Me (21F) and bf (21M) have been together 2.5 years. He is the hardest working, smartest, and funniest guy I have ever met. We met our senior year of high school (March 2020) right after covid shut everything down. All us seniors had just gotten our college acceptance letters and were making all kinds of online group chats to meet other freshmen in our majors and stuff. I met him in an engineering group chat on Snapchat since we were both going to be engineering majors in the fall. Instantly we started chatting individually on Snapchat just as friends. After a week those chats turned into daily zoom calls that lasted hours.
March – July we FaceTimed and snap chatted and zoom called all day and everything was purely platonic. He was the first guy to make me feel comfortable being myself. He made me laugh harder than I ever had before. He made me a better and brighter version of myself. By July things started turning flirty and we talking about dating once we got to campus in the fall and i played it cool but I was crazy about him.
When fall semester started and we moved to college, we began dating. Bf expressed to me he suffers from depression and anxiety and has panic attacks too. He gave me an out if it was too much for me but i said no bc i thought it was something I could handle. Him and I hung out every day alone or with our mutual friends doing weird things because covid shut everything down on campus. We would play Pokémon go, video games, sit in the food court and people watch, drink too much, etc. we had a blast.
fast forward 2 years later and we are both still engineering students in our junior year. Our relationship has been perfect. We rarely fight and always laugh. He just gets me. He’s in aerospace engineering and his school work is consistent with a 75 hour work week. His work ethic is incredible and refuses to perform any less than 100% in school.
Naturally, this creates a lot more stress and anxiety for him to deal with. This has led him to come to me saying he doesn’t know if he has time for me and school and obviously he can’t not do school. He tells me he loves me and I’m perfect and he doesn’t want to break up and he doesn’t know what to do. I told him I was okay with seeing him less if the alternative was breaking up. His response was that that’s not fair to me and i deserve better. While he says all of this he also tells me I’m the only one for him, he sees a future with me, he wants to get married one day, and all that. Very mixed messages. This happened about a week ago and now we’re both home on spring break.
Since spring break I started having panic attacks probably brought on by stress of this situation and a bunch of other stuff not relevant to this. I went to the doctor and got diagnosed with anxiety and was given a prescription for it. This wasn’t a surprise to bf because I’ve been showing mild symptoms for anxiety for a while and since he is familiar he was encouraging me to go to the doctor.
After my appointment I told him about my diagnosis and he asked if he gave me the anxiety. I told him obviously not, but ever since that conversation (yesterday) he’s been distant and not wanting to talk to me. I love him so much and I don’t want to break up but I don’t know where he’s at. I think both of us need to work on ourselves but I’m hoping it’s possible we’ll be able to do that without breaking up. Idk.
This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense but oh well. What do i do?
TL;DR My boyfriend is overwhelmed with life and is self sabotaging our relationship.
6 comments
Grad student here, been in a relationship for a little over 3 years. If he’s throwing himself into school the way he says he is, then I understand where he’s coming from. I have very little mental space for my partner. It’s caused major problems. Maybe try having some more conversations, he may just be worried that you deserve more than he can give you at the moment.
He’s 21, the great thing about making a mistake when he’s young is he has plenty of time to recover and find someone new.
He’s saying he can’t make time for you.
Whether that is because of school, or his feelings towards you…the result is the same.
Clearly there are some things going on with your BF, and he is choosing to deal with it on his own. He just isnt prioritizing you. And sadly, thats how relationships go sometimes.
Have you considered couples therapy? It could be helpful to have a neutral third party help you both navigate through this difficult time.
I don’t know whether your boyfriend will decide to break up with you soon, but anyone can end a relationship whether you think it’s for a good reason or not. You can discuss it with him and share how you feel about his busy schedule, but ultimately he can break up with you if he decides to. I fully understand the pain and anxiety you are going through worrying about it and get that the breakup would be painful – I’ve been there. Unfortunately that is something most people go through. Sometimes people meet each other at the wrong time and can’t be together. Sometimes people love each other but want different things and need to part ways. Sometimes someone has their own individual issues going on and isn’t willing or able to handle both that and a relationship. Sometimes one person isn’t happy and the other person doesn’t realize that. These situations can hurt more than breakup when you have grown apart or aren’t getting along. As much as it may hurt, and even if a breakup is something he regrets later, it realistically isn’t the biggest mistake of his life and you wouldn’t necessarily end up getting married later anyway. Breakups are a part of life, albeit a really shitty one. I’m in my early 30s and am only friends with one couple who have been together since they were your age. A lot of change can happen after college and throughout your 20s.
Sounds like he’s saying he loves you but your relationship is a distraction at the moment, but in a nice way. He’s prioritizing his education and doesn’t want you to feel like you’re taking the back seat.
You may be willing to accept less time, but it may be that he doesn’t want to have to think about maintaining a relationship while he’s concentrating on his education and future career (which does eat up a lot of time) nor does he want to be the source of your anxiety. It’s guilt that he may not want hanging over his head as it might cause a domino effect with his school work.
The way to work it out is to have an honest dialogue and see what happens from there. You may find a compromise or you may not. But it’s hard to be in a relationship with someone who you know already has one foot out the door.