It’s 4:45 am and I can’t stop sobbing. Last night my boyfriend and I broke up after 4 years of being together. We met and started dating our freshman year of college. He was my big teddy bear. He was sweet and sensitive and very shy but he opened up to me more than he ever has with anyone else. I got to know the real him, but my friends and family never really did. They mistook his shyness for being boring, and they started to wonder why I was with him. About a year ago I started getting this feeling that everything that excited me about life and my growing was all happening outside of the relationship. I ran marathons, climbed mountains, designed for a fashion show, traveled abroad, wrote two senior theses, had my own incredible friends. It seemed like I was growing in many ways, but the relationship itself was stagnant. My partner would insist he was happy for me, but he seemed bored and indifferent to my successes and only seemed content when I was focusing on the relationship. I started to resent him and grew less and less interested in having sex. In the past six months after graduating college we moved to different cities but stayed together. I’ve had many adventures since, and started to think I didn’t need our relationship anymore to make me happy. I could thrive on my own, and it seemed like everyone else in my life thought this too and wondered why I was still dating him. When I told new people that I had been with my boyfriend for almost four years and they would remark “wow, that sounds serious!” I would think to myself “not really, it kind of just seems like time is passing and neither of us has broken up with the other.”

We saw each other once or twice a month since graduating. This seemed like enough for me, and I started to feel like I was happier on my own. He, on the other hand, was very saddened by the distance between us and kept asking when we were going to live together again. I didn’t have an answer for him because I didn’t want to sacrifice my own dreams and goals just to live closer to him. But the truth is, he lives in New York City — I guess if I really wanted to live with him, I would be doing it already. Meanwhile I live in Maine. We have also had sex a handful of times since graduating. I haven’t really felt the desire to with him, and I felt like his wanting to so badly all the time was putting enormous pressure on me. I started to feel like having sex was giving him false hope that our relationship was working for me, when I knew it wasn’t.

After many months of doubt and curiosity about what breaking up would mean for me, I broached the subject with him on New Year’s <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android.eve">Eve</a>. I couldn’t sit on it any longer — the unsaid feelings I had were eating away at me and I could tell they were really affecting the relationship. It hurt him but we agreed to take 3 months to see if this is what we really want. We would stay together but be totally honest with each other. Then yesterday he called me and said he didn’t want to wait the three months. That it was too painful and that everything I had said to him on New Year’s <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android.eve">Eve</a> had resonated with him, he just hadn’t wanted to admit that to himself and had been pushing away his own feelings of doubt. It seemed like he had needed me more than I needed him, and my wanting to be off on my own all the time was killing him. He didn’t see how this was going to work, even though he wants to be with me more than anything.

I’m worried i sabotaged the best relationship I’ll ever have. He was so caring and dependable. But I got bored, and maybe even covetous. I feel guilty for wanting more when I already had a partner who really loved and cared about me. But I started to feel like I didn’t even recognize the person I was with anymore. He’s been having a rough time since graduation — working at a job he hates, living in a city where he has no friends, and living so often without me there was making him sad. I felt like when we were together we weren’t connecting like we used to. He seemed like a sadder and duller version of himself. Maybe taking a break will be a good thing for him to sort himself out, and maybe I’ll realize being single isn’t all I cracked it up to be. We agreed we would talk again in 3 months and maybe reevaluate, but for now we are going to live our own separate and single lives, whatever that means for us.

I know this was long and probably no one read it, but if you did any words of wisdom and/or comfort would be much appreciated. I’m hurting a lot right now, and kicking myself for pushing away this special person from my life. Thank you.