I’m not so sure I want love. I think I’d rather have a relationship based on respect. I wouldn’t mind if love was present, I’d think it was if I were in a big, long lasting relationship, but I would at least want “love” relegated to second place.
You’ve hit on something that has been on my mind. Maybe I just need to spend more time around her and figure out how I feel. I can’t stay ambivalent forever.
As for auditioning for “wife,” that is DEFINITELY in the mix.
In practical terms, what exactly would it mean to you to have “love relegated to second place”? How could you love another adult if you didn’t respect them? There’s no way in the world I’d become involved with someone if I didn’t think they were a moral, intelligent, competent person.
that is a good point. I hinted at that at the end of my first comment, and I think it’s an important distinction to be made that you should analyze.
Namely, I feel very strongly that the divorce rates and such are products of people “satisficing” (not meeting exacting standards, but within a larger parameter near the exact standard) when finding a life mate, which is NOT something that you should do.
Does this mean that’s what you’re doing? Not at all, but I would definitely not suggest rushing in to things, and making very sure via the courtship process that it isn’t just a “I guess this is better than nothing” feeling, and it really is a continuing and positive impact on your life.
Amen, brother. (although the other extreme is just as annoying in my recent experience)
You probably already know how you feel.
Relationships with roomates or your personal trainer are based on respect. “Love” is not thinking everything about the other person is awesome. It’s feeling that your life would be worse off without all their annoying traits and stupid habits around.
Uh, the OP’s relationship sounds like what I’d like to have. When I look at the people I know, the longest-term relationships are in general those which are not joined at the hip. I only know one long-long-term one that’s joined at the hip and they’re a pair of dizzily-sweet Peter Pans whose eldest daughter was more mature than them by the time she was 6 (she’s 15 now).
One of the things about having kids is that they’re NEVER like you thought your kid would be. There is always something they like that you don’t; something you like that they don’t. I think that knowing your SO is not a piece of you makes it easier to get it when it happens with your kids, but that’s just my opinion and I don’t have any cites.
“I don’t know how I’d live without you” was one of the things a certain bf of me said that made me get short of breath and not in a good way, more like panic attacks. Guess which one is the boyfriend who had sex without me while being in our relationship, by the way 
I think you can take it or leave it.
It’s not about the fact that you can enjoy time separately, it’s about the fact that you don’t really even feel a longing to have her around but if she’s around it’s cool. There’s a deep ambivalence in your posts about her. I’m of the opinion that if she weren’t around you would recover pretty quickly but it’s convenient to have her around rather than shopping around for someone else, which is time-consuming and leads to oftentimes extended periods of time alone, without the backup plan of having someone whenever you want them (sex, companionship, etc.).
I’m a pretty independent person and have my own interests and hobbies but when I’ve been in love there has always been a sense of longing/missing for the other individual after a while. I also believe that with someone you’re going to marry it’s a good idea to ultimately like their company “the best,” even if you don’t spend every waking moment together. Liking/loving someone the most doesn’t mean you’re joined at the hip, but it does mean that when push comes to shove you’ll put the interests of the partnership/family first.
I don’t get a sense from your post that you really feel that way about her.
I’m not a relationship expert. 
However it seems to me that you have a great relationship with her, despite the fact that you had ‘anti-relationship experiences’ when you were young.
Keep on being honest, keep on communicating and enjoy the friendship you have.
The nice thing about Modern Relationships is that we no longer have to fit into prescribed slots regarding behavior or Luv (L-U-V) or any of those pre-conceived notions of what you should be feeling.
Do whatever the two of you agree on. It’s no one else’s business how much time you spend together or how dependent you are on each other. I know plenty of couples who were glued to each other and they were not doomed. They were happy because they were on the same page. That is the key to a successful relationship. Agreement on what you want from each other is all that matters.
I have a guy right now who thinks that it’s a lack of interest if I don’t call him and dump drama in his lap every day. I dunno what the deal is there.He says he likes a woman who doesn’t smother him and understands his time with his friends, but I guess he’s so used to the opposite that me actually saying ‘It’s fine if you want to go ride motorcycles with your buddies. I don’t need to go with you guys, in fact, I’d rather go to the gun show.’ causes him to think I don’t want to be around him.
We do stuff together, but it’s not necessary to do EVERYTHING together. That would irritate me!
Course I’m not into auditioning to be anybody’s wife at this point.
You’re not wrong in the first paragraph. The second is what I’m trying to figure out.
trying to figure out in this situation, or trying to figure what the poster means? If the former, that’s why we have the whole courtship process, if the latter:
I think that second paragraph is a pretty damn good summary of what a great relationship is like: Love is not about sacrifice, its about not feeling like you have to sacrifice anything: even if you do give some things up, the benefits you gain from the partnership far outweigh those things. Which makes you value the partnership above yourself as a sole entity, because you’re better with it than without it. The person you marry is the person you MOST feel that way with.
Maybe my view is the minority one and I’m usually hate glib response like this one. But here goes.
You’re just not into her.
If you have to sit and search your heart to figure out how you feel about her, then you might want to say goodbye. I’m not saying you have to be IN LOVE with her, but some degree of longing is important. It appears as if you don’t long for her company. You don’t miss her enough when she’s not there. Missing someone is a sign that you have a bond that is likely to hold up through the twists and turns of life. That’s what you want. And that’s what she should want for herself.
I don’t think you can compare your situation to someone who is decades into a committed relationship, unless they can say that they were just as ambivalent about their mates early on as you are and things still worked out.
I should give some relevent details. She and I split 3-4 months ago, and we had a serious talk where I told her I wasn’t feeling anything deep and personal about her. It was a hard conversation, and I didn’t feel too great about it. I spent the next few months sort of wandering around socially, and occasionally thinking about her, wondering what she was doing, and if she would ever call me. She never did. (She’s very proud, as I found out.)
Then, I returned some of her stuff, and she sent me an e-mail thanking me. We started communicating a little bit by e-mail, and then one night we had this incredibly long (3 hours) phone conversation where we both broke down and cried, I just spontaneously said I missed her, and we both unburdened ourselves of a lot of things that had gone unsaid. It was the kind of conversation I had been expecting us to have all along if we truly were to have a serious relationship, but which she never seemed willing to have.
So, we went out for dinner a week after that, and she wound up spending the night. That’s where we are now.
I meant what I said … I did miss her. But what another friend I’ve asked about this has said is that it’s possible I just missed having SOMEBODY (I have not had very many even semi-serious relationships) and not necessarily her. I don’t know how to resolve that. Hence this thread.
Think about her dating someone else. Does that image bother you on a gut level? Now think about you dating someone else. Does it seem impossible, or enticing?
I was never “head over heels” in “luv” with my husband. We grew together over time and now have a very solid and great relationship. That’s not to say I was not attracted to him, but it was not one of those instant love at first sight things for me, I didn’t spend my days pining after him (he would say different about me though ) I credit his tenacity for us ending up together, actually. I probably would not have pursued the relationship had he not been so…enthusiastic. Sometimes I worried about the lack of butterflies at the beginning, but I realized that those will fade anyway and what matters is what’s left.
It sounds very boring, and our relationship beginnings would never be mistaken for a romance novel, but I am willing to bet that we outlast many of those relationships based on exciting romantic ideals. If you have a solid friendship with this woman, and are also attracted to her, I think those things are very important. There will always be someone else who is more exciting, or more attractive, or whatever. You have to decide if she is someone worth giving up all others for.
I make the "you just want ‘somebody’ " argument to some of my friends all the time, usually girls, but occaisonally guys, which is why I was cautioning against simply assuming that this was the perfect relationship, but not to give up on it: again, that’s what we have the courtship process for. Make sure that that level of honesty and forthcomingness with information that you two displayed in that 3 hr phone call continues to be present. If you start finding that you have to be the bigger man and are revealing a lot of your secrets and she’s begun to withhold information and play word games with the truth again, re-evaluate your position. (trust me on that one 
)
You really are in a state of confusion.
I think the important question here is, if you stay with her, are you settling? If you met someone who set your heart on fire, would you regret being committed to your current girlfriend? Would you wish you were free so you could try to date the new person? On a scale of 1 to10, how committed to spending the rest of your life with this woman are you? You sound like about a 2, maybe not even.
In some ways, relationships are very hard, and in others, they are as easy as breathing. When you click with someone, you usually know right away, and there is no forcing it or worrying about it. It sounds like you’re trying to force something that just isn’t there.
There’s nothing wrong with having the relationship you’re having now, especially since both of you are on the same page and communicating, but I don’t see it as being your lasting, fulfilling, I want to marry this person and get old with them relationship. Hey, I just thought of who you are - you and your girlfriend are Sally and her boyfriend who wanted to get married, he just didn’t want to get married to HER from “When Harry Met Sally.”
I had a relationship somewhat like yours for three years before I met my husband. We were compatible, mostly, except there was this huge chasm of religion between us, that we were never able to get across or around. It was a good relationship for learning what I did and didn’t want in a relationship, so it wasn’t a waste of time - I came out of it a better person, who was able to recognize a great relationship when it came along. Maybe this is your starter relationship.