My bf 22M is moving out and I 22F hope he will return to me when he is ready

I have always listened to and read about relationships on here but I thought I would give it a try knowing the public will give me their honest opinion. So here is my story:

I 21F have been dating my boyfriend 22M for four years and we moved in together about 1.5 years ago. We met when we were 17 in high school and have been dating since our senior year of high school.

I have never loved or cared for anyone like the way I love him. I truly believe he is the one for me.

We have had our own problems in our relationship. We also have problems of our own and he has made some mistakes in the past but regardless I do not see myself being with anyone but him.

But for the past few months, we have not been our normal selves. We have lost the friendship part of our relationship. We just do not feel like we are our own person anymore and have always relied on each other. His type of love is physical love while mine is acts of service.

We got together when we were really young so we were not able to learn who we are as individuals. I don’t regret any second of our relationship and will always want the best for him.

I knew we were starting to drift apart. We haven’t had a genuine conversation with each other in months. Regardless, the lust and romance are still there.

A couple of days ago, we sat down and talked to each other about everything. At the end of it, we came to an agreement that we each needed time apart to grow and work on ourselves & mental health without feeling pressure from the other so we decided to take a break, not necessarily a breakup, to figure out what is it we both want in life as well as what we both need from each other.

He has assured me that he is not doing this to get the opportunity to be single and I truly believe him. He reassured me that this time apart is what he needs so can get better and work on his mental health problems.

We live in a townhome that his parents let us rent out and I do have to add that my twin sister lives with us as well. The rent is really affordable considering the location and my sister and I love living here. Even if his parents own the place, they are not going to kick us out because their son and I are working things out. With everything happening, my boyfriend wants to make sure I am doing okay regardless of the situation because he still loves me and we both have hope for us to rekindle things in the future.

My boyfriend does not want me and my sister to become homeless or to move back in with our toxic mother and does not want to see me disappear from his life altogether. So we have decided that for right now it would be best for him to move out and back into his mom’s house so that we may have space away from each other to grow separately and when the time is right to come back together when we are ready.

He does not want us to feel the burden of paying the whole rent amount divided two ways between me and my sister when it use to be split 3 ways, so he asked if he can still rent out the garage space to continue working on his project car, and my sister and I would just pay the difference.

My heart aches right now and I know I will be sad when he officially moves out. Everything won’t officially hit me until then but I do believe this is for the better. I want him to grow and work on himself so he can come back to me 100% ready so that we can spend the rest of our lives together. During this time, we want to build that friendship part again.

I know other couples who have taken a break and have read about other couples separating to better themselves separately and when ready, reuniting stronger than ever. And I really do hope this will be us because I am not ready to give up on my relationship with him and neither is he.

tl;dr: My boyfriend and I are taking a break and he is moving out so we can grow individually while working on our mental health. We want to take the time apart to better ourselves as well as figure out what we need from each other. I want him to come back to me when he is 100% ready to put everything into us. Am I giving myself false hope?