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female
age
26-29,
anonymous
writes: Hi everyone, first want to say happy new year to you all. I know people on here give really great advice so I need some help.When you first get into a relationship everything is amazing at first, you spend all of your time together, hang out and talk on the phone constantly, talk about everything and let each other in completely, you make so much effort to make each other happy, and it just seems like everything is perfect. This lasts for a few months and then things start to change. That amazing spark starts fading away and your partner doesn't seem to be making much effort to do certain things anymore. They kind of seem too busy to be with you as much as before, and it just feels like something is missing now and things aren't the same anymore. This is what is currently happening to me. I really do think my boyfriend still loves me and wants to be with me, but he and the relationship isn't the same as it was when we first started dating. I even start getting the feeling that he is losing interest in our relationship or that he may want to find somebody else. Is this a normal thing that couples go through? What should I do?
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reader, anonymous, writes (4 January 2014): Though it would be easier to answer this if there were more examples in your question, I will still post my overall opinion on how relationships go in my eyes without answering whether I think you two are falling apart or not.Yes, those sparks do die down after a while. Those sparks are not the foundation of the relationship though. The foundation of a relationship is the commitment. If you look at some of the long lasting relationships around you, such as aunts and uncles, or anyone really who's lasted years and years, at some point you're going to say "hey, there's a lot of life to live, and we have to get our heads out of each others butts to live it." People can still maintain a relationship without having the constant attention. Allowing him to enjoy his free time doing random things is the most loving thing you can do for him because it's allowing him to live his life and experience new things, something most everyone likes to do and should do. What matters is that the two of you can maintain a commitment while doing so. Think of the different ways a person can love another person.. Have you ever had a best friend who you were anxious to hang out with all the time, yet didn't feel abandoned when they went somewhere for the evening without you, (assuming they didn't ditch you or anything. you know, just wasn't near you 24.7)? That's love without all the butterflies. The only difference is that a boyfriend also has the physical commitment to you, unlike a BFF. It's actually kind of cool that this is your big concern. For some people, after the sparks die down, they start to realize all the things they overlooked during the honeymoon faze and begin to tare the relationship apart. Your concern is a change in emotional reactions. The best thing you can do for your relationship is to understand that the honeymoon stage is over and the best friend (with a physical commitment too) stage has begun. Who knows, someday, if you two make it, you can enter the family-like love fazes and all the other fazes to come that life brings us. But if you want that, you have to be willing to separate from his side so that you both can still set and meet goals, work, and maintain other relationships (like friends and family, which are important aspects of life as well). One of the things I see people do at this point, and it drives me crazy, is that they start to think it's time to move on so they can find the sparks again. This just leads to another break up after those sparks die. If you want to have a long lasting relationship, you have to be able to manage without the sparks. It's about learning them as a person and appreciating them, keeping them number one no matter what. Affection isn't always going to be at a peak either. But walking away is just going to not only give you even bigger gaps between affection, but possibly cause you to wined up getting affection from various people over time when relationships keep ending and new partners are established. A relationship isn't always about having interest. When I'm not interested in my significant other, I simply put my focus to something else, such as being productive with goals or anything that can make me a better person. As long as we stay loyal to each other, anything else I put my heart into (such as goals) is only going to make our future that much better as a couple because it's for him too and if you establish a true friendship with him, it will encourage him to do decent things when he's not with you because best friends tend to highly influence each other. Believe me, it's worth the effort if there's a commitment there. People spend their whole life chasing that long lasting relationship, overlooking how often they throw it away. What should you do? Take him out to do something fun. If he doesn't agree to it, then you're not using the right ideas. You're young, take him to a party or to go bowling like you would a friend, and don't be up his rear when you get there unless he's pursuing it. Take him to hang out with some friends or to do something spontaneous. Build memories together. Don't pressure him to make you feel anything other than respected as his partner. Guys are more simple than females; they don't always get that we want constant reassurance. Yet we females don't always go to a party with them and let them go off and chat with others while we do our own socializing; instead we're wishing they'd simply set on the couch next to us all night. That's not living.. I'm just rambling on now though. You get my point, I assume.
A
male
reader, DoubleM  +, writes (4 January 2014):
 Yes, that happens, but we wouldn't know whether your boyfriend loves you or not.
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