I \[21F\] am a senior in college and am about to graduate in a couple of weeks. In order to save money to get my own place in New York, I am going to move back in with my parents (in Florida) for about 2-3months. I grew up in New York and can’t see myself living anywhere else, but it’s also a super expensive city to live in, hence the decision to move back home for a couple of months to save. I also have a semi-toxic home environment but I am willing to put myself back in that home situation in order to move out in a couple of months.

This all started because I thought I had mentioned my plans to move back home to my boyfriend of two years who lives in New York, and he either did not understand/remember the conversation or maybe I just thought I told him but didn’t. Whatever the case, in his point of view, he only found out about my plans to move back home two weeks ago. The news crushed him. He felt that I had been dishonest with him, when in reality I truly believe I had told him. I personally believe there is no point in arguing about whether I had told him or not because in his reality, I withheld this information from him. This caused a huge spat. I think the idea of being in a long-distance relationship is not ideal for him, and it isn’t for me either, but I told him that this is a decision I made in order to be financially secure enough to move out of my home for good.

I feel conflicted because on one hand, we have done long-distance in past. We dated throughout all of college and have always spent semester breaks/summers in different states and I told him that three months is easy for us because we’ve done it before. For fucks sake, we were in a relationship during lockdown which was 6 whole months!! I think he’s unable to see past this and feels very disillusioned because we would always talk about the future we would have in New York together and maybe that future doesn’t seem as close as it used to be. I don’t know what to do. He has a very low tolerance for stress and every time I bring this up I feel like he’s on the brink of a panic attack.

Fast forward to now: We decided to give each other some space by not seeing each other until after finals week but we still text each other daily. Due to his low tolerance for stress, whenever there’s a lot of pressure/stressors on him outside the relationship he has a tendency to let that creep into the relationship. I respect his decision to take some time to tie up his loose ends while he figures out logistics about his post-grad life and he can come back to me ready to be a better partner. I, on the other hand, have abandonment problems due to situations in my childhood and have had a tendency to latch onto him as a support system and have been taking this time to learn how to be alone and develop better coping mechanisms. I think this decision is really good for us but my boyfriend recently told me that while he does see a future with me and truly sees our relationship continuing in the long-term, he’s not so sure about us in the near future. I don’t even know how that makes sense, I have this feeling that he may just want to break up and doesn’t know how to tell me. I just need another person’s view on the situation.

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TLDR: My boyfriend feels disillusioned because he thought I would be moving to New York with him after graduation when in reality I have decided to move back home to Florida for a couple of months to save money. He said that while he sees our relationship continuing in the long term, he’s not so sure about the short term. How does this make sense? Does he even want to be with me?

3 comments
  1. Oof. A lot to unpack here. You could be right; he may want to break up and just not know how to put it politely. But he could also want to take time to find himself and become more mentally okay. He may be saying he’s unsure about the near future because he’s stressed. It’s hard, but I always prepare for the worst and hope for the best

  2. He wants to break up.

    2-3 months isn’t *really* a long distance relationship, it’s a short term pain for a long term gain. It’s also not the first time you two have engaged in something like this.

    Trust your gut and end this yourself before it drags on.

    ~just one man’s opinion

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