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I feel like my boyfriend is bored with me. Hell, I'M bored with me.
I'm 25 and a female.
A little background on me: I'm a very strong, independent woman. I live on my own, and I've been through a lot on my own. As a result, I can be distant and sometimes forget to include people in my life. I'm going after a Master's degree in clinical psychology in the fall, but in the meantime I'm doing social work. The amount of paperwork required for my program has me working 50-60 hours a week. I also have a lot of medical problems going on right now, and it's been really tough. My boyfriend is about my age, and he lives almost hour away.
I feel like I have nothing to talk about with him recently. It seems like all I do is go to doctors' appointments, go see clients, do paperwork, try to squeeze in a run when I'm not passing out, and sometimes sleep...and eat, when I remember.
He and I have been together for more than a year, he's my best friend, and I always want to talk to him, but I just feel like such a boring person recently. I have so much on my mind but nothing comes out of my mouth aside from complaints and psychobabble. When we're together, conversation isn't a problem, and there are no awkward silences. When we're together it's like we suddenly remember everything we want to talk to one another about and we'll babble at each other for hours.
Part of the problem is I can't really talk about my clients, who are a huge part of my life. But lately I feel like he's not talking to me, either. He has two new jobs, and I'd love to hear about his day, and what stupid things his coworkers said, but he doesn't really tell me anything. I barely feel like a part of his life right now.
It's ironic, really - my entire career is contingent on my ability to bond with complete strangers, but I can't strike up a decent conversation with my boyfriend.
I know someone's going to ask, because I would, and no, I haven't talked to him about this. You'd think that would be my first action, but I don't want our relationship to be the cause of more stress for him.
Should I mention it?
Should I try to be subtle about it? ("So tell me about your day!")
Should I just wait it out and see if things improve?
I feel utterly useless.
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Don't be subtle.
Subtlety is for fun, light conversations and playing around. Subtlety is when you've got your brain firing on all cylinders and have mental energy to expend on it.
You are running on empty. Trying to be subtle is just adding more stress to your already stressed out life.
So just straight up mention that you are feeling disconnected, and although you know there are some reasonable reasons to feel that way (you are both busy, you've been sick, you are navigating privacy issues of your work, ecterca.) you want to work on it and do what you can to keep your relationship strong.
Your boyfriend is probably at least a bit confused and disconnected too. He's probably not bored with you - although he might very well be struggling knowing how unhappy you are right now.
And you might not be able to fix it all right now - not even while working together.
'Cause sometimes life sucks. Sometimes relationships are really hard. There are no relationship tricks to suddenly make it 'not hard'.
But if you don't talk about it, you can't know all the ways it's being hard for both of you, and you don't have the solutions. That's okay, it's almost better to approach these conversations with your partner without believing you've got all the solutions figured out.
So mention it. Share your feelings and fears and give him space to share his. Laying your cards on the table is always frightening, but you know you've still got a great foundation with this guy, and you are probably both trying to protect and insulate one another from the craziness of life and stress. So, stop shutting him out of your stress and confusion, and let him know he doesn't need to shut himself down so as not to burden you with either his happiness or his stress.
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