My boyfriend and I have been dating for 2 years now , safe to say I have never loved someone as much as I love my boyfriend , he feels like home to me. We developed an instant emotional connection from the beginning and I’ve never felt so close emotionally to someone . What I have struggled with throughout the relationship has been the attraction aspect , it’s not that I find him unattractive at all, objectivity he is attractive - he works out he’s Arabic tanned etc it’s more there wasn’t this instant spark or that intuitive attraction. It’s something I’ve always found to be important when dating. I pushed through this anyway because there was no way I wasn’t going to carry on seeing him I became attached to him very quickly and him to me too. The sex is great , it’s always been great but I can’t put in words what feels to be missing exactly . I feel romantically toward him not just a best friend but I’ve never felt any intense lust. I want to be able to get over this ‘issue’ but in the last 2 years I have not worked out how to not let this bother me. A quick google search of ‘do you need to have physical infatuation in a relationship’ and I cry at the responses saying you can’t force attraction , it rarely grows etc. When I am around him I don’t want time to stop , he truly is everything to me and the thought of loosing him hurts me to my core. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being with someone else and us just being friends , not in a selfish way just that we have a very special bond . We are meant to be getting married next year , we’ve spoken about it a lot and I cried tears of happiness when he mentioned the idea . I feel like the worst girlfriend in the world sometimes for having these doubts , particularly as we can both read each other like a book so I’m sure he picks up on these insecurities- what can I do I feel so lost ??

Thanks ! Do you think this kind of issue can be fixed ? I don’t like to bring it up because I care for his feelings and I know it’s something he’s insecure about already. I love him so much

@Tillyyyx like any form of ocd, it’s repetitive negative thoughts that can be very distressing, it’s all about breaking the pattern that’s been created, so 100% it can be fixed! i get that he might be insecure (it’s very normal for your partner too because he doesn’t understand exactly how your feeling), it is something i’d bring up and say that you wanna tackle the issue. i’m not sure how u feel about therapy for this specific issue but honestly it might be relief to get your issues out to an expect who understands ur feelings

@pineapple_p I worry that what I am doing is morally wrong and that I will end up hurting both of us , I’m more concerned about hurting him which I do believe shows I love him very much

i know it’s so hard to try and pretend it’s not an issue and hope it goes away, but it’s so mentally draining! best place to start is to have a long and in depth talk about your OCD, talk about your different fears, anything that comes along with it. typically ocd intrusive thoughts are irrational & don’t quite make sense, but this is something you can talk to your partner about! if he can begin to know about some thoughts you have it might make it easier for both of youse so you both know it’s not you, it’s just these horrible thoughts that are hard to shake! if it’s the fear that youse will break up over it that’s stopping you, in the long run, your hurting yourself. to overcome this will mean a lot of discussions and lots of patience patience patience! it won’t go away overnight and i know that’s hard to come to terms with but there is a starting point & can get better! i’ve had a fear that i’ll accidentally say another boys name instead of my boyfriends name when addressing him, and this tore me up instead for months! i eventually told him and he reacted in such a good way, so it eased that worry for me until it became non-existent. i know this is something you want to combat yourself but sometimes it’s not that easy

@pineapple_p Thanks for your in depth message , it is funny how our intrusive thoughts can seem so unimportant to an outsider ‘I had a fear that I will accidentally say another boys name instead of my boyfriend name’ to an outsider may seem like no big deal if it happens , but I know how intense it feels to us! For me I’m not sure how to pinpoint my fears in reality, it’s manifested in many different ways : obsession with his height ( he’s a bit taller than me , obsession if people think we’re on the same level appearance wise , obsession with if he fancies my friends instead of me , obsession of if I fancy his friends instead of him , obsession over the fact I have not felt intense passion and initial spark ( applying meaning to this - does this mean we’re not meant to be) … all incredibly superficial stuff and the list goes on , makes me feel so guilty because there is sooooo much more to our relationship that all this superficial bs

Too*

@Sero82 I wish I could give you a big hug :( cause I know how shitty this all feels, we have to remind ourselves that the fact we are so upset about this shows that we do really care about them otherwise we wouldn’t be here trying to work on ourselves for them. My biggest compulsion is to google everything to try and validate that my issues do not mean I need to break up and then any thing which tells me I do causes me to spiral in intense guilt and anxiety. I’ve avoided relationship coaching sessions out of fear they tell me my relationship is wrong, ultimately love is a choice which means we can choose to continue bettering our relationship and that should give us faith

@Tillyyyx It's so hard thinking love is a choice when thinking that you have to have a natural desire to pursue it and it's so conflicting when here we are told are thoughts are just thoughts but our thoughts are ultimately what drive us to choose the choice of love, so does that make it worthless or fake? I also always struggle with feeling numb and emotionally drained (+depression) so the guilt more often comes from wanting to feel like I want to do better but feeling too exhausted to be present and care.

@Sero82 Well I completely understand where you’re coming from but in reality the natural desire to pursue someone stems from reproduction it’s a natural instinct which isn’t designed for long term relationships , where a compassionate love and loyalty are what’s important . Honestly speaking if we all just followed our desires I doubt many people would stay together long term idk