I'm Feeling Bored in My Relationship. Is This the End?

Is something wrong with me for feeling bored?

Feeling bored in a relationship is a natural emotion anyone can experience.

Have you caught yourself lately thinking that conversations with your partner have gotten dull?

You may have even doubted your love, wondering, "Is it because my feelings have cooled?"

Or, even if it's not you, you may worry, "What if my partner is getting bored of me..."

But these thoughts can come to anyone, so I hope you won't blame yourself or resent your partner over them.

Understanding the hormones

Early in a relationship, everything is new and exciting, right?

But as time goes on, you get used to each other, and a sense of security grows larger than the butterflies. That's not strange; it's a natural part of a relationship maturing. To understand this, you need to understand hormones. Early on, "dopamine" makes even holding hands thrilling, and the smallest things are fun.

But as the relationship goes on, "serotonin," a hormone that provides stability, kicks in, and you go through a period of adjusting to conflict in the relationship.

After that comes "oxytocin," a hormone that builds trust, and at that point you may experience feelings that are almost like being married.

You've heard the saying, right? "Don't let familiarity make you lose sight of what's precious." When excitement fades within familiarity, that's when you feel the slump.

The important thing is that feeling bored isn't abnormal, and it doesn't mean your love is lacking.

I'm in a slump. Is this the end?

In fact, a slump can be an opportunity to deepen the relationship. If you get through it well, your understanding of each other deepens and the relationship can become stronger. So rather than despairing, it's important to think, "How do we get through this period?" To overcome a slump, you absolutely need time to get to know each other again.

You need a process of rediscovering the sides of your partner you'd overlooked in the familiarity, and to do that,

1. You need to find new sides of each other by exchanging questions and answers.

You need to be able to assign each other roles, like "What kind of partner do you want to be to me? I want to be this kind of partner to you,"

and through questions like these, you can discover each other's values and needs.

Think of a relationship as role-play, too. Whether it's your partner or you, each of you needs a role as the boyfriend or the girlfriend.

The typical trait of people who can't assign their partner a role is that they worry the role will feel burdensome, or that their partner won't like it,

so they go through the relationship thinking, "I'll just accommodate everything myself." But then the partner ends up feeling guilty and burdened.

You're clearly treating them well, so why?

Because it feels like you're doing nothing while they keep doing everything. In fact, in the partner's case, they may genuinely be making very little effort in the relationship.

So unless someone is a truly bad person, they think, "I should give something back," but they have no idea how.

For example, say I planned a fun date course and took my partner somewhere nice.

My partner had a great time. Does that mean I'll only be happy if they plan an identical date course for me?

No. Honestly, just hearing them say "thank you for bringing me somewhere like this" after that time together makes me feel proud and good.

And going further, if they show affection they don't usually show, like "this is why I'm with you, you make me so happy," that alone will feel like plenty of reward.

Saying something like "I had such a great time watching you enjoy yourself and look happy at the ballpark I took you to,"

and, because they expressed that, telling them "I love that you're that kind of person" or "I'm glad I planned this date,"

makes the partner feel they've fulfilled their role without any special extra effort.

So the guilt doesn't settle in; it dissolves quickly, and instead of guilt it turns into gratitude. That's assigning roles.

If this is the first time you've heard of this concept and you have no idea how to assign roles?

Explain your situation through the diagnosis questionnaire below and get help from expert counselors who have worked through more than 200,000 cases.

2. You need to understand each other's dating style and attachment style.

There are many attachment styles, but broadly they can be divided into two: "anxious" and "avoidant."

When does each of them decide to break up?

The anxious type tends to lose affection when they don't feel loved, as in "I'll leave before I get abandoned."

That tipping point differs from person to person, so you need to figure it out through communication.

For the avoidant type, the relationship itself tends to feel like a burden, so they usually decide to break up when they feel their personal boundaries aren't respected

or when someone tries to change them.

Another difference between the anxious and avoidant types is this:

(anxious) a relationship is about adjusting to each other vs. (avoidant) a relationship is something you have with someone who already fits you.

Like this, every person forms relationships with their attachment figures differently and expresses themselves differently, so if you don't understand this, the slump can get even worse.

If you're curious about these things, submit the diagnosis questionnaire and get some help.

What's the concrete solution?

Remember the MBTI craze? MBTI is useful as a reference, but if you take tests for things with more scientific and psychological credibility, like attachment style, conflict-resolution style, and hormone type, you can understand your relationship more accurately. To understand your partner, you first have to know clearly who you are, and since people differ even within the same type, treat it as a reference only.

If you want a truly concrete solution, submitting the diagnosis questionnaire to Honza, which can give you specific scenarios and solutions through analysis of your relationship, situation, personality, and profile, will be a big help.