lost my momentum

To be fair, you don't need sex to keep a relationship strong. You love your boyfriend, so why leave him? I don't understand. If you're romantically attracted to him but not sexually, and sex isn't the be-all and end-all in your relationship, then just have a purely romantic relationship. I mean, of course, it's your decision. Also, I really don't know the whole story so I might be over-simplifying everything.

 

Hi Lostinside, I think I know where your coming from with the 'something missing' thing. I have moved out from my wife 2 months ago, it hurt like hell but I had to do it. I needed to remove myself from the situation in order to make sense of my feelings and future life (I'm 41 yrs old). I am slowly coming to terms with my 'gay sexuality' although the thought of being with a guy is scary (and sometimes exciting). I still find some women very sexy but I must remind myself that this is not enough! Throughout my adult life I've battled with conflicting emotions when I've been in relationships with women. I do have attraction, but it always 'wears off' over time. Am I waffling now? Maybe.... Anyway, hope my comments help x

 

I understand. I've been with my husband for 11 years and we've been through a lot together. I am still both sexually and emotionally attracted to him (and to men) but I also feel like I can have a more fulfilling relatioinship with another woman.

Do you feel yourself being pulled away from him when you have a crush on a woman?
Remember that you don't have to say goodbye completly to him..down the road you may become best friends.

 

Explore all the possibilities with your boyfriend.

 

Maybe you love your boyfriend as a friend you care deeply about? Just a thought.

 

A couple of things...

As you pointed out here, there is more to a relationship than sex. Sex is, in reality, a small part of a relationship. As a lesbian what you're giving up isn't so much sex, it's the possibility of finding romantic love.

Now, you have the option of holding onto your boyfriend until you find a woman who returns your feelings. This seems to be the direction you're heading when you say, "My boyfriend knows how strong my feelings are and that there is a possibility that i will leave him if i find the right woman." However, I don't think that's particularly fair to him regardless of what he says - you have to think about what's in the best interest of your friendship. After all, he has romantic feelings toward you, and is likely hoping that he can do something to convince you to stay with him. Which brings me to the next point...

There are a number of problems with what you wrote right here.

The first big one is that your putting yourself in a no win situation. You're looking at this as all or nothing, and that's just false. You're not in a situation where if you choose to end the relationship because you're a lesbian, you're never going to be able to speak to him again. He can still be there, part of your life, the only difference is that you've both been freed up to move on romantically with other people. That doesn't mean you stop caring for one another or end the friendship. If handled in a mature way, there is even the possibility that the friendship could grow stronger. On the other hand, if you hang on to him up until you find "the right woman", and then dump him - there is a good chance that it will damage the relationship you have with him.

The next major problem is that you're calling him your soul mate, and are claiming that you'll never find anyone else like him. Here the problem you're creating for yourself is artificial scarcity.

I'm sorry that I have to be the one to break this romantic notion that people have of "Soul Mates" - they don't exist. Not only do such people not exist, everyone should be glad that they don't exist. Let me first explain why it's impractical.

Let's take a fictional person and call her Angie. Now, Angie is our friend and she comes up to us and tells us that she has just met her soul mate. Angie just happened to bump into her while serving her at the local restaurant where she works. They've been together for several months, her life has never been better, she's going to propose marriage. Everything with her girlfriend is simply perfect. Isn't it just amazing, Angie says, that she just so happened to bump into her soul mate while waiting tables. This is the dream - the fantasy - that so many people have, and it would be amazing if it were true.

However, as of right now there are nearly 7.3 billion people on planet Earth. That's a lot of people, so let's just take a single major metropolitan city such as New York or London - both of which have populations around 8 Million people. Let's say half of that population is female, so that cuts our numbers down to 4 Million. From that number, let's just assume that around 5% of that population are lesbians. That's 200,000 lesbians in just that one major city. Now, let's assume that you encounter three lesbians every single day for say - 25 years. That means you've met 27,375 lesbians over the course of that 25 years. That gives you roughly a 14% chance to have encountered your soul mate. That's three lesbians a day, for twenty five years, in just one major city when your soul mate could literally be anywhere on the globe and all the while low balling the numbers by discounting the potential for bi-sexual women. If soul mates existed the chances of them finding each other are so small as to be for all practical purposes impossible. Yet, we know that there are many people out there who are happy and madly in love. Angie has certainly found that, and so can anyone else - including you.

Everyone wants to believe in this fantasy, that there is someone special out there waiting for us. It's what we've been taught since we were children. It's what movies tell us, it's what books tell us, and it's what fairytales tell us. However, that's exactly what it is: a fairytale. We all like this notion not only because it feels romantic, but because it's also simple. It doesn't require any work from us, and we don't have to do anything to achieve the type of happiness we want. After all, if we either just keep looking or sit back, then that magical person that doesn't exist is going to fall into our laps and we'll get our happily ever after.

Life doesn't work that way, because life is filled with difficulties, struggles, and challenges. There is no such thing as a romantic relationship that has never faced a challenge. Show me a married couple who are madly in love and have been together for fifty years, and you'll find a couple who has seen some trials and tribulations. Good, strong, solid relationships require work and effort. They don't come out of the box ready made.

However, that's a side issue here... the issue I want to address is why the concept of a soul mate is a horrible concept. What happens when you find the 'soul mate', and she cheats on you? What happens when you are in a relationship with the 'soul mate', and she's mistreating you, abusing you, or not living up to your standards? What happens if everything is perfect (even though nothing ever really is), and the 'soul mate' gets hit by a bus?

The sad fact of the world is that sometimes the people we love mistreat us, hurt us, and sometimes even die. If you live in a world where soul mates are real, then you're fucked. Your soul mate just died, and you're never going to find love again. Or your soul mate happens to be an asshole - because guess what, somebody has to claim the assholes of the world if soul mates exist - even they have a match. You're just completely fucked.

Thankfully, we don't live in this world. One of the most redeeming qualities of love is the fact that we can pick ourselves up and try again. Someone could hurt us, cheat on us, or heaven forbid they could die, and we can pick ourselves up and try again. We can find happiness again, and if necessary we can find happiness after that too. We are not limited to just a single individual, but live in a world of boundless opportunity.

These thoughts you have are harmful, because they create artificial limitations that don't exist. They make it difficult to let go out of fear that you'll never find happiness again. I can promise you, so long as you're willing to put in the effort to find it - you will find a woman who makes you incredibly happy and that you can love with honesty. Holding onto a relationship with your boyfriend, until you find 'the right woman' is only going to damage whatever future relationship you might have with him.

Hopefully this was helpful, and didn't come off as too blunt. I hope it helps provide a different prospective on your situation.

 

I may be wrong but the term soulmate for me means someone who you have a special mutual connection with but it doesn't necessarily mean that the person has to become your life partner, they may be "only" a friend or someone who really inspires you...

I was thinking about exactly the same thing, LostInside.
My BF is the one who knows me the best, we don't need to speak to know what the other is thinking and we've been through a lot, but I realized I've never been able to open myself to him for some reason, like I am always one foot out of the door. Maybe it's because I'm a very private person, or I've never loved him enough to let him in, even though I love him the most I can. Idk.
The key question for me was when I asked myself Does he make me a better person? and the answer was surprisingly NO, he doesn't challenge me in any way. I don't feel like I'm alive. But when I'm around women I feel like wanting to be more than who I am, to be a better man and to be better a woman (I'm GQ). Maybe I won't find the right woman but I want/deserve to at least try. I don't want to wake up in 10 years and think "If only".

 

If you stay together, he has what we wants; and you don't.