[25M] boyfriend told his female friend [23F] he has doubts about me [23F] but tells me otherwise. Is this reason to break up?

Background:
We were friends for 4 years before dating. We share a lot of friends and I’m super close with his family, they treat me like one of their own and I love them.

There’s one female friend of his, his closest friend “Cathy”, who he admitted before we dated that he thought/wanted something to happen between them when they were both single but ultimately it didn’t. Now she’s with her long-term boyfriend of 2+ years and they’re happy together.

6 months after we started dating we became long distance when he got accepted to a school abroad.

Present situation:
I just flew to visit him this summer holiday but he’s still in classes. One day when he was in class I got too curious because I had always suspected he still wanted to be with Cathy from things he’s said about her or her boyfriend. (Obviously this is NOT a good thing to do and I’ve learned my lesson from the mindfuck that followed that some things are better left unknown, but) I searched my name in her chat with him on Facebook. I didn’t like the things I saw:

1. At the time of our first big fight (which came around because he was being very distant, and his reason was exams) he was telling her that he didn’t see it working out and that he wasn’t too sad about it. He admitted he didn’t really have an urge to fight to save the relationship and agreed with her that it was a red flag. He also said “Tbh I doubt my attraction to her - like there’s some physical things but mostly behavioural.” Anyway, he said at this point that he’d give it 6 months and see.

2. A month after he told her this, after we had made up and he ultimately told me he did want to work things out (after a lot of messages where he was simply apologetic but indifferent about our falling-out), I thought we were good. But at this time he sent her a message saying that if they were both single by 40 he’d marry her, because “If OP dies before 35 I think I could still land someone.” He’s obviously saying it jokingly but this is the same line he gave me when we were starting to flirt. He followed this with “My mom thinks we’d make a cute couple”. Thankfully she didn’t respond favourably but then again, what kind of response was he hoping for, and what would he have done if she’d given it?

3. A few months after that, which is also a couple months before I just went to visit him, I thought things were really good. But in April she asked how we were and he told her “in deepest confidence” that he thought she and he got along better than he and I did. And when she said that’s a troubling sign and not what he should have in a life partner, he just agreed and elaborated that despite me having “almost entirely positive qualities (like, no negatives)”, he just didn’t really feel it. He said he was “content but never fully satisfied and he’d never been in this position before.” Because with his exes it had been a lot more passionate, apparently. He said he’d wait and see if I felt the same way or brought it up and go from there.

Now, some more details:
He’s never shown these feelings to me. He always tells me he loves me and is always talking about when we get married or have kids. He’s told his classmates and friends that he sees himself marrying me and even told one classmate that I fit his type really well.

So during this LDR visit, when I saw the messages, I didn’t tell him about them but I tried asking him the same questions to see what he said. I told him it was okay to break up if we weren’t happy or he felt something was missing. That it was better that way because we both deserved people who loved us and people we’re actually in love with. I asked him to stop dating me if it wasn’t 100% for him because I don’t deserve that. He insisted that he did love me 100% and that he didn’t know what I meant, I was perfect for him. He said he wanted to keep working on the relationship and kept asking what he had done wrong. I told him I felt like he didn’t have passion for me or wasn’t really excited to be with me, and that if it was the case that I wanted him to know he could leave. He asked if I wanted him to show more affection - he just didn’t seem to get it? I gave him so many opportunities to admit that he wasn’t feeling it but he didn’t do it every time. I also asked if he was embarrassed of me because I’m not the prettiest girl, and he’s a 10, but he seemed offended at that and said he wasn’t embarrassed of me and that I was beautiful. I know that’s a blatant lie and I know he’s kind of OK with lying because I’ve caught him in little white lies before (though I never called him out on it because they were just everyday stories).

Toward the end of the visit, I started crying one night because we went on a double date with two of his friends who were seriously happy together. And you could feel the love. And I wanted that for myself but knew I didn’t have it. So I started crying and we talked about it and he told me he felt like every time these talks come up it feels like he’s being blindsided, he wished I’d bring them up when they weren’t a big deal yet so that every time it wouldn’t feel like “defusing a bomb”. I apologized and said it’s my anxiety, I have dozens of doubts and insecurities all the time and I deal with them on my own but when I can’t handle it I bring it up to him; I don’t want to bother him with every small insecurity without knowing if it’ll pass or get worse. He said he could see himself “getting too tired or losing the patience to fight for the relationship” if we kept having talks and I told him it was unreasonable to ask that I not bring up issues. He backtracked and agreed that that wasn’t what he wanted, he just wanted a way to know that I’d fight for the relationship when he wasn’t emotionally able to, because he hates how it seems like he’s the only one trying when I’m suggesting a break up and he’s wanting to work it out. I suggested a compromise where we agree to approach problems with the mutual understanding that breakups won’t be initially mentioned at all, that we go into it trying to find a solution and work it out together first. And that way it’d be more like solving a puzzle than defusing a bomb. He agreed to that saying it was probably the best he could ask for. We returned to normal quickly after this because I only had 2 days left there and we probably didn’t want to make the visit end on a bad note.

When we’re together he’s so affectionate and tells me he loves me and that I look cute or something. He slipped a note in my suitcase that said “I will love you to the ends of the earth - no matter where you go, my heart will follow. Love you to [country he’s in] and back, to the sunsets of tomorrow, and until my every last breath.”

It’s only been to Cathy that he’s said any of these things. To everyone else he maintains that we’re going to get married. His classmates tell me that he talks about me a lot.

I can kind of rationalize some of the things. Like how you feel like things won’t work out in a fight - I felt that way too, and maybe it’s a bit of a defence mechanism to say that we weren’t that interested in that person anyway. And maybe it’s not such a bad thing to joke about being a couple because before we dated when I was with someone else I also mentioned to him once (totally innocently) that my mom had thought we were dating when she saw him post on my Facebook. Maybe to an outsider it’d seem like flirting?

But then there are things I can’t rationalize. I can’t accept that he’d be willing to string me along and marry me and take my life away like that knowing that he’s lukewarm about me and that he’s halfhearted about it. That he doesn’t feel passion for me or that it’s somehow less than what his exes made him feel. I don’t know if I can live with that knowing that there might be someone out there who really is in love with me.

But what if it’s all an overreaction? He tells Cathy one thing but tells me and everyone else another thing. I don’t know what’s the truth from him; I’ll never know even if I ask him (he’ll just say he loves me) and it’ll kill me inside. I also don’t want to break up with him and then have it actually be his thoughts on a dark day taken out of context or him saying things he didn’t mean when he was frustrated with me. He didn’t actually trash talk me, and he’s a generally nice human all around. I just want to feel secure in my relationship and that the person I love really loves and wants to be with me. It’s affecting my self esteem and makes me feel like I’m not good enough for him. Will his feelings change if I try harder or keep going? Are his doubts normal for a relationship and should I get over them or are they a dealbreaker and should I get out?

TL;DR: boyfriend told close female friend that he has doubts about his attraction and compatibility to me and about his investment in the relationship, but tells me and everyone else that he loves and wants to marry me. He also may have feelings for this female friend. Should I stay or go?

Submitted August 24, 2019 at 08:14AM by Doubtmythrowaway https://ift.tt/340Zvfd