Do I love my girlfriend? I'm confused!

[jdr100]

I'm 25 year old male. I have a long-term girlfriend. We've been together for 5+ years. What exactly is love supposed to feel like? Should I be crazily in love like in the romantic movies? The time is coming where either we should get married or go separate ways. I do want to get married to her and I DON'T want us to separate. I feel I'm very sexual (get horny a lot). And I do fantasize about being with other hot girls. But I restrain myself from actually doing it. Is it possible to be in love with one person and still want to be sexually involved with others? I don't want anything else with other girls except purely casual sexual encounters. But I restrain myself all the time. But I do masturbate a lot fantasizing about other girls. I can't imagine a life without her. When I try to imagine a life without her, I don't see myself happy. But I don't know how I can know if she is 'the one', if I should marry her. I don't feel like this all the time. Some days I know for sure she's the one and she's all I'm thinking about all the time. And some days it's just the opposite - I don't feel like talking to her, I don't feel like meeting her etc. Is something wrong with me? Is this something psychological that men go through? Something normal? Or something not normal? I do think she is attractive but I don't think she is the most beautiful girl in the world. Aren't people supposed to think like that about people they're in love with? I feel I have two options: 1) get married to her in the near future or 2) break up with her. When I think about option 1, I can picture us having a good time and enjoying in the first few months (maybe a year) of marriage but then I feel things may not work out. I may get annoyed with her. I may want someone else. When I think about option 2, I think I'll find some other girl very easily. But very soon I'll miss her terribly and I'll be miserable without her. I'm very much inclined toward taking option 1 but not absolutely sure about it. Do you guys think I'm actually in love with her or not? If it's not love, what else can it be? What are your suggestions? What should I do?

P.S. Don't suggest me to talk with her about all this. This is something I can't and shouldn't do. This is something I need to figure out on my own. I just need to make sure that real life situations aren't like romantic movies and people don't necessarily need to be head over heels in love with someone and 'normal love' exists too. I probably didn't make much sense in this post but I'm hoping someone will be able to provide some advice.

Secondly don't say that I don't have to rush into marrying because I'm young. In my culture, guys get married around the ages of 24-27. So I gotta get married in the next year or so.

[Heather]

It's pretty hard to do do our job well when it comes to answering advice when anyone comes in from the front telling us what they want us to say or not to say. I'm going to assume that you came here to ask us for advice because you saw we have a very long history when it comes to doing this job and doing it well. So, hopefully, you can trust that we're going to do our best, and that may include things you don't want to hear, or information which may not necessarily simplify your situation.

For instance, we are always going to encourage open communication in intimate relationships. After all, that's a big part of what makes them intimate in the first place. Since you're talking about big deal like marriage, not including the other person who would be making that major life decision in your feelings about it wouldn't be a great call if you're after an earnestly good, close relationship and choices everyone involved feels best about.

As well, just because something is culturally normative doesn't make it right. A marriage that isn't what both people involved want, or feels rushed doesn't have to happen because someone is within an average age of marriage. We'd never advise someone to do something just because it's culturally normative.

You didn't ask about monogamy here, even though you talked about feeling challenged by it. I'm not bringing up talking about the option of an open relationship now or later because that's not something you asked about, but if you want to talk about those kinds of options, let me know.

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There's no one way loving someone, or any kind of love relationship, feels. Experiences of love are just so varied and so unique, landing on one single, simple way of describing it is pretty impossible. We have a piece here that talks about that some, though, and this passage from it is one I find useful:

If you're asking me for a basic definition, I resonate with the way bell hooks talks about love. When asked to define it simply, she said that, "Love is a combination of six ingredients: care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust." It may be obvious (which may be why she didn't say it) but to her list I'd add connectivity: I'd say love is about connecting and being connected to ourselves, to who we love, to everything. There's an energy to being deeply connected that once you feel, you'll recognize ever after.

I also like something Thich Nhat Hanh said on the topic, which is that "Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself - if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself - it is very difficult to take care of another person...to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice."

People most commonly don't just feel sexual attraction to only one person in a lifetime, even when they are really into one person that way. Romantic or other kinds of love also don't turn off sexuality, or somehow make it so that the only person you have sexual feelings for is one person you have feelings of love for. What's most common is for people to choose to be in sexual and/or romantic relationships with the person they have the strongest feelings for, also want to be with - when they even have the opportunity -- and who also feels those ways about them.

When someone is pursuing or sticking in a long-term intimate relationship, it usually isn't about who they think is the most beautiful or sexy person in the world, or about them having interest in no one else. Rather, those choices tend to be based in who they have rich emotional experiences with, who feels like a good fit with their life, who loves and accepts them (and vice-versa) and other things that tend to stand the test of time better. How someone looks or sexual feelings tend to be much more fleeting than things like if someone treats you with care or respect, or is someone you can really talk to and trust.

It's not a thing men feel to feel doubts or worries about staying in long-term relationships or forging even greater commitments: it's a people thing. Big commitments are intimidating when we're talking them seriously; all the more so when the emotional stakes are high for everyone involved. It's both normal and okay to have doubts or worries, and trying to work through those takes this and everyone involved seriously.

You said:

When I think about option 1, I can picture us having a good time and enjoying in the first few months (maybe a year) of marriage but then I feel things may not work out. I may get annoyed with her. I may want someone else.

Getting annoyed with a spouse and having times when you feel desire for others wouldn't actually be ways marriage didn't work out. In fact, both of those things are things that happen with some regularity for a lot of, if not most (especially the getting annoyed part) happily married people.

It sounds to me like if what you're really asking here is, "Do I want to marry this person?" then your best place to start might be asking yourself what you would want or are looking for in marriage, both for yourself and for the person you would be married to. What would a marriage you want look like? What would you like to offer the other person? What kind of life would you imagine having together? How do you see yourself getting through times where you WILL be annoyed with each other, will have sexual feelings for others, will have doubts or don't feel happy? Those times will come to every marriage, so it's not about how to avoid them (you can't), but about how you deal with them, alone and together. Marriage also is not usually a highly sexual relationship, at least not for long: that is usually only one part of it, and tends to be one of the smaller, rather than larger, parts.

I do think it is important for you to also ask yourself if you want to get married now or anytime soon, period. Just because something is common in a culture doesn't mean you have to do it. There are undoubtedly, for example, people who live in your area who don't want to get married, period, and won't, or who want to, but can't. I'd hope that what you are after here for yourself and any spouse would be a wanted, mutually happy (most of the time) marriage, and timing often has something to do with that. So, if the timing now or soon isn't right, or you felt you needed more time (or she did) to decide, I hope you can give yourself that, and make a choice based on what you and she want, not whatever you feel others expect you to do, you know?

By all means, life isn't movie romance. (And thank goodness, because movie romances usually are terribly trite and boring before the movie is even over.)

No one else can tell you if you are in love with -- or, since it's been years, and "in love" feelings tend to be the new stuff that doesn't last long, if you love -- this person. That's something only you can know for yourself, and the answer is in your feelings: check in with them and trust them and you'll be as certain as anyone can be. Mind, it's common for the "in love" stuff to be full of uncertainty; it's a lot easier to sort out if we love someone and if we feel loved by them. Love is something that people usually demonstrate clearly over time. For instance, when you have struggled, has this person been there for you? When you're hurting, does she care for you? Do you want to be there for her to support her? Do you both take risks to be emotionally closer to one another? Is this someone you want to tell them most both when something wonderful happens or when something terrible has? Do you feel safe with them? Do you care a lot about taking care of them and what other ways you show them how much you care?

Things like that should answer that question pretty well for you.

There's a lot you're asking here and, again, it's tricky to do this well with the way you rolled it out, so figure this is just a start. We can talk more as you'd like.

If you do want to keep talking and dig a bit deeper, I would suggest we address that you really do not have just two choices (stay with her or get married) now: the reality is that you have more choices than that. However, what might be in this are things like you feeling uncomfortable doing something different than a lot of other people your age in your culture, or feeling worried out of care for her that if you don't marry her soon, you should "release" her so she can marry someone else. It would be helpful for me to know a bit more (including what culture we're talking about, and what your relationship is to it) about all that if we're going to talk some more.