Hi everyone sorry for the long post in advance, I just need some advice. For context myself (23F) and boyfriend (25M) have been dating since we were in high school so almost 9 years. Obviously with a relationship like this we have been through the good, bad, and ugly with eachother. We have been with eachother through everything, bad home life, traumas, we are essentially each others family. But I can’t shake this feeling that he isn’t who I want to be with forever. I have done some reflecting recently and realized I have been pushing my unhappiness with the relationship deep down and ignoring it. The unhappiness started with cheating on both ends, then after resolving it and moving out together I had gained a bit of weight. (I have hypothyroidism and I didn’t know at the time so I gained about 25 lbs). This caused a huge amount of issues. He brought up my weight and told me he wasn’t attracted to me and he told me so I could fix it in hopes we can stay together. It broke my heart, and not dealing with the emotions fully really caused a lot of resentment in the end.
The way he dealt with it though I can’t help but think isn’t healthy? He started to be extremely disrespectful to me, would joke about my weight, and then he started showing lack of affection, intimacy, and overall interest in me. This caused issues, many fights, and many conversations of him saying he would change but I would need to work on my weight as well. This caused an unhealthy idea in my head that if I were too the lose the weight we could finally be the perfect relationship I wanted.
This was a couple years ago, I finally lost the weight, but realized I still wasn’t happy. For the past year I was daydreaming about being alone and moving back with my mom. I would pass parks and lakes and think to myself “this would be really fun to enjoy with another person or even alone”. I didn’t realize how unhappy I was until recently a guy from my school showed interest in me (don’t worry didn’t act on it) and showed how much I could be appreciated, and valued. I noticed in all of this I lost my sense of happiness, and I was chasing validation from my own relationship and others because I didn’t feel enough for my partner.
Last week I brought it up, I had a conversation with him, told him how I felt undervalued, I was chasing his affection and validation, and I couldn’t do it anymore. He finally told me the answers I wanted to hear: he wants to try, I’m now attractive to him again and he can work on the intimacy, he wants to prove he can show me affection and still flirt with me. He is trying, and I see it…. But why do I not feel happy still? I have been waiting for years for this, perfect answers, affection, intimacy, but I don’t feel happy. I’m not happy by the change, I’m not happy with the relationship, and I can’t help to think I just outgrew “us”. This sucks, but ultimately I want to be happy in the end, and I need some advice.