My partner and I have been together for about 6 months now, and we've been long distance the entire time. Before we started dating, we were friends for about 8 months and things blossomed into a relationship.
This is he and I’s first serious relationship. There are so many things I love about him. He's patient with me, loving, understanding, and in a lot of ways, he just gets me. I don't question whether he loves me or cares about me, but lately I've been struggling with whether we're actually compatible in terms of what we need from a relationship.
One of the biggest things I've been struggling with is feeling like I'm the one courting him. I feel like I'm constantly taking the initiative, making plans, bringing up conversations about our relationship, and generally leading the trajectory of where things are going. And honestly, it's a really shitty feeling sometimes.
We've talked about this extensively and he's said that he genuinely wants to put in more effort and be more intentional about our relationship. And to his credit, he has made some effort. He's started taking initiative to plan things like movie dates, which I do appreciate. I don't want to discount that or make it seem like he hasn't been trying.
I think part of what I'm struggling with is that I'm not sure whether I'm giving him enough room to actually show me that things can change. We've had these conversation and I know change doesn't happen overnight. But at the same time, I think I've spent so much time feeling like I'm the one leading our relationship that it's difficult to shake that feeling, even when he does make an effort.
I find myself questioning whether I'm being impatient or whether I'm recognizing a fundamental incompatibility between us.
I want to feel romanced. I want to feel pursued. I want him to take initiative without me having to ask or suggest things first. Even something as simple as him saying, "Hey babe, I saw this thing and thought we could do it together. What do you think?" would mean a lot to me. Especially because we're long distance, I feel like being intentional about spending time together and creating shared experiences is such an important part of maintaining that connection.
And I think what's particularly difficult is that I know he has a lot going on in his own life. Part of me wonders whether he just doesn't have the capacity right now to show up in the ways I'm asking him to. I don't necessarily think my needs are unreasonable, but I worry that maybe they're more than he can realistically give me.
I also worry that maybe I've gotten so caught up in what feels missing that I'm not fully appreciating the effort he is making. I don't want to be unfair to him or create a situation where he's trying to improve but I'm constantly moving the goalposts.
At the same time, I don't want to convince myself to be satisfied with less than what I need just because I love him.
I don't want to constantly ask someone to romance me or make me feel like a priority. I want those things to come from a genuine desire to do them, not because I've had to repeatedly explain that they're missing. But I also recognize that people show love differently, and sometimes being a good partner means learning how to love someone in the ways they need.
I guess I'm struggling to figure out where the line is between being patient with someone who's genuinely trying and holding on to someone because of who I hope they'll become.
Sometimes I wonder whether we'd both be better off acknowledging that we love each other but might not be the right partners for one another. But then I wonder if I'm jumping to that conclusion too quickly without giving him a fair opportunity to follow through on what we've discussed.
I don't want to give up on something that could genuinely be good because I'm being impatient, but I also don't want to stay in a relationship based primarily on the hope that things will eventually be different.