new relationship not very emotional / intimate - PLEASE HELP!!!

okies everyone...would really appreciate some help / thoughts here:

have recently (about a month and a half ago) started a relationship with a pretty fantastic guy. it started off as purely sexual and quickly became more than that. we were both surprised at how connected and right we felt. we've also got a lot of interests in common, love hanging out, having fun, we laugh and talk lots.

now to the problem:

as we got closer and closer over the last six weeks or so, he told me "i might be falling in love with you", and i felt the same way. once i decided i WAS in love with him, i told him - but i told him that i didn't expect any reply, and i was telling him "because i wanted him to know". he said he wasn't totally sure how he felt still, and that was fine. about a week later, he tells me he IS in love with me. he told me a couple of times since then. he also said he would only tell me he loves me when he "fully feels it"...you know, those moments where you just love someone so damn much that you can't keep it silent. problem is...i have those moments all the time..he has them hardly ever.

while i admire his resolve in not using the words "i love you" like someone might say "hello" or "goodbye" or "nice weather, isn't it?" - i am a very emotional person in that i NEED that emotional intensity in a relationship. i need to feel i am loved and fully wanted all the time - i give no less and i expect no less. of course, if the relationship is just sexual that's fine...but say that's what it is, and then we all know where we stand. but on the other hand...if you'rein love...i mean REALLY in love...then you should be aware of it all the time...right?

he has told me two things about why he's not very emotionally intense:

#1 is his family are way over the top emotionally and thus he hates being like that. they make a big melodrama out of every little thing and he has spent his life trying not to be that. okay this i understand but surely there is a difference between making something bigger than it is / should be, and talking about something that IS big (like being in love IS BIG), in a BIG WAY, because ITS A BIG THING!!

#2 is that he's only ever felt really "in love" once before, many years ago. he said it was that obsessive type love and it ended badly. the impression he gave me is that he doesnt want to be hurt again that way.

^^ but really, these are the causes for why he is how he is NOW ^^

so...what to do folks? it feels unfair to want him to be different than he is, but dammnit i want to feel loved and SECURE in that love too. i want him to say he loves me heaps, feel it all the time and be emotionally intense and intimate. thats what i need the INTIMACY!!!

am i asking too much? its not like he wont say he loves me, he just wont say it much...and i wont get the emotional intensity. its just that everything else is so perfect and i kind of hoping against hope that he will fall crazy-infatuated-in-love with me, you know the cant-keep-his-mind-offa-me type thing. so WHAT DO I DO? give this a chance, try to change me, try to change him...or end it now before my heart gets ripped into little shreads over a long, painful period of time?

thanks for reading this far! please help!!!

 

Lots of guys are of the mindset of...I told her i love her....so she knows I do...so I shouldnt have to say it all the time !!! haha

 

hmmmm ok
seems to me hes alittle emotionaly immature, rebelling against his parents is 1 thing but letting that rebelling hurt the 1 he ssuposed to love? also, being alittle emotionl isnt such a bad thing to rebell against..neither is 1 ovseeessive gf..
how is he with other aspects of his personality? is he the stereotypical tough guy type?

i see this ashavin a few possibilities, 1 hes the emotionaly unavilible type tht will probably just leave you feeling emty and used, or..2 hes not really in love and just says it while caught up in tyhe passion, or cause he feels hes suposed to..or..3 hes in love but just not very expressive..the important thing is..do you FEEL loved?..if you feel it, do you need to here it constantly?.. nt..if anyone in this relationship should be either emotionaly unavailible, or needy its you since youir hurts of the past are much greatter and affect you way more (yea i read alotta yoir other posts)
its possible that after just a mnth 1/2 your just feeeling that needyness..but then again, i've often felt that intencity you want even sooner
its hard to say wha to do..on 1 hand, you desserve ballance..desserve the intensity you desire..on the other you dont want to push him beyond his confort zone

when u see him..do you spend alottatime talking and enjoying eachothers company and freindship or is it like jumping straight into sex and then maybe alittle talking after if he doent gottabe somewhere? perhaps just switching the focus off the sexul and ontothe emotional aspects of the relationship might help

i gottasy though, i'm 1 who tendsto love with that intencity your wanting, and sometimes burning with a fiery intencity can lead ya to just have a pile of ashes..and maybe a few months of intence loving might be wonderful...but wouldnt a lifetime of aless intence love..but still a love be better?..that is if that love left you feeling loved andemotionly satisfied and secure

think for bit, wether or not you FEEL loved.. and once yiou know that you'll know what to do
i'm gonna go back to sleep an hour or 2 but i'll check back here in a bit..
and..dont worry sweety..itsonly been 1 1/2 months..if u love him or leave him..1 1/2 months is just a blink of your eye when compared to a lifetime..ya got years to eather let the lovegrow..or..find 1 thats more what your lookin for

 

i love ya i love ya i love ya..heehee
i barely know ya but i love ya anyways

i'm the opposite..when i feel it i say it..and i feel it alot so say it alot

but thats just me
and..thats just loving you..not being in love with you..but when im in love i let someone know

thats why i feel like hes puting up an image of a typical emotionaly unexpressive 'real man' thing..yaknow? real men dont talk about theyre feelings ... i think guysalottathe time are controlled by this image of how guys are suposed to behave

 

I agree with what Soaringeagle says above. I respect men who are able to transcend that silly stereotype and still know that they are men.

 

You could do what good couples do and compromise.

He probably could loosen up over time depending on how demanding you are about it (don't push him too hard) and how entrenched it is in his mindset. Maybe he could work on that just for you. (Not fond of this being coined a male stereotype thing or an immaturity thing either. I grew up in a house where the L word was never used and so it took me a long time to work up to using the L word as often as my husband needed to hear it. Imperfect does not mean immature. )

And maybe you could work on being less emotionally dependent because very few long term relationships ever have this intensity all the time, especially years down the road and you're expectations and needs may be unrealistic no matter how attentive a man you might land.

Just make sure you're in love and not in love with the idea. If it's worth it, you'll both work on it to make it happen.

 

thanks so much to everyone who replied to me...and so quickly too! that's what i love about this site, all these caring people who have never met me but just want to help a fellow human bean out

soaringeagle...thanks dude, i love you too! and i can say that AND mean it. i fully believe love is something between all human beans and often we're just not aware of it. i am trying to become aware of it between all beans. because of this, in becoming more aware of the universal love :rainbow: i should not need someone else to tell me i am loved all the time...i should just be aware of the love. and i'm getting there but i am still not fully there! so that is maybe why i am insecure...but in another way it forces me to not rely on one person for self-validation.

when we're together he SHOWS he cares for me, he just doesn't SAY it much. i am fond of big emotional speeches about love and being together forever and never wanting anyone else and having found your soulmate...and so on and so forth. i'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. but i don't want someone to say it if they don't feel it! we have sex quite a bit, but we're both really freaking horny and it's fun. that's how the relationship started - as sexual - and it it still is very sexual. but that's certainly not all it is...we talk about our lives, friends, we laugh, and we talk philosophy [something very important to both of us]. so it's sexual but not just sexual.

i dont think the way he is is rebelling against his parents. i think it's more he grew up with a certain kind of people [over emotional, melodramatic] that he didn't like so he made sure not to be like that. now it's just "who he is"...not a concious decision he's making. it's the other way around now...he has to conciously think "how do i feel? do i feel love at the moment?" - wheareas for me, LOVE and BEING IN LOVE is just so damn obvious, i don't have to think about it at all. it's just a part of who i am - thinking "am i in love" for me would be as ludicrous as asking "do i exist"?, "is my name the mighty toenail"?, "is spongebob awesome"? - some things are just a part of one's BEING! they don't require analysis. so yes i think he IS in love, but i think he's dulled his emotions down more than most people - and i am the opposite, so it's a bit unbalanced. my opinion - if you're gonna feel something, you may as well do it properly [well positive feelings like happiness, peace, love anyway]

bodyelectric, i definately get what you're saying. i see where he is and why, i'm just having trouble fully accepting it. i don't think he's immature or imperfect...both terms for me have negative connatations. he's just at a different place than i am; what i'm trying to work out is whether those two places are compatible. he is doing nothing wrong in being who he is; i am doing nothing wrong in being who i am. comprimise is a good answer...but he is a little stubborn and his opinion seems to be "i'm not going to say it if i don't feel it, and feeling it lots would mean changing who i am and i'm not going to do that"...which is admirable in one way, but in the other way his annoyance and feeling like he's being controlled may be leading him to not step back and see the bigger picture.

but being in love means being accepting...unconditional love. on the other hand, being in love with someone doesn't necesarially mean a relationship with them will work. i have been in love with people with whom relationships weren't going to happen and didn't work. i also think we can be in love with more than one person at once. for me, being in love isn't the be-all and end-all of the world....being in love is a certain "special" kind of the universal love. however, being in an exclusive relationship has certain things that go with it [for me]...lots of "hand holding and sighing and not finishing sentences" [as bernard black says...don't worry if you're not a fan of the TV show black books!]. also, i'm not sure if my expectations of intensity being sustained in a relationship are unrealistic. my longest relationship has been almost four years and that was quite intense, loving, caring, close and intimate almost up to the end. but i realise that was with a totally different type of person, and i am not expected to change my current guy into my ex...but that might give you a picture of what i'm used to.

anyhoo thanks for all the replies...any other ideas / perspectives welcome!

 

update on this situation:

i had a talk to him last night to tell him how i feel [grr! because he's not so intimate it's hard to get him to sit still and listen to how i feel and connect to it ~ i mean to really listen, be empethetic etc..but anyway...]

so i told how i feel about the lack of emotional intimacy and the "i love you" thing. his point was when he feels it really strongly he says it, but when he doesn't say it it doesn't mean it's not there. so i asked "well if it's there anyway, can't you just say it because i need to hear it - it's not like you're lying, but you're saying it for me not you" - but he says that would make him feel "phony" argh! it seems he's not going to make any effort...he'd rather me suffer [and he knows how important this is to me!] than make any sort of comprimise!!! :banghead: he also said he can change but only if he wants to [does that mean he's going to try to change or not?! wtf?!?] and it takes time [so how the fuck long do i have to wait 'till i start being fulfilled and getting what i deserve?!?!? :toetap:]

this fucking sucks and it hurts, hurts, hurts to even have to ask it. if you're in a relationship with a special someone, shouldn't they just make you feel loved, feel special, feel like the most important person in the world?!! it's disgusting to even have to ask. i hate feeling like i'm begging for favours. :anger:

okay going to stop writing now because i'm too hurt to think rationally about this :hysterica. but i HURT and - well - a hug would be nice even if none of you have any advice.

*opens arms for hug*

 

hugggggggggggggggs tightly!!!
and surrounding you in floods of unconditional love

 

ok sweety, im gettin a weird feelin here like ya got to struggle to get him to talk, struggle to get any emotional responce
ya get you i love ya when i feel like it
..i dont feel like lovin ya now...
you know your loving..you know what it feels like to feel loved
and you know what it feels like to share love
are u getting even a fraction of what your giving?

 

thanks eagle

i dont feel like i'm getting back what i'm giving

BUT

i don't know whether what i am expecting is okay, and whether i need it or whether i am being overly-needly.

AND

i don't know if it's fair to want to change someone [especially if i really care about them] or expect that they should be different.

i'm thinking maybe i should try a love-spell...hmmm :sunny:
or even just a different way of approaching this would be good!

 

He should make you feel loved and you should make him feel like you really understand.

You're being frustrated because you want it to happen now. He's saying 'whoa' it makes me feel phoney, not ready to pretend to be something I'm not.But hey...guess what, that conversation where he explained how the " I love you " thing works for him was probably a effort for him. Seriously. But he talked about it anyways. Recognize that. His baby steps may not be big enough for you to see it as effort but it is.

Now while I think you can look at his reasons from a rational perspective and understand why it's hard for him to blurt the L word any time, I think it ends up turning into "Yeah, I understand but...." when if conflicts with how you're feeling.

His 'but ' is not wanting to pretend or act like something he's not and your but is that you need extra attention and now.

Given the ' oh god it hurts' rant its now apparent that how you feel has more value than how he feels in comparison (and that's fine) because you seem ready to toss the whole potential relationship away despite that you know he loves you because he shows it. My bet on this is that you're not gonna get what you want right away and you're going to push him on this and things will get worse. If you can't cultivate the patience needed to deal with the one you love then set him free before you hurt him as much as you're hurting yourself. {edit: My bad. Looking back the 'getting rid of him' impression was something I absorbed from soaring eagle's posts/advice. Your post above this does show that you're still figuring things out about feeling priorities so apologies if this paragraph sounds harsh }


Also: If a person doesn't like talking...try writing. There are other options than forcing a face to face feeling swap for those of us that are a good deal more private with thier thoughts.

 

well..what you expect is equal to what you give..and not all can give a much as you, but its absolutely fair to expect enough
are you getting enough love back?
are you beeing overly needy or just expressing healthy normal needs
are you asking for an i love you every minute or just an i still love you today

as for expecting him to change or be different
would the change make him a better happier more well adjusted person
is he happy as he is
can you accept him as he is

 

The question here is: can you deal with him taking his time and not saying he loves you a lot? and how much would you like him to say it? Once a day, more? how much more, all the time? It dependns on how much you're asking and how much he is giving in response. If you feel like you are not getting enough love from him, then focus on what he does rather than how many times he says it tohelp you cope until he says it more. I say just take your time. If nothing has changed in say, a couple weeks, how about writing a letter if it's hard from to express his feelings verbally, perhaps it'd be better to write, and that way he can collect his thoughts rather than saying what comes into his head right off the bat.

(((hugs))) good luck and hope that helps.

 

i have had more talks to him and he knows its important to me and to a relationship. he says it will take time but things will change slowly. the great thing is that he cares enough to TRY. also i can SEE how much he cares in wwhat he DOES - always hugging, kissing, making me yummy food, looking after me, laughing with me, talking, listening... so i'm willing to give it time and give it a chance. thanks everyone for your help...the next couple of months should tell how this works out!!! thanks people!!

 

Hey girl, many hugs to a fellow Australian sister...

Now I don't mean this in an offensive way but you can't ask someone to do something just to make you feel better. That leads to co-dependence, co-dependence leads to anger, anger lead to hate, hate leads to the dark side (sorry I couldn't resist)

You expect him to compromise his truth (saying he loves you when it is totally real) but you wont compromise in letting him say it when he feels comfortable. I know you mean well and we all want to be loved but the fact he only says it when it comes from his heart, means so much more than if he were only to say it for you. That would lead to resentment and you guys would fall into a typical co-dependent pattern that would destroy your chances of happiness (trust me co-dependence is far easier to develop than to undo)

Only you can fulfill yourself and give you what you deserve before anyone else does. If you need him to say it, the problem lies in your need, NOT in his refusing to bow down to your insecurities. This dude is being honest, I think that is what all of us deserve.

Love yourself Sister, the rest will follow.

Peace

 

i think that doing the things you described him doing, shows more love than saying the words 'i love you'