Struggling mentally & emotionally
My fiancée and I have been together 4 and 1/2 years. He's been deployed for the past year and still has months to go. Our rship wasn't in the best place before he left due to sexual issues. He's a very sexual person and because of past rships and health issues I've developed a very negative rship with sex. He's been kind and understanding for years and I've been working on my issues. Thus we weren't in the best place before he left but we were ok and working on things.
His deployment was for 9 months. About a month after he left I started having constant maintenance issues in the apartment we shared and was stressed and frustrated. He decided that we should buy a house and so he decided to extend the deployment another 9 months (18months apart total) so he'd have the money. I was against it because I didn't think we'd survive being apart that long. I agreed to the extention simply because I wanted to support him.
So while he's gone im home dealing with constant maintenance issues and other issues in our apt, our dog was sick (she's fine now), I was starting my 2nd year of teaching elementary school, and I was also in school. I had a lot going on. On top of that I started working with a realtor friend of his to find us the perfect house. For 2 months I worked all day, went to tour houses after work, then went home to do homework. No rest. We found a house and then I had to add packing and moving to my akready full plate. My family lives out of state and his who's 30 mins away offered no assistance. I hired movers and did everything else myself.
So at that point, I was packing, moving, cleaning and organizing a new house, still trying to figure out my way at work, still in school, and still dealing with a sick dog. I was overwhelmed and angry that he wasn't here to help with any of it. I put my emotions on the back burner so I could focus on everything on my plate. I also put our rship in auto pilot and stopped focusing on it as much. Since he's not home to deal with any of this he has all the time in the world to worry about sex and that was the absolute last thing on my mind. He kept wanting to *** all the time and wanted videos, etc etc. I did what I could sometimes and other times I got frustrated and just shut him down. Apparently that was "damaging" to his manhood.
Here we are months later and I'm finally done with everything I had on my plate and I'm trying to refocus on the rship. I can feel the distance that has grown between us and then a month ago he told me he had sex A COUPLE TIMES with a friend a few months ago. I was heartbroken and *** but he's human and people mess up. I'm trying to show grace and work towards forgivness. He made conflicting comments about our rship. The first one was that we should go our seperate ways but then the next day he says he loves me, wants to see me again when he's back, and just isn't ready right now. As of today, he hasn't talked to me in over a week. I sent a long email the other day because I needed to get things off my chest but I can't tell if he's read it (darn Yahoo). I know we're broken but to me we're worth fixing and it just doesn't seem like he sees that. It's like he's forgotten how much we love each other or maybe he's falling out of love...idk.
I'm literally loosing my mind and feel like the life I've been working so hard towards is just being taken away from me. I love him and just want him to come home and we fix it cause I know we can be happy together. We have no other issues like money or religion or work ethic or etc. Our only issue is sex. We align in so many ways!
It sounds like your relationship has a decently solid foundation. 4.5 years is a long time and sounds like you were physically together for most of it and long distance is taking its toll! I’m in a similar situation in that my relationship just became long distance due to a job change by my partner. Not to generalize but some people specifically men tend to be very sexual. If we went for days without sex it affected him more than me. He prided himself on being faithful but since we’ve been apart he said he wished I’d send him pictures and such and that the reason guys are unfaithful is if they don’t feel that appreciation and affection sexually from their partner. I was shocked at this revelation which is not necessarily always true but it shed light on how I think your partner must’ve felt. That’s not your fault at all and at the end of the day loyalty to a relationship lies on his conscience, not on yours for what you did or didn’t do. Of course every aspect of the relationship must be watered/tended to, but sometimes a certain aspect is more in need and in this case moving and things in the home front seem to be the main focus. He wants to get a house with you and that seems like he sees and wants a future with you. I bet he is doubting himself and his value to you now that he admitted he was unfaithful. He may feel unworthy of you. He may not have necessarily done it because he felt strong attraction toward that other person but he may have been creating narratives in his head that you were maybe giving attention to someone else so he might as well to. Men don’t seem to always realize immediately tbst their partners do not need to be sexually involved at all times in order to survive and feel fulfilled. I’m hoping all things come out in the wash for you all and with time and once the deployment is over you can come to an agreement.
