Okay, so the person (20F) I’m (22M) seeing is really going through the ringer right now. We’ve been talking for six months, and we both say that we love each other, we’re exclusive but not official, if that makes sense. She’s been having a really bad time, she has a lot of trauma from past relationships in addition to bad anxiety and bipolar disorder. She takes medication, but that only helps so much. Her best friend is currently in and out of the hospital. She also works a lot. Naturally, I’m the one putting in a bit more effort, I have more time and I’m also not going through that much. Lately, she’s cancelled on me a lot and is generally pretty distant. It’s made her feel really guilty, and that she’s being unfair to me. I’ve said that I understand everything and that she shouldn’t worry that much about me, that I love her and there’s nothing she can do to push me away, that I’m always there for her whenever she needs me, that she can have as much space as she needs etc. It hasn’t really helped.
Over the past two days, she’s gotten much more guilty and sad, and says that she’s scared that our relationship will be unhealthy because of it. She told me that she loved me and that she doesn’t know what to do.
Would a break for a month or two be good for us? A friend recommended it to me but I’ve never really done anything like that before. I’m willing to do anything to make her feel better, I hate seeing her be guilty when she’s done nothing wrong.
Thank you
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**tl;dr**: The person I’m seeing is really stressed out and feels guilty that she doesn’t pay attention to me enough. She wants some space, would a break of 1 or 2 months help us?
3 comments
“Taking a break” is usually a transition to a more permanent break. I wouldn’t propose taking a break from exclusivity unless this isn’t working for you and you want to explore other ladies. If that’s not it and you love her, give her the space she wants.
Breaks never *ever* work to fix any problems that are intrinsic to a relationship, or to one or both of the people *in* the relationship.
The only time a break is useful is if the problem the break is meant to address is 1) *external* to the relationship and the people in it, and 2) has a finite *end*.
So for instance, breaks for the following reasons can be helpful:
1. “My grandmother is in hospice and my family needs my support right now and I just don’t have the time and energy to give you what you need right now”,
2. “I have exams that I need to study for, which will make or break my career goals, so I have to focus all of my time and energy on them until they are over in a month”.
…stuff like that.
This:
> She’s been having a really bad time, she has a lot of trauma from past relationships in addition to bad anxiety and bipolar disorder. She takes medication, but that only helps so much. Her best friend is currently in and out of the hospital. She also works a lot.
…is not one of those situations. The issues that are causing the need for the “break” are *intrinsic to her*, and there is no time boundary on them.
So if you take a month or two apart as a break, and then you get back together, you’ll be the *same* two people with exactly the *same* issues as you have now.
So the most you will have accomplished is to sweep things under the rug, to have kicked the can a little farther down the road. But they’ll still be issues, and they won’t be *better*, so you’ll either have to deal with them *then*, or you’ll have to take *another* break once things build up again.
Any issue that is worth taking a “break” over is either:
1. A resolvable issue that both people should buckle down and work through *together*, or
2. An unresolvable issue that the couple should break up outright over.
She already doesn’t have time for you so a break isn’t going to change anything anyway.
You stay together and work through it together or you break up.