when to break up?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-20-2004
when to break up?
7
Sat, 01-31-2004 - 4:10pm
Well my story is kinda situation specific and that's why I want to ask for advice...I've read so many other posts on here but still have questions left unanswered.

My BF and I have been together 3 yrs now. It's a LONG distance relationship. He's european and I'm from the states. We've been together off and on over the 3 yrs and now I'm living in europe with him and going to school here. The being apart wasn't the problem, plenty of trust between us etc. But now we've been living together for about 10mo and we're basically roommates who share a bed...intimacy is 0 except for a little bit of snuggling and "numb" kisses, we/he also say I love you all the time, and it's actually getting hard for me to mean it.

I do still love him very much, but I don't think I am in love with him anymore. He's not interested in sex at all. I've tried everything I can think of for that problem and he's just unwilling to make any effort. His lack of interest in me is very detrimental to the relationship.

So I've thought this over ALOT, and basically I have to stay here (living with him) till I am done with school this summer. At that point I want him to know that I don't want to come back.

My main question is how do I deal with knowing that I want to break up with him already and deciding to tell him or not. I don't want to lay this on him unexpected while I run off to the airport and catch a flight back to the US! But I also can't imagine how to tell him "let's break up 5 months from now"!

Do I need to keep this to myself until it's closer to time for me to leave? Or should I tell him how I really feel now? oh this feels like such a moral dilemma...
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2003
In reply to: iclear
Sat, 01-31-2004 - 5:09pm
It sounds like he already believes the relationship is over too, right? Maybe you two just need to talk about that. I can't believe that he will be shocked if you aren't intimate in any way anymore.

Can you move somewhere for a few months?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-20-2004
In reply to: iclear
Sun, 02-01-2004 - 7:25am
Well that's a strange thing about this situation. I don't get the impression that he thinks it's over. He's just says he's stressed about school (he still has 2 yrs, and is considering going on to get his masters). But I think stress will only get worse later!

I don't really have another place to live. That's why I'm so concerned. Part of me thinks maybe there is a way to just tell him that we can stay living together and caring for eachother, but let go of the BF/GF status. Im my mind that is ideal, but I don't know if I can convince him of that.

Thank you for your thoughts.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2003
In reply to: iclear
Sun, 02-01-2004 - 8:49am
well if i were in your shoes i would either find another place to stay (if you are in university i am sure that there are always dorm rooms and/or flat shares available), or I would just move back to the US. I would certainly NOT stay in a situation where you are together but not. and yes, i would sit down and talk with him. just my two cents.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-01-2004
In reply to: iclear
Sun, 02-01-2004 - 1:40pm
Have an honest discussion with him about this now. If that doesn't work, let him see you losing interest in him. Perhpaps if he feels he is losing you, he will wake up. Good luck.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-20-2004
In reply to: iclear
Sun, 02-01-2004 - 4:23pm
Thanks for the words of support everyone. I was actually able to talk to him today--and he didn't just shut down, he actually talked with me!

So bascially I put it to him objectively, saying that I want to go back to the states when I finish with school here. Since he's comitted to several more years of school here I tried to explain that I didn't want to hold him back at all. Bc that is what he tells me (indirectly) when I tell him that I am unhappy.

I kinda explained that we should be on "pause" till he finishes school. We really do love eachother (it's just the IN love part that's lacking), and I don't want to ruin our friendship. So we can be apart and just be friends for a couple years and then reconsider the terms of our relationship when we are both done with our other commitments (school). After that much time, we both may well grow in very different directions. We're both still young afterall.

So I hope that I actually made myself clear. If not at least the idea has been openly laid on the table...so when I "go through with this" in the summer it shouldn't come as a shock to him.

whew, I hope that this all works. At least I feel tons better by telling him and having him be wililng to discuss this with me!

thanks again!
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
In reply to: iclear
Mon, 02-02-2004 - 9:09am

I think you really need to just talk to him, you might be surprised what you find out about him and his feelings right now.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-20-2004
In reply to: iclear
Tue, 02-03-2004 - 12:38pm
Hey Gandalf,

I'm not going to be offended by what you've said to me, because I know that you only know the little tiny bit of my relationship which I've posted here. I cannot count the number of times that I have tried to talk to my boyfriend about our problems, and about my feelings, and he just shuts down. It seems like he doesn't care, I've given all kinds of suggestions for how we can approach our problems and he won't take any action, and I can't do it FOR him--only WITH him and he doesn't participate in actively trying to salvage what we've got. So I think that he's the one who is unwilling to make time to work on the relationship. Our problems aren't new...I only turned to this website when I was at my wits end.

So when I tell him how I feel he doesn't give me any feed back except that he needs/wants to focus on school. That is fine with me, but then he's being unfair to me by keeping me around yet not putting any effort into us. That makes it hard for me to keep giving to this relationship when I don't feel that he values it the same. Another thing is that we have really different backgrounds, and I think that he's been brought up to stay in a relationship "no matter what" --although we're not married. For me I see it this way, we're still young and why stay in a relationship which ALREADY has the characteristics of an old married couple? Since we both want different things right now, we need this pause to both do our seperate things and then reconsider our relationship later...keep in mind if there weren't an ocean between where we both come from it would be much easier to just say that we could "date" rather than live together.

About the accusation of using him for a roommate...I pay bills too.

Thanks for your advice James.