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Should I break up with him


Nae alone

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So my boyfriend of 3 years has just gone travelling in Australia for 6 weeks ( he left on Tuesday) and I’m not sure if I should break up with him and leave him to just explore. He tells me he wants to stay together and that we can get through it and be better than ever when he comes home because it’s only 6 weeks. Although we are only 18, and I’m worried he’s going to end up cheating or something of the kind which would honestly break my heart and I don’t think I would ever be able to get over that! He hasn’t ever given me a reason to believe he would but people keep asking me if I trust his word enough to believe that and now I’m starting to question myself . I’m not saying I want to break up with him for good maybe just until he comes home so I’m not worrying about him getting with other girls. He wants to stay together and promised me I’d have nothing to worry about while he was gone but I’m so torn on what to do. When he left we both cried and he told me he cried a few times on the plane and that he misses me but we can be strong and get through it. I’m not looking for someone to say yes or no don’t break up I kind of just want peoples opinions and what they would do in my situation. I do love him so so much and miss him but equally I don’t want to be worrying and messaging him all the time ( although it’s an 11 hour time difference so we can’t speak to much anyway)

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I read your post last week and my answer is yes you should end things with this person if you want a person who will never travel on his own or extend a business trip to travel on his own for example. Right now that situation is just not right for you. But it is for him and he probably needs someone who would be comfortable with that in the future or even happy. You’re choosing to react to your insecurities by telling yourself all sorts of what if scary stories. And also burdening him by asking him to reassure you. It’s not fair to him or healthy. There are others who are insecure like you and don’t want to change their way of dealing with it badly enough. Just like you. That wouldn’t be a healthy relationship for a different reason but that person likely would agree to refrain from being away from you for more than a day or so. Or a person who just wants to be at home and not travel alone or without you for any reason. But that likely won’t be because he loves you so much. More likely because he has fears of being on his own or lacks a sense of adventure or motivation to see other places or cultures or ways of life.

Consider those downsides. But yes I’d end things if the alternative is feeling yucky and needing tons of reassurance from him. You got some great input on your last thread. You don’t want to do the work. That’s ok just not fair to your boyfriend. Good luck.

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Breaking up with someone thinking that afterwards you will be able to get back with them down the line as if the break up never happened is a huge misconception. A break up creates mistrust and feelings of abandonment and betrayal to the person who is dumped. It shows them that you are capable of abandoning them and most people never forget that. Relationships are like glass. Once broken, even if glued back, they are never the same. The loss of trust is always there afterwards making things shaky/uncertain. Unless there is abuse/cheating taking place, imo it's a very bad idea to break up with a person you love thinking that you will be able to get back together down the line. Life doesn't work that way.

 

You are very young and still have a lot to learn about relationships. Breaking up preemptively with someone you still love and don't really want to break up with is a bad idea. Breaking up should be reserved for the times where you are really OK with losing this person from your life for life.

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Are your friends jealous of you? Why else would they advise you to break up for no good reason?

 

If you break up, you would be punishing him for having the nerve to leave your side for a short while (and yes two months is a short while). God forbid he go to college or get a job that requires him to go away for training. What you'd be saying is "either you stay by my side all day every day or I'll break up with you".

 

Is that the message you want to send? That all you care about is what YOU want?

 

Why can't you find something to do while he's away?

 

And what if you decide you can't handle being on your own so YOU decide to seek out some other guy to keep you company? Should he be worried about that and break up with you just in case?

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Wow, so much drama over a trip...

 

Yes you should break up with him and focus on why you are so insecure that you cannot handle your boyfriend going on a trip, and you think the appropriate solution is to break up with him.

 

By the way, breaking up with somebody with the intention to reconcile when he comes back is a blatant and obvious trick you are playing on yourself to shield yourself from hurt if he cheated. It's like saying, "no you cannot break up with me because I am breaking up with you first!"... which points to issues with your ego and sense of vulnerability.

 

Oh and breaking up with him and possibly then reconciling actually gives him the green light to do as he pleases on his trip without moral obligation to you. It ironically creates the exact conditions where you are more likely to lose him... But I guess a part of you would rather that you lose him on your terms than to risk the much smaller chance of losing him on his terms.

 

ps: Do you know the story of "We were on a break!!!" between Ross and Rachel in Friends? It seems somewhat relevant here :p

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You two have been together since you were 15. You are so used to him being right there. You are also so young that 1.5 months seems like an eternity. It's not.

 

This is an opportunity for you to grow as a person. Odds are if he's a good guy, he won't cheat. Most people are not cheaters. Most people have integrity. That is not to say he won't meet other girls or talk to them & flirt with them. He will simply know where the lines are drawn & he will stay on the right the side of them. You will learn to trust. You actually need this separation to develop more independence & self reliance. When you stop being so clingy & dependent on him you will become more attractive.

 

Understand if you break up with him so that he's free to do whatever on his trip & not have it be cheating, you still won't be able to get past that technicality when he comes home. The words will not save you from the idea that he was with another girl. Plus he will be rightly upset with you for having so little faith in him & ruining his trip by breaking his heart. He won't forgive & come back to you.

 

In the meantime, keep yourself busy. Spend time with your GFs. Study for your exams. Get prepared for the holidays. Do some crafts. Journal. Exercise. There is a lot you can do over the course of the next six weeks so you have new info to share with him when he returns.

 

Understand he probably shared some of the anxiety you are experiencing him. He went to work. You went to college. I dare say there is waaaayyyy more opportunity for you to cheat on him at college then there will be for him to cheat on a trip.

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I read too fast and now see you also said you don’t want an opinion of yes or no as far as breaking up. When I was turning 16 I went away for 6 weeks during the summer to a country with the same type of time difference. I had a serious high school boyfriend -we’d been dating almost a year. No internet back then. No mobile phones. I’m not sure if I called him because it was so expensive (I called my parents once or twice for a few minutes). I told him before I left we could see other people while we were apart. It just made sense. It worked fine for us because it wasn’t a break up (and no we were not sexually active). No regrets. But I don’t remember feeling insecure. Just sort of realistic and it was summertime etc. And it was a mutual decision. we dated another 2 years.

I will add this. Back then in the early 1980s about 20 years before you were born - if you were boyfriend girlfriend and didn’t see each other at school typically you saw each other weekend nights and you talked on the phone a couple of times a week.

Sometimes there was a day during the week especially if there was a holiday or something going on. Most teenagers like us had other friends and activities and schoolwork and often a part time job. It made it more interesting and exciting to have time and space apart and dates were something to look forward to.

 

In the really old days my mom met my dad when she was 16 and he was 19. They dated 5 years before getting married. They got engaged after about a year of dating. Then he went to graduate school about 300 miles away. So they saw each other about once a month - he took an 8 hour train ride each way - and spent summers and holidays together. You know it worked out ok - they were only married 60 years and 8 months. Because my father passed away. My parents wrote long letters to each other while they were apart. They were devoted and committed and they knew the other would be loyal. They always were.

My husband and I were also long distance for a few years before getting married. I felt insecure about us as a couple - whether he was still into me I mean - one time for about 7 hours. When he was in town actually. Turned out to be all in my head. No I didn’t ask him for reassurance. Because that would be self absorbed or selfish.

I hope these anecdotes help. Good luck.

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I’m not saying I want to break up with him for good maybe just until he comes home

 

This is a very unrealistic idea. It is pointless to break up temporarily, and very naive to believe things would just fall back into place once he returns. You would be doing damage to your relationship to follow through on this misguided idea. Relationships aren't like light switches that you can just turn on and off and on again when it suits you. There are going to be repercussions.

 

He will either lose a lot of trust and respect for you, or whoop it up as a single young man far from home who now has a green light to hook up and have sex with whomever he wants - or both. You can't tell us you would be okay with either of those options.

 

It's only 6 weeks, OP. Our advice about how to handle it remains the same as in your last thread on the topic. You need to get busy with your life and work on your own insecurity. If you genuinely can't stomach the thought of 6 weeks apart, then yes, it's better to break up - but not try to get back together again.

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I know what it's like to date someone like you, because I did. When I was a few months away from being 16, I went on a student trip to France for a month. My boyfriend didn't want me to go. Said he feared me cheating with a sexy Frenchman. When that didn't change my decision, he said he had a dream my plane would crash. That's possessive, manipulative behavior, which continued in other ways upon my return. Another year later, after seeing this continuing pattern of toxic behavior from him, I ended it, unwilling to be with someone who tried to control me because of his fears. He had a lot of good traits, which is probably why I stuck it out for that long when I shouldn't have, but eventually the bad outweighed the good.

 

It's likely that cheating won't spell the end for you two. It'll be your behavior--putting extreme stress on a relationship that doesn't need to be there.

 

So if your bf goes to the mall in your hometown, or a college class, surrounded by cute women, you believe he's not prone to cheating, but when he crosses the border into another country, he's magically transformed into a man whose ethics go down the tubes? Is that what would happen to you in the same situation?

 

How sad for him, that you have no faith in him. You could learn something from my husband. When I've taken trips without him, he calls me once a day to say he hopes I'm having fun and that he misses me. He also detailed my car for me once while I was away. No pouting. No anger. No worries. That's called being a supportive, loving partner. You need to change or you will lose any worthy partner who once gave you a chance, not knowing a suspicious, needy brain lies behind the smokescreen of a pretty face.

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Great advice from Batya.

 

Big picture: we all have needs and dealbreakers in relationships, and we can all end a relationship, from young love to a 20 year marriage, at any time, for any reason. So if you need someone who never goes a day or two without seeing you, or who would never consider traveling (for personal or business reasons) without you, then you can choose to end this for those reasons.

 

But should you make that choice you have to own it like that—that you’re too insecure for this kind of dynamic, that you’d rather end it than try to grow it (and yourself) into something more mature—rather than making it all about an assumption that he is going to cheat on you. That, put simply, is not nice. It’s essentially preemptively calling someone a liar, or labeling another human incapable of fidelity (despite what they tell you), and finding a sense of power and control in that. To expect someone to get back together with you after that—well, you’d need a very insecure man to go there and you’d be guaranteeing a bond that validates paranoia and suspicion over trust and support.

 

Batya also makes a very good point about love. Namely: that needing to be with someone 24/7 is not an extension of love, but fear and insecurity, so a man who will agree to such a premise will not be displaying his love for you but making his own insecurities (and desire for power and control) part of the bonding glue. You may need that right now, and you may find you need it at 25 and 45, but to the vast majority of people that will be seen as unhealthy and stifling. Possession and connection are two very different things.

 

I followed your last thread, and was reminded of my own life at 18. I was in a relationship, but when summer came we had to be apart for two months: I was in NYC, she was in California. It wasn’t ideal, as I loved her, and we’d just spent a wonderful month together roaming around Cuba, so there was some serious withdrawal. But it was also one of the best summers of my life. I made a ton of money waiting tables, read a zillion books, got comfortable taking myself out to restaurants alone (still a favorite activity), saw every movie at the art house theater, made some great friends, and I dedicated a lot of time toward an artistic hobby. At 40 that hobby is now my career, has been since I was 19, and it is the reason I own two homes, have enough in my savings to put a child through college, to say nothing of a very strong sense of self. All that goes a long way toward being secure inside relationships, and being able to cherish and support the mystery of another human rather than seeing them as a salve to uncertainty.

 

This could be a time for you that is just as exciting and formative as it is for him. You could use these weeks however you’d like, challenging yourself a bit and growing into a stronger woman in the process. When he returns you’ll have just as much to share with him as he does with you—equal footing, more room for connection. I’d really ask yourself, right now, what kind of person you want to be: someone who can handle a moment like this inside a relationship, with grace, or who prefer something else. You have free will and can make either of those choices. The choices we make—at 18, at 28—go a long way toward dictating who we become in our own skin and alongside other people. That summer I just described was 22 years ago—I was totally faithful, by the way, as a young man alone in a big city—but my life today isn’t so different, you know?

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Your anxieties are so out of control that you've started to manipulate situations and people.

 

You should really get yourself to a doctor and start explaining your intense feelings of abandonment and what it's making you do or think. You're not coping with this in a healthy way and I don't feel like anything anyone's said has gotten through to you at all. You're still stuck in a loop.

 

I think you need help from a doctor or someone trained to help you practice how to deal with adversity or when things don't go your way. Your anxiety is through the roof.

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I’m not saying I want to break up with him for good maybe just until he comes home so I’m not worrying about him getting with other girls.
If you break up with him while he's gone because you're worried that he is going to cheat, then you're going to be sick with worry if you get back with him when he's home that he did actually get with someone.

 

Either you trust him or you don't and if you do then don't break up with him. If you don't think you can trust him and relax your insecurity while he's away then break up with him but don't you dare try to get him back when he's home because you'll just make him suffer with your doubts and fears that he was doing other girls while there.

 

If you love him and he's told you he doesn't want to break up then why would you break up? If you want to break up and are using his trip as an excuse then do it now and leave him alone after that to live his life without worrying about you.

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I understand why you're worried, six weeks is a long time to be apart from someone, especially if you've never been apart from them before. I think if you're in a serious relationship, you need to just have faith and trust in your partner. In life things come up that challenge our relationship. You have to trust that you will overcome those challenges together. If you don't trust your boyfriend for no reason, it won't work out. Because every time he goes on holiday, has a female friend, talks to females, you will feel jealous and insecure. Always keep in mind that someone that wants to cheat can actually cheat on you anytime. He doesn't even need to go away to cheat. But he chooses not to because he's with YOU.

 

I think your plan to break up for six weeks and get back together is flawed. At the moment you have a serious boyfriend of three years. You have no evidence that he has cheated or would cheat. By breaking up with him, you would actually give him freedom to do the very thing you don't want him to do. The break up would make him single and then he might actually date or hook up with girls on his holiday. Because he would be free to do that, as per your wishes to break up. You would have no guarantee that you would get back together because a relationship does take a beating after a break up.

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He doesn't want to break up. So you don't and take one day at a time. Remember you could meet someone you fall head over heels for while he's gone, and I'm sure that will be in the back of his mind too. It goes both ways. As the song goes:

 

When I'm away you're gonna have a good time

What can I say? Will you remember you're mine?

What will you do when they wanna touch ya?

What will you do when they wanna get you?

I know what they'll do

If you ever let 'em, are you gonna let 'em?

Whatcha gonna do when I'm gone?

Whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when I'm gone?

Whatcha gonna do when I'm gone?

Whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when I'm gone?

When the boys all come to call

Will you take them in at all?

Or will you send them far away?

Whatcha gonna do when I'm gone?

Why don't you run and do what you wanna do

Ain't nothin' wrong cause I'll be doing it too

If you give in I don't wanna hear it

And if he wins I don't wanna see it

Whatever you do maybe you can hide it

Try to keep it quiet

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I guess you didnt like what we all had to say in your previous post that is almost identical to this one. You got great advice then and you are getting great advice this time.

 

I too think some therapy may help you to unravel why you feel the way you do and to learn ways to cope with it and get over it. Breaking up with him for 6 wks then getting back together is such a bad idea. Either you trust him or you dont and it seems like you dont. Even tho you say you have no reason to not trust him.

 

You need to develop a life of your own while he's away. Hang out with your girlfriends, do your school work, do you have a part time job? If not, get one. You need to be occupied and busy and expanding your own horizons.

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Six weeks is really not a long time. Remember that if someone is going to cheat, they don't need to go on vacation to do it. You either trust him or you don't. If he has never given you any reason to believe he would cheat, then don't assume that a vacation away will turn him into a different person. A 6 week breakup while he is away is not the answer, because if he did hook up with someone, you wouldn't feel any better anyway. Lots of people travel without their partner and they remain 100% loyal. Instead of worrying about what he is doing, come up with interesting and fun things in your own life so that you are enjoying yourself and not focusing on worrying about him.

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Are you in high school or college? What are your plans for the future? Are you involved in clubs, groups, sports? How are your grades? Do you have friends you spend time with? How are things at home? Can you talk to your parents, teachers or counselors? Talk to your parents about this obsessive worrying and global catastrophizing.

 

You may need to talk to a therapist and see a doctor to help you sort out some things and see if you're ok. Forums are ok to discuss some relationship issues but posting repetitious posts about this cheating and bf angst won't help you as much as talking to real life trusted adults about these excessive worries.

I do worry a lot about everything, mainly stupid things but some more deep such as loosing my boyfriend, him cheating, The thought of not having my parents one day and the concept of dying etc....
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Food for thought:

 

Throughout this thread there’s been a theme of: you either trust him, or you don’t, which I agree with as basic math for healthy relationships. The other component, I think, is that we are really only capable of trusting another person as fully as we trust ourselves. I do wonder how much trust in yourself you have.

 

No, that’s not implying that you doubt your own ability to be faithful over the next 6 weeks. Self-trust is more about resilience, trusting that you can handle the basic business of living, which is not always going to be a cakewalk. It means, in this context, trusting that you can survive a relationship ending so the relationship is not built around fear and keeping fear at bay.

 

I’d be destroyed if my girlfriend cheated on me, or if she decided to leave me under less toxic circumstances, but it’s not a major concern, and hardly because I have eyes on her 24/7. Destroyed is not death. I’d keep living. I know this from actual experience, but I knew that on some core level before the experience. I trust myself to be able to survive and thrive, with grace, so long as my lungs, brain, and heart are operative. That allows me to trust my girlfriend, in conjunction with her character, the person she shows me to be, in her own skin and alongside mine, every day. I’d be bummed if she left town for 2 months, but if it was for something she knew would enrich her spirit I’d be 10 times more thrilled for her than bummed.

 

Life will deliver moments on the regular that test our self-trust, moments when we have a choice to stand a little taller or hunker down in a little emotional trench. This sounds like one such moment for you. You could use this time to build some self-trust, be it by exploring and corralling your anxious tendencies with a professional, or seeking out personal enrichment (activities with friends, hobbies, something work or school related) that strengthen your own core—and, by extension, your capacity to trust. Wherever this relationship goes over the course of your life, those choices will go a long way toward shaping who you are and how you feel in the one relationship you know if forever—the one with yourself.

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Well, she's a teenager.

 

I've seen teens do some "interesting" things. One time I took my kids to the local frozen yogurt shop. A young man worked there (looked about 17). His girlfriend sat in his truck the whole time we were in there (about an hour). It looked like she came to work with him and sat in his truck his entire shift. While we were there she got into line. I thought she got hungry for some yogurt. But no, she wanted to ask him why he'd talked to a particular female teenage customer "for so long". She apparently was jealous. I presume he put up with it because he was young. Or maybe he was getting sex for the first time. I sometimes wonder how long they stayed together. Interesting.

 

Anyway, the OP hasn't come back. I wonder how things are going.

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