Throw away account because I don’t want it to trace back. I (25f) and bf (24m) have been together 4.5 years, so a good chunk of college and now post grad. We’ve lived together for 1.5 years now. A few days ago he randomly tells me we are in a rut. I am completely caught off guard, as I feel I’m usually good at gauging when he’s feeling off. He said he’s felt this way for a month or so which also just makes me feel so stupid that I didn’t see it. His reasoning is we only talk about the dog and work, and most times we go out together end up with an argument or something that ruins both our nights. Both are admittedly true, but we addressed the going out one a while ago when we last went out and subsequently had a fight. My thing is yes we talk mostly about work and our dog, but what else is there to talk about? We work in the same profession so to me it’s a conversation commonality.
We recently moved to the suburbs and don’t see our friends as much as we did in the past but a lot of that also has to do with the age we are and where we all are with our careers. We’ve definitely gotten a bit “comfortable” and don’t do dates or spontaneous things as much anymore, but again life’s gotten more serious than we had the luxury of in college. He brought up we need to be doing more around the house to keep it cleaner, agreed, but I don’t feel that he’s this all star cleaner either so it’s hard to consider that as a factor in the rut.
I really agree with the reasons he’s brought up, and I don’t know why they aren’t weighing on me as heavily as him. I want to fix this, work on it, be stronger. Work on communication and acts of service with intent. I just don’t know where to start. Ever since the conversation he’s noticeably aloof, so I’m struggling how to start knocking down the wall.
This last month he’s been dodging intimacy, I thought it was because he’s felt sick; turns out he did feel sick but not stomach bug sick, it was feeling ill about how we were. He said we usually slap a sex bandaid on our arguments and he feels that we don’t resolve things because of it, so he didn’t want to have sex and ignore this feeling. Idk how to get us our spark back. I’m truly at a loss for words because I don’t want conversation to be forced, especially with the idea of we have to talk about something or this isn’t working out, but that just spirals me because if I don’t try to force a bit of conversation between us I worry that this is our end. I’ve envisioned us being together long term, we’ve talked about our future, kids house career all of it. However whenever the topic of engagement comes up he’s always been very blunt with what’s the rush, not happening this year, etc and it truthfully really hurts my feelings and now I’m also spiraling if this is all because he’s started to finally consider that next step and is struggling to see us there.
This has been weighing so heavy on me and I feel like I’m tiptoeing around the house not knowing how to get us stronger. I want us to work so badly, but also don’t want to force it if this is truly done for. I don’t know how to word this the right way so my thoughts come across the right way but I’ve always seen my purpose in life to be a mom, and at 25 I don’t want to be putting that type of timeframe in jeopardy either. I have family history of health complications so I want to have children “younger” to slightly minimize risks and be done with pregnancies by 32. I want to raise a family with someone I deeply love, preferably with someone I’m married to due to religious upbringing, but if he doesn’t see us continuing I need to readjust and find who my life partner is. Im so scared to lose him, but also don’t want to lose myself and my purpose in the process either.
I’ve started to ramble and idek if any of that makes sense I just am in a mental spiral trying to work this out and need to vent/ ask advice/ breathe
TLDR: bf says we are in a rut, I don’t know how to get us back to where we were, I don’t want to force and jeopardize my ability to have children