I have a boyfriend of 1.5 years who I am long distance with through college. He is my first boyfriend and I love him more than anything. He showers me with compliments, makes sure I know he loves and cares about me, takes care of me, understands my mental health struggles, and is sweet to everyone he knows. However, I’ve noticed recently that I’ve been wanting to pull back from my relationship and don’t know what to do.
I’m very happy with my boyfriend when I’m with him. We treat each other really well and there’s no one I would rather spend time with. We are both very busy and don’t get to visit each other often besides thanksgiving and summer. The part that’s tricky is that I sometimes feel like it’s holding me back. First of all I am not as social as I would be if I wasn’t in a relationship and that causes me to be sad and struggle in my college environment even though he makes me so happy (for context, I go to a big state school and he goes to a smaller school). Second of all I don’t really feel like we’re growing together because we are living such separate lives even though we call a lot. I really value quality time, but having that just be phone conversations is really draining. And I know it’s selfish, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be able to date around since I never got to do that.
Again, I love my boyfriend and he is so special to me. I genuinely think we work so well together and I think we will end up together because of that, but I guess it makes me second guess it because I don’t know anything else. I don’t want to let a good thing go but I also need time to grow individually and figure out what I want. I feel like if I stay with him, I’ll regret not trying something new, but if I let go, I’m going to regret losing the guy who loves me more than anything. I’ve kind of talked to him about this in a different context, and he seemed okay with going on a break, but I told him I couldn’t bring myself to do that and I still can’t. The worst part of it is that I am so so scared to hurt him. The thought of him being sad makes me tear up because he is the sweetest person ever and never deserves to be hurt. I also don’t know how I would explain it to family or friends too because they know how much we love each other and how well we treat each other.
I can’t hold the guilt of this any longer, and really just need advice on how to go about this.
5 comments
What is a break to you? What you’re talking about just tells me you’re wanting to see if the “grass is greener”.
What do you hope to get out of a break? It seems like you know this relationship doesn’t really have a future because of your situations but you’re afraid to rip that bandaid off.
Start by accepting you want to date other people.
To go on a break in order to do so – is a kind way of saying “I want to cheat” and not feel bad about it.
Just be honest to yourself! If you want to date others – break up. That is honest and you do not have to be ashamed of yourself doing that.
A second comment is that you forget if you want to go on a break so you can date – it opens up for him to date as well. He will in all likelihood date somebody in his school – and that will be his real relationship in the future. Why should he want to throw that away for a high-school sweetheart that wanted to date others then him.
A final thing. To stay together LDR is difficult. Personally I think you should break up. Enjoy being free.
You’ve mentioned wanting to pull back because you want to be more social on campus. Rather than taking a full on break, why not try scaling back your time together in favor of that?
If you’re planning to date other people, it’s not a break, it’s just breaking up.
Just use words, tell him kindly that you want to break up.