relationship advice - where to go from here

Background: I've been in a closeted gay relationship with my boyfriend for 4 years now - living together for 2. We are both not "out" to anyone (except for me out to 2 friends who have since moved across the country), both really good at keeping secrets I suppose (and both very straight-acting, if you will). I believe we are in true love, though this is my first and only relationship, so I don't really have anything to compare it to. My boyfriend has dated quite a few others in the past (all women, he only recently started exploring his attraction towards guys). He was also my first sexual experience and my first kiss when I was 20.

Early-Relationship: I remember thinking he looked good when we first met, not amazing, but good enough for what I had planned, we met by hooking up first. The hookups continued and we realized we got along really well, I was infatuated pretty early on (I think he was too). I remember thinking he was very sexy the first time we got naked together (better than when I first saw him).

After a couple months we began our relationship - which was pretty much the same as when we were just hooking up, but now we hung out a little more and began to say "I love you". We were both still sneaking around to avoid anyone finding out what we were up to, which added a little sizzle to the sex tbh.

1-year mark: I ended up cheating on him with another guy (with his permission) after I told him I was curious what else was out there since he was the only guy I had hooked up with. I enjoyed it, but it was definitely not worth cheating. My boyfriend got upset afterwards, but ultimately we became more honest with each other and I think it really strengthened our relationship.

2-year mark: By now we had been on quite a few vacations together, and were loving life together. I was graduating college so I suggested we move in together, and we did. We were already seeing each other almost every day, so it wash't a huge change. Everything worked out pretty well and we started our new life, still very deep in love. I still had the occasional thought in my mind of what it would be like to sleep with other guys, but was content enough without acting on it.

3-year mark: I started to notice I had become slightly less attracted to my boyfriend. I'm not sure if it was due to me getting bored of seeing him naked, him slacking at the gym, or maybe just him getting a bit older, but I just didn't find him as sexy as I did when the relationship first started. It was around this point that it also started to become clear that I was the more attractive one in the relationship.

Around the same time, I started to get stronger urges to hookup with other, better looking guys. It was not that my boyfriend was not attractive, there were just *more* attractive guys I started seeing every day around town and at the gym, etc. I felt awful that I wasn't as attracted to the man I loved as I was these strangers, so I tried to spice things up in the bedroom to make up for the *gap*, which worked to some degree.

In the end, however, I decided to cheat again, this time, without my boyfriend knowing. I felt bad about it, but honestly I had a pretty good time. Again though, I'm not sure I would say it was worth cheating. But since I didn't get caught, and for some reason I didn't feel bad about it, it was more or less water under the bridge. I actually wished I didn't like it, and that I felt worse about it. It would make me more secure in my feelings that my boyfriend is the one and only guy for me.

Another thing started happening around this time. Although my boyfriend did not find out I cheated, he could tell something was bothering me. I told him I occasionally thought about other hotter guys. Since then he will always tell me I look like a supermodel, and that I can get any guy I want. I tell him he looks great too, but I can only stretch the truth so far, so he is not convinced like I am when he tells me those things. I can tell he truly does think I am the best looking guy in the world (I am convinced he actually does think this). He started often telling me to go find some better looking guy because I am so handsome and deserve better than him, which honestly may be reinforcing the thoughts about other guys.

4-year-mark: more of the same from a year before, but the feelings towards other guys (and the curiosity of what else is out there) are getting stronger still. It was even strong enough for me to download a gay dating/hookup app, which I told my boyfriend about. I told him it was just for looking, but since then I know he suspects I may have used it for something more.

The app is something we can discuss openly, and have frequently. He will go back and forth between telling me to delete it and telling me to just go do what I need to do (experiment and see what it is like with other guys using the app). I know I must be crushing his feelings, but for some reason whenever I convince myself to give up on pursuing other guys for him, the *urge* comes back.

I don't want to cheat him or myself, but at the same time I don't want to sacrifice a relationship that is otherwise full of love and happiness. I don't want to settle in my relationship, but having nothing to compare this relationship to, it is hard to know if I am settling, and if so, by how much. I feel very superficial because my boyfriend is amazing in so many ways, but he is just slightly less attractive that what fills my fantasies.

I did end up using that app I mentioned to cheat on him again recently, this time with a very attractive guy - someone I would say is probably slightly out of my league. I loved every second of it - which made me both happy and sad at the same time for obvious reasons.

the other side: Now, what I realize I have failed to tell you all is what our relationship really has going for us. I still get butterflies when I see him. The best part of every day is seeing him after work and spending my evening with him. When we touch/hug/kiss I feel like there is nowhere else I would rather be, it is like there is some magic energy flowing through our bodies when we are together. I know it sounds ultra cheesy, but its true. And this is what I imagine love is. We also have amazing sex, despite what I mentioned above (Like I said, I do still find him pretty attractive, just not top model attractive).

what next: Here is where I could use your help, what do I do next? As far as I can tell I have 4 options.

1) suppress my desires for other guys and continue to date my boyfriend which may lead to more cheating. (Ideally I have satisfied my curiosity with this last hookup and I won't need to try it again, though I feel like that is likely not the case)
2) Break up - This would break both of our hearts, but ultimately might prevent worse heartbreak if we drag out the inevitable.
3) open-relationship - I hinted at this once and he was very strongly against it, which I totally understand. He says I am the only person he wants, period. Man I wish I felt the same way 100% of the time. I would honestly rather suggest this again before breaking up, but idk if that would go over well. He has been saying recently that we basically have an open relationship now due to my use of the app I mentioned, and he hasn't broken up with me.
4) take a *break* - this might be complicated since we are living together, and I don't know how much this works. Even though I have been in a relationship for 4 years, I still feel like a relationship newb with a lot of things since it is my first one.

For the record, I've tried to be as honest as possible in here with how I am truly feeling about of lot of these topics. I'm happy to elaborate if needed anywhere, but this post is pretty long to begin with. (beats the 100s of pages on my last thread though)

 

Bluntness is appreciated, thanks. And yes, I would probably call myself shallow as well reading this. Believe me, I wish I didn't feel this way. :icon_sad:

 

Thanks for the replies guys, I read them but didn't have time to respond. I talked to my boyfriend about it. We very unexpectedly decided on a mutual break up where we would remain friends. At first I was sad, but then felt pretty neutral about it, I think it hadn't really hit me yet. In total it only lasted for about 5 hours, then he just caved (and I did as well). Even though it might make sense logically to break up, we are pretty madly in love with each other. So we worked out a compromise that we are going to try for the time being. He suggested every time I hook up with a guy I am interested in, but then he would get a freebie with a guy/girl whenever he wants. I'm a bit skeptical if this is going to work out, but we will see.

 

Thanks for the replies everyone, really great feedback all around, every bit is appreciated. you all are giving me a lot to think about.

 

I have an update: So I decided to tell my boyfriend about the 2 other cheating incidents. He was understandably a bit sad, but he didn't break up with me. I feel like it crushed him inside more that he shows however. He mentioned he thinks he may be losing some love for me, which is understandable. I think he is still trying to process everything really. I hope I did the right thing there. He appears to have shrugged it off a bit now, but I can tell this is putting a toll on our relationship. It is hard to read how he is really feeling to be honest, and he doesn't want to talk about it much. We both want to stay together forever, yet we both understand that if I don't address my feeling now they will likely only get stronger in the future.

In regards to what OnTheHighway posted about "if you love something, let it free" - that is a lot easier said than done, and I'm not sure either of us is ready for that based on how our very brief break up went yesterday. At least now we are on the same page entirely, so we will see how our feelings and relationship unravels from here. It is like we just ripped off a relationship band-aid, and now we are waiting to see if the cut will heal or start bleeding again. If we do break up, perhaps it will be for the best, but for now we are still together.

 

Thanks for all the replies everyone, it has all been great and I'm doing a lot of thinking and trying to digest everything.

Mystory (fitting name) - I actually just took your advice and re-read my last thread. It is very interesting seeing the development and change in both of us. We really have been though a lot together. I think one thing I noticed and tried to keep track of was the strength of our relationship as I read. It seemed like it may have been strongest somewhere in between the 2 and 3 year mark - at the time we were both very honest about how uncertain we were about the future, but that we were enjoying exploring it together. We also acknowledged honestly to one another that there may come a time where it will make sense for us to break up.

I feel like I made the mistake of slipping and not being as honest as I should have been with him from that point forward. However, I think there was a reason for this, I remember telling him at times how I felt, and seeing him (understandably) get hurt from what I was saying. I think that is probably why I stopped telling him, and inevitably why I ended up going behind his back and cheating. I didn't like seeing him get hurt because I love him, so I concealed how I really felt from him. And although I tried to suppress my curiosity as well, it got the better of me.

Current Status - Him: our relationship is sort of on eggshells at the moment. He seems to be trying to forgive me, and is flipping back and forth between a happy/lovey mood and a sad/heartbroken mood. We are still speaking and hanging out just like before, and he seems like he is just trying to get through this because he is clearly very in love with me.

Current Status - Me: I am trying to figure out what to do still. I think the biggest problem I have is that I am still trying to figure out what I want. (I will preface this by saying that I am generally terrible when it comes to making decisions - even simple decisions like what to order on a menu.) I'm trying to think about what it is that I truly want - I have one life to live and I think I owe it to myself to do exactly what I want to do with it. That being said, I honestly have no idea what that is. I can't tell if I want to go sleep around a bit and explore what I like, stay with my current boyfriend whom I love and can't imagine life without, or maybe even try dating someone else for a little while to see how that goes. To challenge myself I am going to try to say how much I want each of those things on a scale of 1-10 (my mathy geek side is going to make an appearance).

sleep around and explore - fluctuates between 5 and 8
stay with current boyfriend - 9.5 (this probably fluctuates a bit too, but probably not by as much)
try dating someone else - 4.5

ok, that was not an easy exercise. But perhaps useful. I feel like the more more I think about any one of those three things, the higher the score goes. So, for example, when I am hugging my boyfriend after a day at work, the 9.5 might jump up to 9.9. (originally I had that value set at 9.9 but then thought about this and changed it to 9.5). Did I mention how that exercise was hard yet?

The scores by themselves are interesting, but alone they don't summarize the full situation. There are interactions between the 3 categories that make actually making a decision difficult - especially when you throw in options like an open relationship. For example, having an open relationship might allow me to cash in on some of the first score, but might lower the second score. And that still doesn't even take into account my boyfriends feelings or how my own feeling will change over time. Even when I just look at my own happiness, it is not a simple function to maximize.

So that was the more logical way to look at things, I suppose another option is the old "go with your heart" option. My heart appears to change its mind every minute. It seems like the more I think about one thing, the more I think it is the right thing to do, no matter which thing it is. If I had to make a split second decision, it would definitely to be to stay with him and forget about everything else. I guess that may be easier to do in the near term than the long term though, which makes it appealing for quick decision making.

Anyways, that is me trying to constructively think about what to do with text.

Changing topics a bit here to start addressing some of the comments people have left. A couple of you brought up a very good point about how it seems like I am the being more or less idolized in the relationship. I do think that may be a problem, and it may be either contributing to, or an effect of my boyfriend lower self esteem. I'm not really sure what to do to help with that while being completely honest with him at the same time. For a while, I wasn't telling him often my thoughts on other guys which I mentioned above I think. I was still however telling him how amazing and attractive I thought he was. I felt like this was boosting his self esteem quite a bit, and I wasn't even really trying to do anything aside from keeping my thoughts on other hot guys from him.

Some people also suggested that if I think I will be tempted to cheat again, I should just break up with him. Honestly, I think I will be tempted to cheat again, and I have told him this as well. But neither of us can find it in us to break up, which I think we are taking as a sign that we should try to make it work. And I think the main basis behind trying to make it work is that if I just do my exploring and get it over with, i'll be satisfied and no longer curious which will ultimately strengthen our relationship.

Finally, I know that everything i've been mentioning is looks driven, and I can't quite explain why I have such a focus on it. I suppose I just do, and that might be part of what would get cleared up if I explored things with other guys a bit more. Maybe not, I really can't be sure. (Also, not sure if this makes that much of a difference, but i'm 24 and he is 33 now)