I (32F) have been with my partner (35M) for 5 years. He’s the kindest and most thoughtful person I know, takes care of me extremely well, supportive, emotionally intelligent and constantly there for me no matter what. I love and care for him deeply. He makes me feel at peace, comfortable, seen and understood.
Unfortunately, I’ve had on-and-off doubts towards him throughout the relationship. They mostly intensified when we moved together to his country 3 years ago. These thoughts make me feel incredibly anxious and make me spiral. I’ve had some extremely hard days mentally. Regardless, my partner has showed me patience and continued to listen to me no matter what, but I feel like his patience is wearing thin at this point and it is very understandable. And I don’t think it’s fair to continue to do this to him.
While living abroad has been a great experience for me, I have been generally unhappy in multiple aspects of my life: relationship, work and feeling truly fulfilled with who I am and where I want to be. The first year of moving here, it was great. But after that, things started to go down hill for me mentally.
Both of us want to move back to my home country and have discussed plans on doing so within the year.
One specific thing that stands out for me is that when we were both in my home country together and around my friends and family, I felt whole.
My doubts are mainly around our differences in personality – sometimes it feels like we mesh well and others it does not. He has a more serious personality where as I am more lighthearted. I like to joke around a lot and he does usually join me, but sometimes I just wish he was a bit funnier. Is this very superficial? And more generally the doubts are around thoughts like “how do I know he is the one?”, “is this the right person for me?”, “is he my best friend?”. This is my first serious relationship so it also probably plays a big role.
Also the doubts arise mostly when we are in social settings. I find myself constantly fixated on how he is talking/interacting with people. I am worried about what others are thinking and I know this is extremely wrong.
I’m planning to spend a month back home soon to be back with my roots and hopefully gain clarity about the direction of my life, and our lives. This was an incredible difficult decision to make as we both feel very attached to each other. Perhaps that is the issue also. I feel very dependant on him as he has helped set up my life in this country where I do not know the language too well. We are both feeling incredibly anxious about my trip back home as we are scared of what it may uncover, if that means we should break-up.
I really do not want to end things with him as I think he is an amazing partner. I am just worried that I am in denial about being incompatible and using the environment as an ‘excuse’.
Has anyone else experienced this? How do you tell if relationship doubts are coming from your environment and life circumstances, or if they’re a sign of deeper incompatibility?
TL;DR: In a long-term relationship, but have on-and-off doubts that have worsened since moving abroad. Struggling to tell if my dissatisfaction is due to life circumstances or actual incompatibility. Taking a month back home to get clarity. Wondering if others have experienced this and what helped them decide. Or just after general advice.