I feel like I’m tricking my girlfriend into staying with me under false pretences.

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Kia ora Hera,

I have been with my girlfriend for almost 10 years now (we’re both in our late 20s) and for the majority of that time, we have been somewhere between happy and madly in love. We have had our tough times like any relationship, but we have always come through these times closer and stronger. 

However, I’ve always had this quiet feeling that, as much as I love my girlfriend, there is a part of me that is performing this love. I have moments where I feel I am going to explode with love for her, but there are also moments where I need to talk myself into feeling this way. 

I feel very guilty that I am lying to everyone around me and that I am tricking her into staying with someone who does not truly love her.

Recently, I’ve been thinking more about what life would look like if I left the relationship and if we both would be happier with someone else. It would be a huge change to both our lives and to those around us, but maybe it would be for the better? But then another side of me feels that being a 7/10 happy 99% of the time is better than being 10/10 happy 1% of the time. 

You’re probably going to say I should talk to her about this rather than seek answers from a stranger online, but if I say something out loud, it will make it real, Hera! 

So, is comfort and contentedness at the expense of fiery passion worth it? Or should I fuck my life up and leave my happy long-term relationship? 

Yours,

Conflicted

Dear Conflicted,

First of all, congratulations. Being with someone for your entire twenties is a powerful feat of romantic endurance. You must have a strong connection for your relationship to have survived this long.

It’s funny you think I would suggest you discuss this with your girlfriend. I really believe this is one of those decisions you need to make privately. Telling your girlfriend you’re worried you don’t love her enough is only going to torpedo your relationship, haunt her forever, or turn an amicable break-up into an excruciating one.

I’m not saying you can’t have a serious conversation with your girlfriend about your future. If you do decide to stay, there are plenty of ways to go about rekindling the spark (I recommend reading All About Love by bell hooks, or Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel). If you want some real boots-on-the-ground advice, I would suggest finding an older married person in your life and asking them for a reality check. I think you’ll find their advice reassuring – if you want reassurance. But I don’t think these conversations are worth having if you already have one foot out the door.

Ultimately, I can’t tell you whether your relationship is worth saving. But the funny thing about your first long relationship is that you basically have nothing to compare it to, beyond observing older married couples in their natural habitat (wandering aimlessly around garden centres).

Most great artistic representations of romance deal with the business of getting hitched, getting divorced, or being haunted by unrequited love. In a way, this makes perfect sense. Nobody wants to read a bodice ripper about a married couple bickering over whose turn it is to de-worm the dog. But it does mean that no amount of theory can adequately prepare you for what a long-term relationship feels like.

There’s something romantic about linking your fate to someone and venturing into uncharted territory together. But it’s also hard to know if what you’re feeling is normal.

The first thing that strikes me about your letter is that it sounds like you really do love your girlfriend. Frankly, spending most of your relationship “somewhere between happy and madly in love” is a measure that would blow many established marriages out of the water. It just goes to show how difficult it is to talk honestly about the realities of a long-term relationship, without either resorting to grim bootstrap adages about how “love is hard work” (OK, but not that hard) or buying into self-aggrandising fictions from people pretending every day is another day of bliss on monogamy island, and anything less is immediate grounds for divorce.

The boring truth is you can’t expect that first rush of endorphins to last forever. With time, the feeling of being in love changes and deepens, and goes through elaborate life-cycles, not unlike that of the common frog. Anyone who spends enough time with another person, romantic or otherwise, will experience periods of distance and renewed closeness.

It doesn’t sound to me like you’re tricking your girlfriend. It seems like you’re having a minor crisis of faith. Part of loving someone is figuring out how to weather these crises. You say that you feel like you’re performing your love, but sometimes love is a performance. I don’t mean performance as in make-believe. But love isn’t just a feeling you check the temperature of from time to time, like inserting a meat thermometer into the anal cavity of a rotisserie chicken. Love is a series of actions that accumulate meaning and weight through repetition. Performing love is an act of love. Sometimes the performance is just as important as the spontaneous overflow of feeling. Basically, I think that what you’re feeling is normal and nothing to stress out over.

However, there’s an important caveat I’d like to add, which is: you’re allowed to break up with someone you love for no reason.

Let me say it again.

You’re allowed to break up with someone you love for no reason. Even if everyone thinks you’re perfect for each other. Even if you’ve been together for a long time, and have made certain promises. Even if you have nothing better to look forward to. Even if it’s going to royally piss off your girlfriend, destroy your friendship group and make you a temporary social pariah. Even if it’s inconvenient and expensive, and you share a dachshund with separation anxiety. Even if it breaks your heart.

I think this is hard to internalise, especially if you’re deeply loyal and invested in being a morally upstanding person. It can feel like there’s no justification for leaving a perfectly good relationship, and the mature thing to do is simply to grit your teeth for the next 50 years. But wanting to leave is the only criterion that really matters.

If you and your partner have been together for most of your twenties, you probably feel like you’ve missed out on a few important things. The chance to sleep around and date other people. The chance to be alone in the world and get to know yourself outside of the context of a romantic relationship. This stuff is important too. It’s fine to break up with someone simply because you’re curious about what else the world has to offer. I know a lot of people who left good, mutually respectful relationships with people they deeply loved, simply because they worried they would always regret it if they didn’t. It doesn’t need to be a good decision for it to be the right decision. Sometimes you reach an impasse, and there’s no solution but razing your perfect life to the ground.

Nobody can make this choice for you. But I do think you should focus on what you truly want, not what you think your girlfriend deserves.