How do I (21M) break up with my long-term girlfriend (21F) who has done nothing wrong?

35 comments

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2. Start by being honest. Explain you love her, but you want different things. You dont want marraige so young, you dont want to keep her waiting because its not fair to her and its not fair to you if you feel obligated to fast-foward your timeline. You feel like you make good friends, but thats not all you want. Etc. Basically everything in your post. And regardless, its going to hurt. She will be upset. But you can minimize the hurt by making it about you and your needs rather than any of her potentional short-comings. If that makes sense?

3. You’re clearly in a jam here and I feel for ya. I’m gonna give it to you straight – breakups are never easy, especially when the person you’re ending things with has done nothing wrong. That’s gotta be rough.

   Here’s my take on it. You’ve been with this girl for a long time and it sounds like y’all have been through some ups and downs. And while she’s an amazing girlfriend, it sounds like there are just some fundamental differences between you two that you can’t ignore. You mentioned that your sex drives are different, and that’s a big deal. Sex is a big part of a relationship, and if it’s not fulfilling for one person, that’s a problem.

   You also mentioned wanting to wait a few more years before getting married, and it sounds like your girlfriend is ready to take the next step sooner than that. That’s another big difference that could lead to problems down the line.

   I know it’s hard, but sometimes you gotta do what’s best for you, even if it hurts someone else. And it sounds like you’ve been weighing the pros and cons for a while now, and your head is telling you that it’s time to move on.

   As for how to break up with her… man, that’s a tough one. You just gotta be honest with her. Tell her how much you love her, but explain that there are some differences between you two that you just can’t ignore. And tell her that you think it’s best for both of you to go your separate ways.

   It’s gonna be a tough conversation, but it’s better to rip the band-aid off now than to keep dragging it out. And hey, who knows? Maybe in a few years, you’ll be able to reconnect and see if things are different. But for now, it’s best to just end things on a good note and move forward.

4. I’m sorry but it seems you can’t have it both ways. It will hurt her but you have to be honest about where your head is at, otherwise you will be unhappy for the foreseeable future. It’s okay that the relationship has maybe run it’s course.

5. Breaks are not only childish and foolish, but you present a great centerpiece of an example of why they further destroy a relationship rather than fix it.

   As to the matter of breaking up, remember, doing something wrong is not a requirement for it. All you have to do is assure her she did nothing wrong, however, you do not see a future and feel you are both holding each other back. You know she wants to get married, but you do not want to. You miss being single, and sexual compatibility is also important.

6. This resonated with me. Last year I ended an 8 year relationship for a lot of the same reasons (not the marriage thing, but the sex thing and the lack of happiness despite genuinely loving her and getting along well with her). These small differences grow into big issues over time. Mismatched libidos, mismatched expectations of time spent with friends vs your partner, mismatched life goals, it adds up.

   Don’t do what I did. I spent years trying to make myself be okay with these things, and so did she. I told myself these compromises were worth it to keep her in my life, and while I was overall happy for most of the relationship, for the last year of it we were both unhappy and feeling the divide and resentment grow. For the last two years of the relationship I constantly fantasized about being single, then felt horribly guilty about it.

   It’s entirely possible she will be heartbroken by breaking up, and so will you. But a clean break before your relationship devolves into resentment is the best way to do it, and the best way to potentially be friends in the future. You both deserve happiness and partners who share your goals and lifestyles.

   Focus on telling her what you told us, that you love her and have struggled with this decision for a long time because she is genuinely a great person and great girlfriend, but you aren’t happy and your goals don’t align. You want the best for both of you and you have been putting this off because the idea of hurting her wrenches your heart, but you don’t want resentment to build. Leave out the sex issues if possible, it’ll feel like you’re being petty and kicking her when she’s down.

7. >TDLR; different sex drives, different looks on life, different times of when to get married, difficulty to forgive, but also the best girlfriend I could ask for…

   This is not the definition of the best girlfriend you could ask for if your values and wishes are so different. The best girlfriend you could ask for shares your values and expectations.

   And stop looking at it as whether she did anything wrong. It’s ok to have different expectations and if those don’t intersect you should move on.

   Especially the marriage thing. That right there is a *great* reason to break up. Don’t get married and let her find someone who will marry her right away.

8. I recently broke up with my girlfriend who had done nothing wrong.

   The reasons were somewhat similar. I wanted something else, but I still loved her.

   There’s no easy way out. If you’re certain this is what you want, you simply tell her. If she doesn’t understand your reason, that’s fine. She doesn’t have to. The only thing she has to do is accept your decision.

   Best of luck!

   The time immediately after the breakup will likely be hard. Make sure you have things to do, people to see and something to occupy your mind.

9. It’s time to sit down and be honest. You can love someone more than anything and still not be happy. And ultimately that unhappiness will wear you down until there’s nothing left except apathy.

   Love alone does not make a relationship work. It’s not some cosmic force, it’s not special in the way we make it out to be- it just is. And sometimes, even oftentimes it’s not enough.

   So you need to be honest, tell her you love her, but you don’t think you see a future with her anymore, you’re not happy, you don’t want to get married yet and you don’t want to keep her waiting unfairly. That you’d like a more physical relationship and more to be able to share with someone, that you two are different and that there’s nothing wrong with her, but you feel you’re both ready to go down seperate paths.

   And above all else, if theres nothing she can do for you, no compromises to be made, if this is for sure what you *know* is right- then don’t back down and don’t fall backwards.

   Keep to your word, no matter how much it might hurt.

10. Mate. I kinda understand you wanna work on your things and you need your space. Tell that she might understand or else convince her. I don’t know why i am telling this but she seems like a girl who would like to support and listen to you.. Ofc she might be overthinking and moreover you both are 21.

    Tell her that I wanna work on myself and need to work on myself and wanna get settled. Try new things instead of breaks and all.

    Other thing, Neither you did wrong. It’s okay to be single and have your own space. Tell her that, Like be open. You know like,Don’t mind I wanna spend sometime myself, I’ll talk to you when I want to. I won’t ignore, I just wanna explore myself and ofc with you too but keep this in mind, Lower your expectations. We have time too but I have to utilise myself too.

    Work on your flaws and notice her’s too! I understand u might be feeling you’re not worth for her. Don’t feel bad and hurt yourself man, You’re the best one for her and she is too! My p.o.v, You’re not holding it. You need some space and tell her that, Convince her and make her understand.

    Try to learn how to handle things well, Build your trust and all. Good Luck! I know you didn’t expect this but listen, This is also a test. Play games,watch sports and films,spend time yourself and then talk to her.

    Long term gf it is.. As of now, You had misunderstandings bur handled it well and vice versa. Kudos and this is the commitment test. Don’t freak out, People change and priorities too, Situations too. But feelings exist, Try not to lose it. If she listens and help you or understands during this transition, She’s the one absolutely.

    Marriage… Tell her you’re not ready and tell her that you’re uncomfortable as have own issues, Work on it and we’ll think about it later. Tell her it’s few more years and have some time so don’t expect anything. Just try to go with the flow, Have no regrets. Peace and Good Luck! It’s upto man, Dm me or talk to closed one’s. That ain’t bad, It’s okay..

11. >but during our break, she moved on very fast. I moved on too, but not as fast. And I tried to forgive her for it, understanding it was out of pain and honestly don’t feel mad about it anymore.. but it still wears on me.

    That’s toxic behaviour and absolutely not acceptable. You have no ground to be mad or hurt AT ALL. You are 21 so I am willing to pin it on immaturity but do not for a second think that it is normal thinking.

    >different sex drives, different looks on life, different times of when to get married,

    Each of these points are breakup material so all of them at once with the addition of you 2 being 21? Yes, break up and move on. If you don’t, I can guarantee the breakup will still happen but it will get worse and worse.

12. > We need to talk. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently and I don’t think we’re a good fit long term. I want to break up.

    Then lay out everything you said in your post as nicely as you can. Explain that you’re not angry with her, you still like/love her, but you just don’t see this relationship fitting in with your future plans. If you live together, tell her you understand that separating your lives will take some time, but offer to crash with a friend for a few days to give her space if she needs it.

    The conversation will suck, and there will be tears, probably on both your parts. You know what you want though. Stay strong.

13. Just remember that the longer you draw it out the crueler you are being, to her yes, but also to yourself.

    At the end of the day, you’re not compatible and it’s okay not to stay

14. No matter how you do it, breaking up with her is going to cause pain. That’s why they call it heartbreak. So, if you are serious about ending the relationship (and from your post, I believe you should), you need to be mentally prepared for both of you to have some emotional pain. So, you just have to do it and be ready.

    The reasons are pretty clear. You say she hasn’t done anything wrong, but the fact is that your life goals and desires are completely different. She wants to get married right away, and you want to wait 8 or 9 years? HUGE conflict and one without any room for compromise. She may SAY she will wait, but her life goals are still going to be there, and she will not be able to just stomp on them for the next 8 years. If her life clock is ticking, so is her biological clock, and the subject of having children will soon be added as a reason to get married.

    You are also sexually unhappy, which, at your young age, is a real issue. Sex is a way to form a bond of intimacy. If you aren’t doing it for no other reason than a difference in libido, it’s not like it will get any better as time goes by. Neither of you will be happy.

    I think you should explain to her that your different life goals are the very reason why SHE should support breaking up. If you break up now, you are both young enough that you will have time to find someone more compatible. If you stay together for 5 years and don’t marry, it will be 5 years wasted in which she could have found someone who meets her life goals and wants to get married right away.

    Good luck.

15. Be single. But do not come back to her running once you realise the grass isn’t greener and you want something serious.

16. No one has to do anything “wrong” for a relationship to end. Sometimes you just aren’t compatible, and that sounds exactly what the case is here. You’ve just grown apart, which isn’t unusual given your ages.

    Just explain to her that you and her visions of marriage and the future of this relationship are no longer the same, and that it’s no one’s fault. She’ll probably be hurt, I’m sure you will be as well initially, but ripping the band-aid off will the the quickest and “easiest” way for everyone to move on and heal.

17. I was married at 21. Don’t do that. If you can not live without her then marriage is in your future. If you can live without her ( even if it hurts short term) , rip off the bandaid and let her go find someone who wants to marry now.

18. Everyone offered great advice here and I wholeheartedly agree that you are well within your rights to break up for any of those reasons and it will probably be for the best.

    I just wanted to give some advice/warning as well that I haven’t seen mentioned. If you don’t want to get married until close to 30 you might want to spend a few years single before getting into a serious relationship again. To be completely honest a lot of women will not want to date for 10 years before marriage, my personal line would be about 5 max. Some will for sure, and you might get lucky. But if you get into another relationship too early you might find yourself in another situation like this due to different timelines.

    Best of luck

19. My now soon-to-be-ex husband and I were in this place. He accelerated his timeline to be closer to mine. The resentment from that over the next 6 years is what led to our current impending divorce. Don’t make that mistake.

20. Captain Awkward has a good column on exactly this:

    https://captainawkward.com/2022/03/09/1368-the-ethics-of-breaking-up-with-someone-when-you-live-together-and-nothing-is-glaringly-awful/

21. You’re going to need to tell her that you guys have different values and life plans. Unfortunately, it’s going to hurt her feelings, but staying with someone that you’ve grown away from will hurt more.

    She may tell you she’ll wait longer or change, but honestly, why? That wouldn’t be good for either of you. Rip off the band-aid and end things. You’re both young and have so much life ahead of you.

22. I’ve been on the receiving end of this under a similar situation where there was nothing wrong in the relationship and things were good.

    She’s probably going to be in for a shock, especially if this is all out of the blue. All you can do is be honest. Do it sooner rather than later. Don’t go back on your decision, it’s unfair to have someone in limbo or crawl back if the grass isn’t greener on the other side. She’s going to be hurt, there’s no way around it. But she’s also going to be hurt if you wait another year or two to do this.

    Oh. Do it when she doesn’t have to be anywhere. Like on a weekend, not before work, or on a school day sort of thing. Maybe a Friday evening so she has the weekend to grieve, before she has to go back to reality.

23. If it’s a long-term relationship you’re otherwise happy with it might be fixable. After all, we’re not talking about a marriage that has been dead for ten years. Have you ever talked to her about these things? That might be worth trying. You can still break up if it leads to nothing. Unless you have already kind of made up your mind, in which case the rest of my comment will be redundant.

    I assume to many people getting married to their one love is more important than just getting married to anyone at all before a self-imposed deadline. Maybe, if she understands how much this bothers you, she is fine stalling an early marriage knowing you just need more time.

    Sex drive can be the result of a stagnant relationship, stress or other things. You can bring sex back in relationships through effort and communication. Maybe something is holding her back that can be worked on. I have seen that in many relationships of friends.

    Maybe the thing that bothered you about her ‘moving on’ is something that can be mediated through couple therapy or just a few good conversations around the kitchen table.

    —

    I am not trying to talk you out of breaking up with her. I am just saying there might be ways to fix the relationship if you prefer exploring those options before ending it straight away. Many deteriorating relationships have hard conversations and attempts to fix the wrongs before the final conclusion is that all those efforts led to nothing. Maybe you already explored these options with her, but from your post it sounds like she has no clue what’s on your mind and this will come as a huge surprise to her.

24. You are allowed to break up and move on with your life for any reason. For your sake and hers. You are stealing from her and yourself something either of you will never get back…time. Break up with her and then leave her alone so both of you can build the happiest future possible.

25. I mean all you really can do is be honest with her, tell her you want different things and your timeline doesn’t match up with hers and you want to break up.

26. Not wanting the same things is a perfectly valid reason to not want to be with someone.

27. There’s nothing to forgive. You either get over it or you don’t. You’re both young and hooking up idls quite natural.

    Buuuut, what you say is, “I think we both want dofferent things and that’s great. I’ll always cherish our memories, but it’s time for us to end things amicably hut permanently.”

28. Stop being a pussy and just tell her. And you really mad that she moved on slightly faster than you? Even though you moved on as well? 😂😂😂

29. It sounds selfish of you from my perspective. The only thing really eating you up about this decision is the ultimatum of marriage, and you not wanting to be the one broken up with.

    You want to wait until you’re nearly thirty to get married, which implies you think you have a shot with someone better down the line. It’s true that men can start families later, I myself got married when I was 29 going on 30, but my original plan was to be married by 21, as was the norm in my locality.

    I am lucky in that something happened that let me know I could trust my wife to be the one for me. But, for you, you say you truly love her, but you also can’t stomach the thought of marrying her in her prime, it’s a strange dichotomy.

    Marriage is about trust more than anything else. As someone who burned up his 20’s with loose women and drink, I can assure you that knowing what I know now, I would gladly trade my 40+ body count for a strong and meaningful relationship very early on, and avoided the heartbreak and uncertainty that I struggled through.

    The only merit my late marriage has in NY eyes is that it allowed me to meet my wife. But, in the pile there were one or two special girls I bungled and they very easily could have been the one for me as well.

    Stumbling home drunk on the weekends might be fun as a one time thing, but every weekend for a month is the habit of a drunk or an alcoholic, and you can take that from me who was putting down a 6 pack a night at the time.

    You can still go sky diving when you’re married. You can still go see the grand canyon, play paintball, unless you have plans to leave the country for a year or more, and I mean real solid plans at that, then maybe break things off. But, if you don’t even have any solid plans to leave the state you’re in, I wouldn’t worry about it.

    It’s very very hard to make a relationship work after a break, especially if you were the less successful partner during that break period. If you watch this sub enough, you see women posting stuff like this too.

    If you’re breaking up to just not marry, you’ll have no sympathy from me. If you had a real reason beyond that though, I know you would be been compelled to list it.

    Good luck in either case. Breaking up with someone for selfish reasons is very hard, be sure you have a good friend to rely on on the following days otherwise dark thoughts are soon to follow.

30. Before you end things, have you tried talking to her about your wants and needs? Have the both of you tried couples counseling? I can understand not wanting to marry young, but as far as a relationship, have you and your partner put the hard work (therapy, talking to each other honestly, being open with each other emotionally) into making this thing work? I would consider breaking up as something after you’ve done what you can.

31. Communicate with her. Tell her exactly how you feel. If you don’t like face to face, write her a letter. Use “I” statements rather than “you” statements, i.e. ” *I* feel unloved and unappreciated in our relationship.” rather than ” *you* make me feel unloved and unappreciated.” Be as specific and detailed as you can be. Don’t leave any stone unturned.

    (You don’t have to answer these to me but you do need to answer them to yourself) If you love her, so much, why don’t you want to stay with her? Why don’t you want to get married? What do you miss about being single?

    Is there another option where you can stay together but fix what seems to be wrong in the relationship? There are ways to, for a lack of a better term, spice up your sex life. Frankenstein that shit back to life, lol. I’m sure if she knew specifically what you see is not working for you, she will also communicate what she would like to work on and you can both make an effort to work on things.

    Just keep in mind, in these situations where the flame just fades out, it’s always a possibility that you could potentially be making a mistake that you’ll regret. She might move on for good this time. You have to be able to come to terms with that.

    If I would talk to unbiased friends that you trust. They will know better about you two than we reddit crew do.
    I hope you think things through and come up with the right decision for both of you. Good luck.

32. You should have broken up a long time ago. Your GF did nothing wrong “moving on” when you were on a “6 month break.” That’s what you’re calling it now (a break), but if you’d not gotten back together the rest of the world just calls it broken up. You’re hurt she was with other others while you weren’t, correct? And the idea of you getting married without taking advantage of the same opportunities she did really bothers you, right?

    The thought that you can break up without pain is impossible. Get over that possibility. But you should have paid attention to your true self earlier. Don’t hide from your jealous, petty nature. There is nothing your GF needs to seek forgiveness for. You both weren’t even dating in those 6 months. But by understanding your true nature, you’ll guarantee your future relationships will be healthier. There’s nothing inherently bad about being a jealous person, except when you keep a relationship going a long time after its expiration date. Next time be aware of who you are. Don’t think about how you should be some noble person who can look beyond your heartbreak. Acknowledge your real self. It will save you a lot of pain.

33. I feel like it’s a good idea to point out here what the societal pressure is on men vs women when it comes to getting married.

    She may actually not be ready for marriage, but at 21 I’m sure that she’s seeing plenty of her friends, old classmates, and coworkers getting engaged and married all the time, and it kind of puts you into this crazy rush for no reason.

34. You tell her that you two are not compatible, because you don’t want the same things anymore. No one is wrong here, but she wants something within 2 years, that you don’t want for at minimum 8. That’s an incompatibility, that neither of you should compromise on.

    As you get older you’ll realise how often good relationships end because of incompatible life goals, and you’ll see that it’s always for the best, and done because the people respect eachother to try and force something to work, that just can’t.

    Leave her because you respect her too much to play games with her timelines, and aren’t able to bend your own. That’s okay. It’s gonna be hard as hell, but it’s the right thing to do.

35. Should you break up though? It sounds like you both love each other a lot. There are therapists for unmarried couples too I imagine.