My (23M) gf (24f) doesn't feel passion towards me
As the title says, I'm lost at what to do. I have a healthy junk of childhood trauma rooted in not being deemed "enough" or "lovable". As a result, I made a rule for myself to only ever approach girls who have given me a clear green light to do so. Except with my current gf, who we got talking, but it never felt that it'd be going to get romantical. We are from different countries so our talking stage lasted for 3 months, during which nothing happened. Then my best friend had a birthday in his summer cottage in the middle of nowhere and I decided to ask her to be my +1, and she agreed. Only after the party, when going to sleep, I decided to kiss her and we started dating.
The first year of our relationship was beautiful, a true love story - we posted everything together, did everything together and although being long-distance saw almost weekly. After the first year I moved to her city to work there for a summer. And that's where problems started. She expressed discomfort having me constantly around her (dominantly male) friends, she expressed how she doesn't like to hold my hand on the street, she told me she didn't want to do PDA anymore and in general she wasn't a fan of making out or long kissing sessions even at home. It crushed me as these things are my love language and I way for me to show I care. I felt heartbroken, but determined to "make her love me" so we stayed together. Because I was hurting, I tried to cling on even harder, which made her become even more distant, pulling away from kissing and claiming to be overwhelmed. A lot of crying came from my part and a feeling of not being enough or chosen by her.
During that time we also opened up about our pasts and she told me how she had had a fast, strong crush on a guy from my friend group and how they had had a one-night-stand, during that she was pressured to do things she didn't prefer to do, but she did them out of desire for that dude. She also described getting to know me as a slow process, where she didn't know if she liked me and described our relationship as her "learning" to love me.
By that point we had been getting into constant fights as she judged my sense of humour and I felt judged and undesired. I have quite a strong temper so when I felt the most insecure, I reacted harshly, blaming her of still being in love with her ex-situationship. The fighting, her anxiety, OCD and birth control had killed her libido. Or so she says. I have always suspected she just didn't yearn for me anymore, but was afraid to leave me.
After that she spent a year in my city, being on an exchange semester. I tried my hardest to "earn" her love. I did the shopping, cooking, cleaning and I supported her building up her social life. She came home always tired, nonverbal, ate and fell asleep. Our bedroom life became almost non-existant and the romantical side as well. Towards the end of the year, she had some evenings where she distanced herself and told me that she thinks we are not good for each other. That we don't match on our core values. The worst one of these she had during New Years, where she told me about it 5 minutes before midnight. So that was a cold and unemotional New Year's kiss hahaha.
After that i felt hurt, unloved and incredibly tired. I had been bringing up my insecurities to her for years and she always felt only blamed, so the conversation changed into me apologising for how I made her feel, not what was my initial problem. We moved back to our cities for school and I think I used her. I think I used her presence in the form of texting to not feel alone, but the space of long-distance to get used to the feeling of being single. I didn't do anything inappropriate but for the first time, other people flirting with me would feel nice, not uncomfortable. I'm working in her city again and we decided that I'd need to take my own place for the summer, so we shouldn't live together. It hurt me, as we are long-distance all the time and now that we have a chance to be together, we chose not to do so. Recently I needed to fill out some paperwork and I couldn't bring myself to mark her down as my emergency contact. I opened up to her about how I have been feeling, how I think she doesn't feel passion towards me like she did in the beginning or how she has felt with other people. I told her that I think we want different things from a relationship and I think we can't ever give these things to each other.
She had a panic attack, she cried and felt alone. She came immediately to my city and swore that she loved me, that she cared for me and she didn't want the relationship to end. She backtracked on all of the rules she had put in place before and she told me that it's not so black and white. But she also told me that she hasn't felt this rom-com type of longing for me. That she doesn't think it's realistic and she doesn't look for that. And the only time in her life where she had a strong crush on someone (the dude from my friendgroup), it didn't work out, so she prefers a slowly built strong relationship. She told me that she wasn't fully sure about what love is but she thinks that she loves me. I was incredibly hurt to hear all of my worst fears confirmed - she had felt passion before, but not with me; she didn't know if she loved me; she hadn't felt the need for bedroom activities for a long time. She asked more time, to work on things. I am tired, I thought that we had been working on things for years already. Nothing has changed. And i don't know what there is to work on even, as desire, yearning, passion and bedroom activities can't be forced. But I love her and I can't bring myself to tell her that it's over never to see her again. Or at least never to be able to love her again. As she has been certain that she doesn't want to break up for us to try to heal apart to see if we would still choose each other later.
She went to her mom's place and she weighed in, telling her that I need to learn to love myself first so that I can notice the love around me and accept it. And I think she's not really wrong. I'm just afraid that the thing my gf thinks is love, is actually just caring and fright of being alone. I'm afraid that if i choose to stay with her, she'll at some point meet a person who ignites her flame again. And I think this person can't be me.
To make everything harder, I think that I have developed a crush on another girl. She's beautiful and interesting, but most importantly she constantly makes an effort to reach out to me. Every time we meet, we end up talking for hours on end. At one point she confronted me about spending one-on-one time with her since I have a gf. And I opened up to her about my troubles. She told me that as a woman she feels that it's clear that my gf doesn't love me and I should leave her. But I'm not sure how clear her judgement was since after that she started petting my hair and touching my arm.
I would like a change now, I'm not sure if I have any more energy left inside me for working on things.
Is there anything left to work on? Is this relationship doomed due to our mismatching attachment styles and energy?
TL;DR: my gf told me that she doesn't feel passion towards me but claims to love me. After I suggested breaking up she hopes to work on things. I'm not sure if desire is something that could be worked on.