Couple Stories

i love my boyfriend and that is kind of the problem, because it makes everything else more confusing than it should be. he is good to me in most normal ways. he answers my texts, he remembers small stuff, he helps me when i am stressed, and he is not some awful guy i am trying to escape from. so when i say i am not sexually satisfied, it sounds mean, like i am reducing him to one thing, but i am not trying to do that. it is just there, sitting in the room with us, even when we are eating dinner or watching tv. i do not feel wanted in the way i thought i would feel in a relationship. he says he loves me, and i believe him, but his body and his effort do not really show it much. sometimes it feels like he wants the comfort of having me around more than he wants me as a person with needs. maybe that is dramatic, maybe it is not. i have tried bringing it up without making it sound like an attack, but every time it gets weird. he gets quiet or says he is tired or says relationships are not supposed to be all about that. and sure, they are not. i agree with that. but are they supposed to have almost no passion either. am i wrong for thinking this matters. i keep asking myself that because i know people have real problems and this can sound shallow. but when you are the one laying there feeling unwanted, it does not feel shallow, it feels lonely in a very specific way.

the bad part is i do not want to leave him over this, but i also do not want to spend years pretending i am fine. i catch myself avoiding the topic now because i already know how the talk will go. he will act like i am putting pressure on him, i will feel guilty, and then nothing changes. that is the pattern. i do not even know if the issue is attraction, stress, laziness, mismatch, or just us being wrong in that one area. it is not like i need some perfect movie thing. i just want to feel like there is some desire and some care and not like i am asking for a favor. i have started feeling embarrassed for wanting more, which is probably not a good sign. i also feel bad because he is not cruel, and i know if i told people they would say to communicate, but i did, or i tried. communication is not magic when the other person hears it but does not really do anything. i guess i am writing this because i need to see it outside my head. i love him, but love is not filling the part that feels empty. maybe that makes me selfish, or maybe it just makes me honest. i do not know what the reasonable answer is here. do you stay with someone who is kind and safe but makes you feel unwanted in bed, or is that just slowly turning yourself into a bitter person. i am scared that if i stay, i will resent him. i am scared that if i go, i will regret leaving someone good for something people tell me is not everything. both things sound true, and that is what is making me feel stuck.

I was born male and began to transition in 2022, my partner who was also transitioning at the time began to help me after I moved in with them, (hormones and such) but a bit after I started they started to have trouble dealing with the ways I was changing (my body, mind all that good stuff) and we ended up taking a break for a bit.

We came back together but I started to forget about taking my pills and eventually I might has well have detransitioned, I tried to talk to them at one point about thinking about it again (just thinking not even planning on anything) and that came with being told that they dont like women.

My partner never told me to stop taking my pills maybe I just did it myself because of the problems it caused. They stopped theyre transition too but now im left not knowing who I am, I have horrible anxiety and depression, compulsively pick and pull my hair, I get impulsive thoughts im embarrassed to talk about, I just feel messed up.

I don’t even know how to explain this without sounding dramatic, but I feel invisible in my own marriage alot. My husband spends his days at work, which I understand because bills are real and life is expensive. But then he comes home, eats, turns on Netflix, and it’s like I’m just furniture in the room. I’ll ask how his day was, and he gives me a “fine” without looking up.

At night, I sit next to him on the couch while he watches episode after episode, and I’m just waiting for him to notice me. It sounds so pathetic typing that, but it’s true. I definately miss when we used to laugh over dumb things and tell each other random stories. Now I woud have to pause the TV myself just to get a full sentence from him, and even then it feels forced.

Weekends are somehow worse. He goes to the bar with his friends, and I’m not even mad that he has friends. I think people need their own space. But every weekend? It feels wierd being married and still feeling single. I make dinner for one, clean teh kitchen, and pretend I’m fine. Sometimes I’ll get a late text like, “Heading home soon,” and that’s basically all I recieve from him.

I’ve started wondering, why does my husband ignore me? Is he tired, stressed, bored, or just too comfortable? Has anyone else been through this and not totally lost their mind? I dont want to attack him, because I know he isn’t a bad person. He still pays attention in little moments, like when he remembered my favorite cereal last week. That sounds small, but it gave me hope 🙂.

I think I should of spoken up sooner, instead of swallowing everything and acting chill. Tonight I’m going to tell him I miss him, not in a screaming way, just honestly. It feels embarassing needing to ask your own husband for attention, but I still believe we can fix this. Maybe he doesn’t realize how lonely I’ve been. Maybe this is just a bad season, not the whole story.

i am not gonna lie, my husband says i am negative about everything, like every tiny thing got a cloud over it when i talk. he says i can turn a normal breakfast into a sad little meeting, and honestly he mays be right here. this morning the toast burned and i said “of course, even bread got attitude now” and he just looked at me tired. i laughed but also i kinda hated that he noticed. i don’t wake up planning to be like this 😐

it’s just like, i go outside and someone is yelling on the phone, then the bus is late, then i see someone crying near a shop, then i come home and the news is all bad stuff and people doing weird cruel things. how could anyone be positive after that? maybe some people got a magic brain that sees flowers and cute clouds, but mine sees bills, bad weather, and the sink full of dishes. i know that sound dramatic but it is what my head do;

my husband is not some evil guy either, to be fair. he makes jokes, he tries to cheer me up, he says “babe, not everything is the end of the world,” and i get it. but sometimes it feels like he is asking me to pretend the world is not messy. maybe he is not saying ignore stuff, maybe he is saying stop dragging it into every minute. i don’t know. i guess both can be true, like the world can suck and also i can be annoying about saying it every five seconds 😭

yesterday we went for a walk and i started complaining about the trash on the sidewalk, the loud cars, some guy staring, the price of snacks, just everything. then a kid ran past with a dog and the dog was doing that dumb happy jump thing. i almost smiled but then i said “watch it step in glass” because yeah, my mouth just does that. my husband said nothing, just held my hand, and that made me feel worse somehow. do you ever catch yourself being the bad weather in the room?

i think maybe stopping being negative is not like becoming fake happy. i don’t wanna be one of those people who says “good vibes only” while everything is clearly burning in small normal ways. maybe i just need to pause before talking, ask myself if this thought needs to be said out loud, or if i can keep it in my dumb little brain jar. maybe say one okay thing for every bad thing, not as punishment, just balance. i tried today and said the coffee was decent. small win i guess 🙂

I’m 29, I’m a woman, and yeah I’m married but most days it feels like I’m living with a ghost who pays bills and leaves socks near the bed. My husband works all the freaking time. Like ALL the time. He leaves early, comes home late, eats like he’s in a race, then opens his laptop or stares at his stupid phone. I get it, jobs are hard, money matters, blah blah, I’m not dumb. I know he’s not out partying or cheating or whatever dramatic movie crap. He’s working. But still, I feel alone in my own relationship and it’s making me feel like crap. Is that needy? I don’t even know anymore.

Sunday is supposed to be “our day” but lol no. I basically see him on Sunday and even then he works a few hours from home. He says it’s “just catching up” but it eats half the day, then the other half he’s tired and scrolling emails. Last Sunday I made pancakes because I thought maybe we could have a cute morning, like normal couples do. He took two bites, said “thanks babe,” then answered a work call in the hallway for 35 minutes. I sat there with cold pancakes like some sad idiot. I wanted to throw the plate, not gonna lie. But also I know he’s stressed and I know he’s doing this for us, so I feel bad being mad. That’s the worst part, I’m angry but also guilty, like my feelings are being annoying on purpose.

I don’t want a perfect husband who brings flowers and writes poems, ew honestly. I just want him to look at me without checking if his phone buzzed. I want one damn dinner where he’s actually there. I’ve told him this before and he says he knows, he’ll try, work is crazy right now. But “right now” has been like forever. Am I supposed to just wait until life magically gets less busy? Because I’m scared one day I’ll stop caring and then it’ll be too late. I love him, I really do, and I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I just think he forgot I’m here. Has anyone else been married but felt single as hell?

I honestly don't know what else to do... I'm so tired of fighting for my relationship. He has a *orn addiction and I have already caught him 2x in the past and last night yet again, I found that he is still watching and engaging with it. I haven't confronted him yet, but honestly I don't see the point anymore - it's just clear that he doesn't care enough about me or our family to stop. His excuse the last the 2x was because he was angry at me and seeking/watching that stuff was his only way to release. He didn't seem like he was sorry about it, just embarrassed that he got caught yet again and didn't get away with it. I accepted his half-hearted apology for the sake of my baby boy... I want this relationship to work so our son doesn't have to grow up w/out his father, I lived it and wouldn't wish it on anyone. But I'm just so tired of accepting the emotional abuse, the mental abuse, the heart break day after day. I deserve to be loved loudly whole-heartedly...right?

Im 8 months pregnant and since then I have always been feeling like my husband is cheating on me. I wanted to talk to him about it but why then it feels like it wont change anything? I wanted to confront him but then whenever it crosses my mind it feels like I will just be wasting my time bec. I cant ask him to be faithful and loyal if in the first place he is really not that kind of person? He may be married to me but it feels like it is not me to whom he will be contented...

man, i’m 29 years old, and you’d think by now i’d have figured out how to handle my emotions like a pro. but nooooo, here i am with the emotional capacity of a teenage soap opera character. one minute i'm just doing my thang, y’know, cleaning the apartment like some unpaid maid, 'cause for real, my boyfriend is no help whatsoever. the dude’s living in a parallel universe where dishes clean themselves and laundry folds itself magically.🙄 and when i get mad, do i calmly rationalize and use my words? hell no! instead, my eyes well up with tears like i’m cutting onions. it's like my tear ducts are on autopilot the moment i feel even a smidge pissed off.

it’s like, come on girl, what’s wrong with me? i wanna scream at the top of my lungs like “yo dude, pick up a mop once in a while, yeah? it's not rocket science!” but instead my voice chokes, and i’m wiping my cheeks with my sleeves. 🤦‍♀️ it's like i need a tactical debrief before i can discuss anything serious. i’ve googled it a million times: “why do i cry when i get mad?” and it seems i’m not alone with this emotional malfunction. i read somewhere that it's 'cause of frustration or something...my body just doesn’t know how to handle it and my brain’s like, "yeah let’s add some tears, it'll make it even more dramatic." people say you're supposed to breathe deeply and count to ten, but ain't nobody got time for that when you’re neck-deep in dirty dishes.

seriously tho, why does my emotional system double-cross me? maybe it's because as a kid every argument ended with me in tears, so now it's just, like, ingrained or some sh*t? i try having civil convos with my boyfriend, but there i am, puddle of tears again. my emotional intelligence needs a user manual, someone help a girl out! how do people, like, confront without Niagara Falls happening on their face? i’m trapped in a cycle and it's like, what's the point even, if i just end up apologizing for the waterworks rather than fixing the problem? someone drop me some wisdom bombs here... has crying ever got ya out of doing chores? 🤔 'cause if it hasn’t, then maybe i need a new strategy.....

I’m 53 now, and I still remember the day I found out like it was yesterday, even though it was 20 years ago. My husband cheated on me, and I found out in the most boring, stupid way possible, a phone bill left on the kitchen counter. No dramatic lipstick on a collar, no movie scene. Just numbers I didn’t know and a weird feeling in my stomach that would not go away. I asked him, and he tried to dodge it at first, then he cried. I cried harder. Back then I thought cheating meant the marriage was instantly dead, like someone had shut off the lights forever.

For a long time, I didn’t forgive him. I stayed in the house, cooked dinner, drove the kids to school, smiled at neighbors, and hated him quietly. I felt stupid for staying;

But life is not always as clean as people on the outside want it to be. We had two children, a mortgage, and 15 years of history at that point. I loved him, even when I wanted to throw his clothes in the street. What helped me was not pretending it was fine. We went to counseling. He gave me passwords, answered ugly questions, and took my anger without acting like he was the victim. That mattered.

Forgiveness, in my opinion, is not saying “what you did was okay.” It is more like saying, “I don’t want this pain to own me forever.” I forgave him slowly, almost by accident. One morning he brought me coffee before I woke up, like he used to. Another time he sat with me in the car while I cried after dropping our daughter at college. Little by little, I saw he was trying to be a better man, not just a man who got caught. Have you ever wanted to forgive someone but felt like doing it meant betraying yourself?

Today we are still married. Not perfect, not some magical love story, but real. He knows he broke something that never went back exactly the same, and I know I became stronger than I thought I could be. I don’t think everyone should stay after cheating. Sometimes leaving is the healthiest forgiveness you can give yourself. But for me, forgiveness was possible because he changed, and because I chose peace over carrying poison in my chest. At 53, I can say my heart healed. It has scars, sure, but scars are also proof you survived.

She keeps messaging me how she wants to touch me even though I’ve made it clear I am uncomfortable with physical contact, she also keeps on messaging me about when we can kiss which I’ve explicitly stated I’m uncomfortable with.

But I don’t want to break up with her because it will make her sad and it might effect my friendgroup and their the only people i have,

She also tends to do small, intimate acts which I do not approve of her doing: like kissing my hand, she knows I hate physical touch—I’m really afraid this behaviour will escalate but I’m unsure how to make it stop,

Am I just overreacting?

Hey! I'm 25 years old woman living a very happily life with my husband of 5 years. We both are a great match. Best partners ever.

Last night i encounter a really unpleasing situation. My husband, the moment he woke up, opened his phone, i was still sleepy but i have a vague image that he open some chats, probably whatsapp and then he went to washroom. I clearly saw him not closing the recent tabs. Out of curiosity i opened his phone (which i never did), to check the recent tabs but there were no whatsapp tabs opens but all others recent open tabs were there. Me and my husband never doubted each other. He is very caring and loving husband but out of no where i started doubting him. I think he has a user mode in his phone ( as he is using google pixel 7). This all situation making me crazy I don't know what to do. Should dig into this matter?

Living together with my boyfriend for the past month has been a roller coaster of emotions, mostly on the positive side, as we've both been discovering new aspects of one another. Our relationship is pretty solid, and there's a strong foundation of love and mutual respect. 😊 However, I've found myself pondering recently about one aspect that seems to be slightly out of sync between us: sex. It appears that my boyfriend is significantly more interested in it than I am. It's not that I don't enjoy it, but my desire doesn't match up with his; it sometimes makes me wonder why sex holds such importance in relationships anyway.

We've been dating for six months now and made the big decision to live together a month ago. Overall, it's been fantastic! But this mismatch in our sexual drives is starting to make me question... what role does sex truly play in a relationship?! It feels like it's this universally accepted notion that sex is crucial, and I'm curious if it's really a make-or-break factor. Can't a loving relationship thrive without constantly focusing on this particular aspect? Or does it somehow strengthen the bond between partners? 🤔

I often feel guilty when I turn down my boyfriend's advances, even when I've had a long, exhausting day. His persistence makes me feel as if I'm letting him down, and I don’t want him to think I'm not attracted to him because that’s definitely not the case. We've talked about it, and he’s always kind and understanding, but I can't shake off the feeling that we're out of sync when it comes to our physical needs. It's got me pondering whether a relationship can still be strong if one partner's interest in sex doesn't align with the other's??... how do people handle discrepancies in desire while keeping things balanced and happy?!!

I'm hopeful that this isn't something that will drive us apart. In fact, I'm determined for it not to!!! Exploring this aspect of our relationship is a learning process. Maybe our focus should be on understanding and compromising rather than stressing over the differences. While I'm figuring this out, I’d love to hear from you guys... do you think sex is the ultimate glue in a relationship, or is it just one piece of the puzzle? The journey of understanding each other's needs better is ongoing, and I'm keen to keep nurturing this loving relationship into something that's long-lasting and fulfilling for both of us. 🌟

i dont even know if this makes sence, but i keep thinking about how to stop masterburation on memory, like not even the act only, but the stupid replay of it in my head. it feels like my brain saved every bad habbit in hd and plays it when i am bored, sad, lonely, or just lying there at night like a loser. i tell myself “ok this is the last time,” and then the next day my mind is already making little excuses. it is so dumb becuase nobody is forcing me, but it still feels like i am being dragged by my own head.

i tried deleting stuff, blocking sites, even putting my phone far away, and yeah it works for maybe two days. then the memory part starts. like i dont need to see anything, my brain just remembers it, and that is the part that makes me feel kinda hopeless. have you ever had something you dont want to think about, but the more you fight it, the louder it gets? thats how it is for me. i start thinking maybe i am broken, but then i also know im probably just stuck in a loop. i dont think shame helps much, but i still feel it anyway, which is annoying as hell.

the only thing that kinda helps is not acting like i can magically fix my whole brain in one night. i try to get up, drink water, walk around, play a game, or text someone about random stuff before the memory gets too strong. sometimes i fail and feel like trash after, but sometimes i dont, and those times matter a little. i dont have some perfect answer. i just think stopping “on memory” means building new boring memories over the old ones, again and again, even when it feels fake. maybe thats all self control is, just being tired and still choosing not to make it worse.

I've been very jealous last year and suffered a lot for it. I was so mad it was happening to me that I wanted him to pay for that so I tried to make him see how deeply hurt and betrayed I felt. Anyways, I regret putting that much negative energy on my body, my mind and on him. I love him to death and I'm willing to tolerate things and be more kind and understanding while not losing myself and my self confidence.

He has this habit of wandering eyes and everyday glances at pretty sexy girls everywhere online. Just look. Very rare times I caught him red handed about 3 times and it did such physiological trauma on me that got some sort of PTSD like I wouldn't let go of that image, feelings out of my mind they would repeat all over again. Woke up having nightmares and a constant fear of abandonment.

This year I'm approaching forgiving and calmer. However, when I tend to take time to answer and he says I'm getting bored. I take it as a direct hit. My thoughts begin to spiral like, is he bored of me? maybe that's why the wondering eye?

I have been dating my bf since about 8 months now and I have fallen completely head over heels since the beginning. but we are long-distance and that too with minimal talk time because we both have a huge imp exam coming up very soon. and that's not really the problem because we are both serious and focused.

The problem, however, is that I am getting super attached to the point where I can't stop thinking about him, i have zero focus left and my mood heavily depends on him, his replies, our little convos (which are again mostly about the exam but i don't mind that). but i keep checking my notifications and end up wasting time on my phone. Everything in my life from how good/bad my day went to how well i do in practice tests has started to depend on him and getting his attention.

I don't wanna turn into this 'always available, selfless, sort of a people pleaser who would do anything for anyone' person. (even though i already am that person). how do i fix this and get a better personality?

cause internally i am aware that i have everything one could ask for. so it's not like i am insecure/jealous/not confident. In fact a lot of friends confide in me because they find me to be a safe space. but i cannot deny the fact that i am way too available at all times. Also i don't wanna ruin our perfectly good relationship just because i can't even live on my own anymore and that might come off as a weird trait.

(also this context might give a better light on things- this is technically my second relationship but effectively my first one being so much in love)