremely strong part of our relationship and if we tell each other something, we believe it. I do believe her. Space can also mean just that, she needs some space. We all do sometimes. I finally realized that I did too. i got myself back to work, back to playing more music and around my friends. It was a good thing for both of us. February and March went by with very little contact between the two of us. In April we started to reconnect a little bit as good friends who were in love, I don't know how else to put it. We decided we wanted to work things out and things have been going pretty well between us. The honesty has been stronger than ever, our communication, which was always our biggest problem has improved immensely! And we started having sex again, which is great as well. The illness we've suffered from has caused huge problems with her sex drive. We used to hardly be able to keep our hands off each other, even after we both fell ill, it was only the last year that it changed. It's been hard for me because how could I be mad at her? It's not ask she was simply withholding sex as some sort of punishment, she literally had no sex drive. My only argument was that there are plenty of things outside of sex that can be done to make us both feel wanted. She's realized this and feels very bad that she didn't take into consideration how patient I have been and that most guys would have started seeking sex outside of the relationship. Cheating was never an option for me, nor her. It's just not who we are. That's why when she told me she wasn't seeing anyone, that was the end of it. So now we are here in June and since we've been hanging out a lot more we've had two fights, just a breakdown in communication. However, we've done great with making up and realizing what we did to offend the other without having to be told what it was we did. For us, that is huge. I guess my main question is, what do we do from here? I'm very confused as I want to be with this amazing woman, and she tells me she wants to be with me. So, why aren't we together? When we ask each other if we want to see other people, our answer is, "no because they're not you." So I ask again. If we don't want to be with anyone else because we are in love with each other, why not be together? We're starting to realize that a decision has to be made soon. No longer can we use the answer of, "I don't know" as what is going on with us. Have we been through so much together that our love will carry on and help us push through together? Build on our future that we've dreamed of that ends in marriage and a family? Or, have we just been through too much for two young people to bounce back from? I go crazy asking myself these questions at night. Something that is so simple is actually somehow extremely complicated. If we are madly in love with each other, have no interest in being with anyone else, and want to be together, than why aren't we? Can anyone relate to a situation like this? Illness aside. Just being at am impasse like this where the answer seems so simple, yet it isn't.
Well, obviously you want to be with her. She seems to be the one not wanting to be with you. But it sounds to me that you're both "technically" together, despite not actually being "technically" together... if that makes sense. So who cares about the official label/definition of the relationship? You both still have an intimate relationship with each other, so why not just accept it for what it is without the label?
No such thing. Making a committment to a person who is constantly ill is tough enough .... when you yourself are ill as well it doesn't get much better. Give each other as much room as possible.
Yea, I really want to be with her, but I also realized that a break was necessary. For a couple of months I just did my own thing, went out with my friends, messed around with another girl, and just got back to being me. It was her who decided to really try working things out, which obviously I was all for. And as far as putting a label on it, I totally get what you're saying by asking what does it matter. And you're right. If things are good, what does putting a label on it matter, what matters is that things are good, a hell of a lot better than they were. My only concern is that will all of this end up being in vain? I feel like when either of us asks the question of what are we actually doing, at some point the answer of "I don't know" which is the answer we both use, is going to start to be a cop out for lack of a better word. But yea, I mean right now we're both at that stage where we're realizing all over again why it is that we fell in love, that's an important thing. I was just wondering what other people in situations like this did, or didn't do. That's what I meant by illness aside, because plenty of people have been in this "limbo" like situation in a relationship. I don't want my time wasted, and I damn sure don't want to waste her time. I want nothing more in the world than for her to be happy, and I deserve the exact same, even if that means that it is for the best for us to split. It's just a challenge finding the right balance and not trying to rock the boat too much while things are going well.
Giving room and being patient doesn't necessarily mean wasting time. There's tons of things you can do with your time besides having a relationship.
Absolutely. I agree 100% which is why I respected her wishes when she asked for space. I just wanted to know if it was because she had met someone else, because if she had I would have just made a clean break and go our separate ways. I'm sure she told me the truth so I backed off, gave her some space, and went on about ways to fix myself. Just work on me for a while. What confuses me is that it seems that she is very confused as in she wants space, but also wants to be around me a lot of the time. I don't pressure her into any decisions. If she wants to hang out, she gives me a call and she comes over. She thanks me for not putting pressure on her and respecting that somedays she may want to spend the night with me, somedays she just needs to be alone. I can respect that because I need the same. Of course there are tons of other things that can be done without having a relationship, I guess I wasn't very clear about expressing that we are both doing those "getting back in touch with myself" sort of things. I think we both just got so unhappy (which being sick all the time will tend to do) that it got hard for us to see each other that way. That's been the best part of the space apart is picking up the pieces of ourselves. It's no secret that you can't expect someone to love you if you have little to no love for yourself.
I fail epically at advice, and have very little relationship experience. I think just love her the best you can and let whatever happens, happen.
