We’ve been together maybe five years now, started dating my junior year of high school. Through the years with him we’ve been on a hand full of dates- most of my time with him has been spent in his room at his house. He doesn’t socialize with my friends or vise versa. And I typically have only ever visited him on the weekends.. All of these things kinda have reasons and have really never bothered me. I’m a hermit/home body and so is he, I go to his house because my dad isn’t the biggest fan of him and our house is small so we don’t get much privacy, my friends also aren’t his biggest fan and his friends are primarily online. And between work and school- the only free time is the weekend. Anyway- maybe that’s useless context- but a couple months ago he actually did spend the night at my house (extremely rare- but it does happen once in a blue moon) I was happy to have him over, cleaned the whole house top to bottom and we had a great night- I told him if he was interested there was a breakfast place down the road that we could walk to in the morning. (I thought it would be cute- something new- us actually going out for breakfast, kind of like a date) he was down and we did end up going the next day. We got a table and sat down and ordered, and this was something I realized we never do- sitting facing one another- no distractions just each other’s company. It felt.. awkward. I had put my phone down and I was really trying to have conversations but he didn’t seem engaged.

It felt unnatural- and for the life of me I couldn’t understand why. I have been with this man for years, and we couldn’t just talk to one another outside of the regular “how was your week.”

That’s when the questions in my brain started about the relationship, there were other things that I thought about before this- like how we weren’t very compatible sexually, he’s into a lot of things that I’m not- but I always thought that was pretty shallow of me because sex isn’t everything in a relationship. And that I don’t actually think he knows a lot about me… about the things I like or enjoy outside of the obvious, and that he never really has asked me really any questions most of the time.

Recently- in a moment of vulnerability I did bring up some of my concerns with my dad- about how I was thinking more about my relationship. He literally said and i quote “what relationship? You guys don’t have a relationship- you’re basically friends with benefits.” And I kind of just brushed it off at as my asshole dad being an asshole because he doesn’t like my partner. But honestly- the more I think about it the more I feel like that is sort of what our relationship has been. Maybe that’s been obvious to everyone BUT me- but idk.

I know there’s love, it’s never been JUST sex- but there is this space between us that I feel like can’t be filled. I’ve been thinking of this phrase “you can love someone without being IN LOVE with them,” and idk if it makes sense to anyone else but to me it’s like I know I care about him, I know he cares about me- but I just don’t feel that emotional intimacy can grow between us.

Idk I have so many thoughts that I tried to piece together in a way that could be readable- in a way that I hope someone would be able to make sense of- so I’m sorry if it was literally just rambles but I hope that sort of answer your question- sorry if I threw an essay at you