Hello everyone, I need to get some prospective on this issue I've been fighting against for over a year. I've been with my boyfriend for 12 years, most of which was long distance. I had created a bit of a fantasy about us: we loved each other so deeply and every moment spent together was so perfect, our bond so strong, that I thought we were absolutely perfect, nothing could ever go wrong with us. I was living in London and he was in Italy, and we would see each other once a month. Then he moved to London, and I thought that was it, we would be together forever. But he hated it. He couldn't find a job in his field and just felt like that wasn't his place. So after six months he left, leaving me no choice but to follow him back to Italy. I found a job in Rome and moved a few months after he had left. In that period I started having doubts about our relationship, which would come up like intrusive thoughts like 'what if i don't love him anymore'. I thought it was just fear of change, and ignored them at the beginning. I have always struggled with anxiety so this wasn't new to me, but I had never doubted our relationship, it is the foundation of my whole adult life. Then, the day we moved in together, which was all I had dreamed about for years, I had the worst panic attack I had ever experienced in my life. I started thinking I had to leave him, I didn't love him anymore, everything was a lie, and it was all over. I started vomiting, trembling, hyperventilating for hours. He is a psychologist and immediately told me I was experiencing intrusive thoughts and severe anxiety, so I immediately went to therapy. I was terrified. She also agreed I was having intrusive thoughts, and in this year of therapy we worked on the source of these thoughts, which are linked to a feeling of disappointment (reality vs. fantasy) for something I had imagined in my head over and over for years, and also the fact that our relationship is not perfect as I thought. I had some bitterness about leaving London, and a lot of stress for the move and my new job etc... The thing is, the more we went on with therapy, nothing really changed. I still have obsessive thoughts every day, which analyze every single aspect of my relationship and my boyfriend: I focus obsessively on his flaws, on the fact I am not attracted to him anymore, and on every time we disagree on something. We were supposed to be enjoying our first year of living together and instead all I could do was thinking that i had to leave, the there was no point in staying, that i feel nothing for him. My therapist is still convinced I am struggling to live in reality and I am just too scared about things not being perfect that I am constantly trying to convince myself i don't love him because it is somehow an easier explanation than just admitting to myself that our relationship is flawed - like all relationships. She thinks I have been putting my needs aside in our relationship, that I have sacrificed too much and now I need to learn how to live a balanced relationship, one where I think about me first. I have based my love on sacrifice, on missing him, on the willingness to give up everything for him, on seeing him as perfect. But the more she urges me to accept this fact the more I also start doubting the therapy. I have lost interest in my job and in all the things I used to love. I feel useless and like a failure. In all this, my boyfriend has been a rock - he has never doubted my love for him, keeps telling me i have to take care of myself and stop feeling guilty. He is such a patient, honest, generous and truly good soul. He is my best friend and he still is able to make me laugh and make me feel safe. I am still very affectionate towards him - we hug and kiss a lot, but when I have anxiety i feel like i am lying to him, or just playing the part of the perfect girlfriend. Sometimes I feel the urge to tell him I love him and I don't know if it's habit or if I really feel it, cos I can't recognize the feeling anymore. Sometimes I look at him and I feel such a rush of affection and sadness because I hate what my brain has done to us, I remember how much love and connection we shared and now I cannot access that feeling anymore and it's been so long I am so afraid that it is lost forever. I don't know what to do, I don't know if therapy is supposed to take this long to work, and I don't know if this is anxiety or if I maybe love him but am not in love with him anymore. I keep reading thousands of articles to find answers (therapist says it's a compulsion), and the more I go on the more I convince myself it's all real. Please help me - I don't know what to do.