How to Wait Patiently?

[capablehippie]

This almost went in "Relationships," it's kind of both, sorry if it's in the wrong category. I like the organization, it made me think about this a little more.
My boyfriend and I are rarely alone, because there's not really a place we're allowed to be alone, or a truly appropriate, 100% comfortable place to do sexual things. I'm not looking for how to be alone with him, I know that won't happen much for a while (although it would just be nice in general to be alone). I want to stop focussing on sexual things so much/thinking about it when I'm with him and it's just not practical, because it just makes me frustrated. I could try masturbating more, it's mostly just an amusing work in progress right now. I have had doubts about our relationship for the past few months, so this long time we've gone without being alone, which is driving me crazy, is contributing to my overall frustrations and dishonesty with what I want. Which I feel like contributes to the staleness of the relationship. Both of us can be pretty unconfident with initiating and continuing activities like these, him more so especially. Sometimes we talk out situations and masturbate when we're turned on but not together, but we haven't done that for a while either. Maybe it would be help me not to think about it when we're together so much to ask him do that? I keep going to start it, and then I don't because the feeling is gone, or I get shy. Then I get mad at myself, and when we are talking he never knows I've had this whole miniature drama on my end, which makes me act weird. Or should I try to resolve this independently?

[Redskies]

What kind of doubts about the relationship have you been having?

Can you also tell us a bit about how communication usually goes in this relationship - for example, when you and he need to figure out a bump, something you've disagreed on, something that's bothered one of you, how does that usually go?

Is it just sexual things that you or both of you don't feel confident about, or other things too?

[capablehippie]

It just hasn't felt like it did before. That doesn't really give you any information... I guess I miss him less when we can't be together than I used to. We aren't having as many good/happy times together as we used to. There aren't really bad times, just sort of confused, uncomfortable, awkward times when it we aren't happy to be spending time together and we don't know why. It could be just that one of us is feeling yucky at that time. We both just feel bad sometimes, him more often than me, and it's less new to him than me. Which means he's better at knowing what to do with it than I am. Also, I thought I liked someone else, but I'm fairly certain that wasn't a serious crush, and partially was my paranoia (not actual paranoia) about being a bad girlfriend, although it still made me feel guilty. We have considered just sort of spending less time together or more time together with friends, but it's hard for me to sacrifice time we could spend together, because of the good times we have sometimes, or because I'm so used to trying to spend all the time I can with him. I guess it's possible that our relationship is just changing, we have been dating for almost 1 1/2 years.

We are typically very open and have very good communication. We are very wordy, thorough people (you might have noticed that - sorry...). If we disagree on something or have something bothering us we usually talk about it. I feel like I've been worse about communicating lately, but sometimes I don't know what's wrong. I have told him that I was having doubts and was wondering about breaking up, and he said he was kind of thinking/feeling the same way. We are best friends though, and know each other very well sometimes, and talking/being together can be a lot of fun, and it's very comfortable, so we aren't going to take breaking up lightly. We want to wait until it is a less stressful time of year (summer, once school's out) to see if that makes things better. I did talk to him about how long it's been, and it bugs him that it's been a while, but he's also happy that this proves to him that it's not such a big part of our relationship that we can't go on together without it.

We both have pretty low self-confidence in general. Again, I think it's worse for him. We have become pretty comfortable/confident with each other though, and being affectionate or saying what's on our mind. Saying what's on our mind was from the start. Sometimes I'm intimidated by his smarts. He doesn't feel 100% comfortable spending time with his family and me at the same time, because he doesn't feel like he can completely be himself with them.

Thanks for replying, I'm sorry this is so long.

[Sam W]

Hi capablehippie,

What you're describing is actually more common than you might think. In a lot of romantic relationships, there is a shift that happens from a sort of "honeymoon" period, where the relationship is new and exciting and has a lot of novelty, to a period where you're still comfortable with each other and maybe even care about each other, but the relationship is not quite as exciting as it once was. For plenty of people, that shift spells the end of the relationship.

It sounds like the two of you do have good communication, which is great. If you're both feeling like it's time to end the relationship, then that sounds like it might be the right choice. If you both want to give it a try for a little longer, that's okay too. Something to remember is that if you do decide to end it, that doesn't mean the relationship was a failure, or that it wasn't something that mattered to you. It just means that it has run its' course, as so many relationships do.

[capablehippie]

Okay. I tend to overcomplicate things in my head. We take our relationship very seriously, and I think we pressure ourselves a little to "not be like other teenagers", so that makes us not want to break up. There are lots of other good things holding us together though. We are going to experiment a little with what it would be like not to be together, and how we can maybe make things better. My friend said we were just getting bored and needed to do more things so we could have something to talk about, maybe she's right. I don't want either of us to be lonely, but I know it's better to be lonely than in a yucky relationship. We will keep trying for a little longer. Thank you! It's amazing that you're almost at 2,000 posts!

[Heather]

I would bear in mind, whatever you decide, that people of all ages split up, or shift their relationships from one kind to another, and this is something that happens far more than not throughout a lifetime. That's not about being a teenager, that's just about being a person.

But for sure, as relationships go on, we do often tend to have to make more effort to keep things fresh, as it were, and that can often mean coming up with new things to do together as well as apart, so that we, alone also stay "fresh" and have new things to talk with people we're in long-term relationships about so we don't keep driving each other up the wall by telling the same life stories again and again and again.

(And apparently with that last post, Sam wanted to party like it was 1999!)