Mixed feelings in a long-distance open relationship.

Me and my boyfriend have been going out for just over 6 months. We are both 18 year old guys from a small village and spent almost every day with each other from April to September, as we live very close to each other, we're extremely close. Since we've both moved to uni and are 6 hours apart, we decided to be in an open relationship to experience other people and take advantage of uni life, whilst still staying completely emotionally committed to one another. Neither of us have got very jealous or anything, we're both fairly secure and I can't speak for him, but I really want him to just have fun. The problem is that I've recently hooked up with a guy, and created a friends with benefits type relationship. I'd never been with anyone but my boyfriend before. Before we hooked up I told this Friend that I really really missed my boyfriend and I'm just looking for people to be intimate with while he's away, and my Friend totally understood as he is also in an even more complicated open relationship but I won't get into that.

Anyway, so my boyfriend has always often always made me feel unwanted. Examples like.. in bed when we're sleeping he can't cuddle or be near me as he can't get comfortable if he's not completely isolated, or at parties when we've been drinking, I'll simply stand next to him and put my arm around him or sit next to him and he'll push me away and it's very embarrassing in front of our friends. When we're hanging out we'll play video games for ages, but when I get bored and wanna do something else like talk or make out or whatever he'll just completely ignore me and carry on playing. Often I'll ask him how his day has been or ask about him and his family, and just generally show an interest, and he'll monologue about himself won't ask about me unless I volunteer the information myself. Since we've been at uni this has been very apparent over phone and text, he rarely asks about what I've been up to, even when I ask him. I feel like I know everything that's going on with him and he knows literally nothing about me since we've been apart. I always tell him very honestly when he makes me feel like this and he's always very apologetic and says it's hard for him to express his feelings, which I do appreciate, and then he'll be better for a couple days and then just go back to not really caring. I love him to pieces, he’s my best mate and my partner in everything, he does tell me he loves me all the time, I know he means it, he just gives me all these mixed signals.

I was always convinced that this was me being needy or over-dependent (something I’ve never thought of myself as) which made me feel like a moron. But after sleeping with this other Friend, I realise I’m actually not needy, and I’m just being a normal boyfriend and he’s the one who’s pushing me away. The reason for this is that this Friend is everything that my boyfriend isn’t. Even though I’m not interested in a relationship with this Friend, he texts me more than my boyfriend does, sex is much more mutually giving than it was with my boyfriend, and I can tell he genuinely, really really wants me. Perhaps it’s because this Friend is 23, so has slightly more experience and maturity. I know it’s dangerous to dabble in this because it sounds like I’m developing feelings for this friend. I’m really not, I love my boyfriend and I can’t picture my future with anyone else right now. I’ve just been shown what a real, mutual relationship could be like and it’s opened my eyes to the fact my boyfriend doesn’t seem to care.

One last thing I should mention is that I broke up with my boyfriend after he said that he didn’t see a future with me as he felt he HAS to marry a woman because he wants children, and that he loved me but it had to be that way. When I broke up with him he cried and said he could see a future with me now that I was leaving him and begged me not to leave him, to which I was overjoyed. Now we talk about the future all the time, and both mutually see us spending the rest of our lives together.

So.. What should I do? Should I tell my boyfriend that this Friend that I’ve been sleeping with is ironically more attentive than he is? Should I stop hooking up with this Friend and bury my feelings? Should I break up with my boyfriend? Should I just accept that my boyfriend is never going to show that he wants me as much as I want him to? (Although that makes me consider breaking up with him, which breaks my heart).

—— OK so I wrote this a few days ago, and I decided not to text him and ask how he is for a few days, just to see if you would reach out to me instead, and he did, I assume because he starts to miss me, which I thought would happen, which is good! But why is it always so up-and-down with is interest? Like argh haha


I think I’m very confused hahaha.