Dear Roe,
I’m a 25-year-old who has been in a relationship with my boyfriend for a year. I just don’t feel the attraction as much any more, and I’m starting to wonder if I ever did. I bumped into my ex a few weeks back who I had been with when I was a teenager, and instantly felt that spark again. I despise him, but felt the connection. He wasn’t a nice guy but we had passion. My boyfriend now is so kind and loving, his family is really supportive of our relationship and everything seems to be smooth sailing. I feel a bit bored now with him, it’s the same stale conversations and our values just don’t seem to be the same any more. Not majorly different, but anytime I mention going abroad, possibly for work, he is reluctant to talk about it – even if it is to be temporary, a year or less for career progression.
I just feel stuck. I do want to go for the jobs but feel I can’t or I’ll offend him and he will break up with me. I do want him in my life and am willing to put the work in but I’m scared he won’t. I’m not sure if it’s even worth continuing based on his outlook currently. I think to myself what will he be like in five years. I’m worried if I leave I won’t find someone as caring as him, but also feel like I’m letting myself fall behind by staying. This has been my most secure relationship so I think I’m afraid to start new. What do I do?
You telling me that you despise your ex and that he’s not a nice person but that you still feel “a connection” and “passion” with him tells me that you’ve fallen into a very common and very dangerous trap: mistaking anxiety and struggle and conflict for love.
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What you experienced with your ex wasn’t passion in the healthy sense – it was intensity. It was unpredictability, emotional volatility, intermittent reward, and the constant low-level fear of loss. Those dynamics flood the body with adrenaline and cortisol, which can feel intoxicating, consuming and magnetic. The nervous system reads chaos as aliveness, not because it’s good for you, but because it’s familiar. Especially when we’re young, we often confuse emotional activation with emotional connection.
Calm can feel boring when your baseline for love has been urgency, longing or instability. Safety can feel flat when you’re not used to being able to relax. But that doesn’t automatically mean the relationship is wrong – it just means your body is adjusting to something healthier than what it previously knew.
However, safety alone is not the same as compatibility, attraction or shared direction. A relationship can be kind, gentle and secure and still not be right for you. There’s a difference between a love that is safe and keeps you secure and a love that is stagnant and keeps you stuck, and here is where I think you are right to question what is important to you right now.
If you want to travel and pursue new experiences and career opportunities in a different country, that’s going to be a really rich experience for you, full of life lessons (some lovely, some hard) that is really irreplaceable. I believe everyone should have the chance to travel and live and work abroad, and if you’re both willing and able to do so: go. I’ll pour us the Champagne as you book your tickets. Frankly, travelling and moving your life abroad gets much harder as you get older, so your 20s is definitely the time to do it. You’ll learn so much about yourself and your life will be the richer for it.
Don’t you dare betray yourself or shrink your dreams, ambitions, or life experiences for a man who can’t even open himself up to a conversation
That isn’t an experience worth missing out on for a year-long relationship where your boyfriend avoids having important conversations about your dreams, desires, career goals and individual growth.
Many couples go through periods where their priorities are different, someone has a career opportunity or family responsibilities and everyone is being pulled in different directions. That isn’t a problem. But what is a problem is when couples can’t have ongoing, open, honest conversations addressing their individual desires, coming up with strategies to navigate challenges, and mutually contributing to envisioning a shared future.
Your boyfriend is showing that he is not willing or able to develop these skills – skills that are necessary for any serious, long-term relationship. You’re right to ask yourself what this relationship looks like in five years, and beyond. What happens if you stay together long-term, if you go through job losses, career pivots, serious illness, moving houses, dealing with finances, deciding whether or not to have children, fertility issues, parenting styles, mental health struggles, dealing with difficult decisions around care for sick relatives, dealing with the death of a parent? Life is going to throw a lot of lot difficult and complicated curve balls your way, and any healthy, long-term relationship needs to be able to maintain open communication throughout it all. Your boyfriend is not currently able to do that, and that’s vital information for you to have about him.
You need to have a conversation with your boyfriend where you express that open communication is a necessity for you in a relationship – and that you want to start practising it with him now, as you discuss your desire to travel and what it means for your relationship.
If he isn’t willing or able to do that, then you have all the information you need. You need to break up with him, travel, enjoy yourself, and find someone who values a relationship where communication and supporting each other’s dreams is a non-negotiable. Don’t you dare betray yourself or shrink your dreams, ambitions, or life experiences for a man who can’t even open himself up to a conversation.
If he is willing to open up communication and we assume that you are going to pursue your dreams and this experience that is really important to you, then you both need to talk about what this means for your relationship. Could he join you on this adventure? Does he want to stay and you’ll do long-distance? Do you want to try an open relationship when you travel?
Or do you want to enjoy the time you have together now, choose to break up before your travels in way that feels respectful and appreciative of your relationship, fully commit to exploring yourselves and new experiences, and ensure that whether fate and your desires lead you down different paths or bring you back together later down the line, you’ll be happy and proud of how you ended things?
Love is not meant to cage you. It is meant to walk beside you while you expand
If you zoom out, the question isn’t really “Do I stay or do I leave?” The real question is: “Who do I become if I stay exactly as I am right now – and who do I become if I choose myself?”
A healthy relationship should not require you to mute your curiosity, postpone your growth, or make your life smaller to keep someone comfortable. Love is not meant to cage you. It is meant to walk beside you while you expand. If this relationship can evolve into that – with honest conversations, shared courage and mutual effort – then it’s worth exploring. But if staying means suppressing your dreams out of fear, obligation, or gratitude for kindness, then the cost will quietly be you.
You are not “too much” for wanting more life. You are not ungrateful for wanting movement. And you are not wrong for outgrowing something that once felt safe. Trust yourself enough to listen to the discomfort – it isn’t there to punish you, it’s there to guide you forward. Good luck, and happy travels.
