I Don’t Want To Break Up, But We Have To!

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Hi Doc,

I’m in my first romantic relationship. I knew going in that it was statistically unlikely to work out, so I tried not to get my hopes up, but I’m still crushed. My partner and I have had a couple discussions over the past few months that essentially amounted to “we want lives in different directions and neither of us are gonna change our minds, but we’re still in love so let’s enjoy this while it lasts.” He’s one of the kindest, gentlest, most thoughtful people I know, and even though we’ve only been dating for a little less than a year, I’d consider him my best friend. I’ve never loved anyone like this before. Losing him is going to hurt so much. It already hurts so much.

There’s a part of me that thinks I could make it work, but not without a lot of sacrifice and difficulty on my part. I think parenting could theoretically be rewarding and I could be decent at it, but it’s a lot of work I’d really, really prefer not to do unless I absolutely had to. However, keeping a (beloved!) college boyfriend is obviously not a good reason to agree to have kids I don’t want. It’s just that the possibility that I could somehow make this work makes it so much harder to leave.

I know I should be breaking up with him and trying to meet new people before it gets a lot harder to do that in the working world. It’s just so hard. I love him, he loves me, we deeply enjoy each other’s company, we have tons of mutual friends, we’ve met each other’s families, and on and on. I’ve never felt so safe or seen with someone before, and I don’t want to give that up. But I know I’ve got to.

Hesitantly, I’ve mentally given us the deadline of the end of the school year, but we haven’t actually had a conversation about timeline yet. I’ve told a few of my friends about the situation because a) nice to have emotional support but also b) if I didn’t tell anyone for external pressure there’s a chance that I’d claw my way into staying as long as possible until we break up on bad/resentful terms, and I don’t want to do that. I honestly think we could be friends after we end it, and I want to, though I don’t know how I’ll get from being so desperately in love with him to loving him platonically. The thought of him being with someone else and them building a life together tears me to pieces.

Also, he’s got a very scant support network and a lot of mental health stuff going on, so that’s another worry of mine.

I’m sorry this letter is so all over the place. There’s a lot of advice on the internet for dating with a time limit, for where you both know the end is inevitable, but those situations aren’t quite the same as mine and I feel lost. I guess what I’m asking is, how do I initiate those difficult timeline conversations? How do I start to let go? Will it ever stop hurting?

Time To Say Goodbye

This is a heartbreaking situation to be in, TTSG, and you have my sympathies. One of the most frustrating – but sometimes inevitable – relationships to be in is one where you know that you and your partner love each other to pieces, but you also know that this relationship is only just for now, and no amount of wishing or hoping or talking it out is going to change things. Sometimes there are issues that are just too fundamental, too deeply embedded to be overcome, no matter how much the two of you wish that you could.

Now, I’m going to give you some advice that you’re not going to like; in fact, it’s going to sound kind of callous, considering how you’re feeling and what you’ve said. Just trust me when I am telling you this as someone who’s been there and done that and had his heart broken more than a few times.

The first thing is going to be true, but you’re still going to feel like I’m not taking you seriously: this too, shall pass.

The pain you feel right now hurts. It absolutely does. It’s your first love, your first serious relationship and you already see the ending coming. The way you feel now is how epic, tragic love songs sound. Even if, intellectually, you know you’re not the first people to fall in love, it still feels like the fact that this relationship isn’t going to last is a crime against all that is holy.

There’s that part of you that rages against the inevitability of it. There’s the part of you that is still holding out hope, beyond the scope of reason, that things could change and you’re still hoping for a miracle. There’s even that weird part of you that feels like maybe you should just accept this and end things now, just to get the pain over with instead of watching it come for you like the world’s slowest shark. All of these parts are colliding within you, and every time they do, it’s like a hammer blow to the chest. You’re feeling the complexity and crazy-making shape and substance of grief, and it feels like if you give into it, the tears will never stop.

But they will. As horrible as it feels, as much as it hurts more than anything you may have experienced up until now, it will fade. The tears will stop flowing. The pain will lessen – first so minutely that you barely even feel it and then, sooner than you expect, you will look up and realize that you haven’t felt this pain in a while and you will be surprised to realize it only by its absence. This pain, this sadness, this regret, as much as it seems so huge that it would swallow the world will not be with you.

This too, shall pass. What hurts now will eventually become nostalgia, a memory of the joys and pain of young love that you look back on with fondness and possibly even a little ruefulness. You’ll look back at this moment and chuckle, because your future self will have gained experience the distance you will have from this moment will give you perspective to see it differently than how it feels to you now. It feels impossible as you read these words, but this day iscoming, as inevitable as a sunrise follows the moon.

It’s not that time heals all wounds, so much as that time has a way of broadening our understanding. Time only moves in one direction, after all, and with time and distance comes understanding and wisdom. In time you will realize that the pain you feel hurts so much only because it’s so new and so different. In time, you will realize that it’s not as bad as it feels now and that what you’re experiencing is as much novelty as it is pain. Not novelty in the sense that it’s an amusement, but in the sense that you have never felt something like this before and you have nothing to compare it to, and when we’re young and in love, everything is louder than everything else. Everything is heightened, everything is turned up to 11. The highs feel the highest they’ve ever been and the lows feel abyssal.

In time, there will be other loves, after this love becomes a fond memory. In time, there will be other losses, after this loss has been tinted by the gold light of the past. In time, this won’t be so bad.

And I’m going to be honest here: there’s a part of your letter that caught my eye immediately, that suggests to me that this will come sooner than later. You’ve only been dating for several months now – not even a year – but you’ve already had discussions about how this relationship has a hard limit. It sounds like you’re still hard up against what’s known as the New Relationship Energy – when the newness of this relationship is causing your body to shoot fireworks of dopamine and oxytocin straight to the pleasure centers of your brain. It’s a heady time; you are, quite literally, getting high off being in each others’ presence.

It’s also a time of deception, when you’re so lovestruck by one another that a lot of sins and complaints get ignored simply because you’re just that stoned on one another. It’s easy to get lost in how you feel for your partner because… well, because love isn’t just an emotion, it’s also chemistry. It’s the chemicals in your brain saying “get closer, spend time, have sex, bond together” at the top of their voice and drown out everything else. It feels like how we expect love to feel, based on all the poems and songs and stories and movies… but it’s not. It’s excitement, it’s energy, it’s passion, it’s an inability to keep your hands off one another… but it’s not what love feels like, not all the time. A lot of people confuse it for love, and then get incredibly concerned when it fades – as it always does. That initial rush of passion and intensity drops away and what’s left is where you start building love.

Which is a long way of saying: as intense as things feel right now, I promise you: this too, shall pass. And in this case, this is part of what makes it feel so heartbreaking to have things end so soon after they started. Yes, that’s always a sad thing… but I promise you, that this isn’t how it would feel the entire time you’re together if this relationship could go the distance. It feels worse, simply because you’re expecting to get off the roller coaster, right at the start when you get that first drop and first loop.

Does that make things easier now? No. But in time, you’ll understand it a little better, and that will add to the perspective of it all.

But what do you do in the immediate future? How do you handle loving this person but not being able to be with them and nto wanting them to leave your life?

Well, for one thing, I think you should agree – even if it’s only in your head ­– that there’s an end date. The end of the school year feels right; it’s a time of transition, with the long summer before classes resume. It makes for a natural and organic end point, with time apart to allow your heart to heal.

It doesn’t necessarily need to be the end of this school year; you could continue until the next year, or even until graduation. There’s not a serious reason why this can’t be until then – another natural transition point, another curtain marking the end of this act of your life – beside the worry that it’ll be that much harder to end things then. That’s a call that you and your beau will have to make.

But I think, regardless of when you have that ending marked down, that you should do your best to live your life as though you were ignorant of it. The last thing you want is to spend all this time living in the anticipation of loss or the end. Endings come to us all the time – loving someone, whether they’re a person or a pet, is an invitation to an inevitable tragedy. If we spend our time dwelling on the ending in the future, we rob ourselves of the joy of the present. The last thing you want is to look back on your relationship and regret how much time you spent thinking about how sad the ending is going to be instead of living in the now and enjoying that love. It can feel a little delusional, sure – how are you supposed to ignore the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head? How are you supposed to be happy when the happiness comes to an end? – but it’s a matter of whether you want to feel joy and companionship, or mourn a loss that hasn’t even happened yet. Loving like the end will never come is better than sitting, waiting for that slow shark until you reach the point where you’re rooting for the shark to hurry up and arrive already.

And you will continue to love him, even after this ends. The love will be different, sure, because there are many kinds of love. Eros may be coming to an end at some point in the future, but philia – the love of friends – and storge –the affection for family, including family in all but blood – remain.

It is, however, hard to make that transition when you’re in the thick of it. You’re going to have too much muscle memory and too many automatic reactions and expectations to move from lovers to friends, so soon after this aspect of your relationship ends. You’re going to need time apart – to heal, to recover and to not re-open the wound, yes, but also to unlearn those old ingrained responses and to remember who you are when you’re just you, not one part of a couple.

As much as it hurts to think of, and as much as it will feel like you’ve lost a piece of yourself, you will need to separate. You’ll have to live as just yourself, relearn how it feels, discover who you are now that you have these new feelings and new emotions and new information about yourself. That can’t happen if you keep trying to force the transition while also having to resist the reflexive behaviors and actions you’ve built together. At best, you end up delaying the inevitable and making the second parting that much worse. At worst… well, all that happens is that you never allow the wounds to fully close.

But if you and he are so in tune with one another, if you two are so sympatico, so drift-compatible that you can’t imagine a life without one another? Well, those fundamental aspects of your relationship won’t change. There will be new texture and nuance and some things that you’ll not do again with them… but the core of who they are and what made you care for each other will still be there. If you could be friends before, and you hold onto the respect and affection you have for one another… there’s no reason you can’t be friends again after.

It will just take time, and you’ll have to be willing to take that time. As tempting as it will be to declare that you’re over it and ready, you won’t be. Like Luke, you’ll be rushing off before you’re prepared and you’ll end up setting that future further back than if you had just waited. This is why the end of the school year provides such a convenient end date; the summer gives you time apart and away to allow for the healing to begin.

During that time, you’re going to want to lean on the support of your friends. Take a couple weeks to mourn, but then return to life. Part of the pain of a break up is that you go through withdrawal; you were taking oxytocin and dopamine and now you’ve been cut off by your dealer. Finding other sources helps ease the pain – laughter and good conversation with friends, touch and hugs and cuddling with your crew, time doing things that have meaning and bring you satisfaction all will help bring you back to life.

The last thing I will tell you that will be cold comfort now but will make sense later: what you learn now will go on to make your next relationship – and break up – that much easier and that much more successful. This isn’t the end. This isn’t even the beginning of the end. This is merely the end of the beginning.

I know it hurts, TTSG, but I promise you: you’ll be ok.

All will be well.

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Hello Doc,

I have been attending martial arts classes for a couple months now – and I have a huge crush on the instructor. He’s funny, kind, patient, talented, and very handsome.

Here’s the problem – I don’t know if he’s into me (I did ask him jokingly if he’s sick of my face already a couple times but the most I’ve gotten as a response is a chuckle). I don’t know if he’s attached (my friend who has been at the studio longer says she thinks he isn’t because one of the member’s mum was telling him to get a girlfriend). Hell, I don’t know if he’s even straight (I uhm, kinda stalked his Facebook page and both he and someone else had referred to himself as gay jokingly, though maybe the joke is referencing his actual orientation?)!

I want to ask him out, but I’m scared he’ll reject me and then I can’t ever attend his classes again, which would suck because crush aside, his classes are genuinely the most fun of all the others I’ve ever attended and I don’t want to lose that.

There is also the fact that he’s never alone – even after the class ends other students are always hanging around, so it’s kind of impossible to ask him out without outing myself out to everybody.

My friend suggested I could subtly make a reference to him having a girlfriend/wife (like asking if his girlfriend/wife cooks) but I feel like that is very obvious.

Therefore, I’m wondering if there’s any way to ask him out/ show my interest in a way that gives me plausible deniability in case he’s not interested?

Thanks and regards,

Hopelessly Crushing

OK, I’m going to tell you right now HC: I can all but guarantee this is a one-sided crush. Students get crushes on teachers since the days of Heloise and Abelard; it’s a tale literally older than steam. But 99.999% of the time, the student’s crush is just that: the student’s. And of the remaining .001% when it’s reciprocated… well, frankly, most of the time that usually ends up being a bad idea, for a lot of reasons.

I do wish you told me how old you are, because good God you sound incredibly young, and with that in mind I will give you this advice that will serve you well in the future: fuck plausible deniability, fuck subtlety and fuck trying to scope things out without actually taking responsibility for how you feel. All trying to ask someone out without actually asking them out for fear that you’ll get rejected does is create the awkwardness you’re desperately trying to avoid.

I promise you: the attempts at being subtle aren’t nearly as subtle as you think, and trying to play little subterfuges to feel things out gives the game away in ways that are far more embarrassing than if you just said “hey, I think you’re cute, would you like to get dinner?” Even trying to scope things out before you make your move isn’t going to help – asking someone out on a date is the best way to find out if they’re a) available (which is different than being single) and b) if they are interested in going on a date with you.

Just as importantly, though, is to recognize that momentary awkwardness is just that: momentary. The awkwardness of admitting to a crush only to be told “I’m flattered but…” is only uncomfortable for a moment. It’s how you respond to that “thank you but no” that determines not just how awkward things are but how long that awkwardness lasts. If you can take that “no” with grace, then the only awkwardness that will remain will be if you make it awkward.

If you can power through the momentary embarrassment – and it is only momentary – and let the matter drop before going back to being student and teacher, then there’s nothing more to it. You might blush or cringe a little at the next class or two, but there’s no reason why you would need to quit going to the class or seek out a different instructor. But if you treat it like some sort of world-shattering, dignity-erasing event… well, that’s what you’re going to get.

Trust me when I tell you: learning how to grit your teeth and power through the awkwardness is a life skill that will pay dividends over your lifetime. And even a simple acknowledging the awkward – literally saying “well this is awkward…” – kills the awkwardness. The awkward thrives whenever people try to ignore it; calling it out and addressing it makes it go away.

But like I said: I think this is just a one-sided crush and you’re making far more about it than it can be. I think your better option is just to let this one fade, like all crushes do if you just leave them alone.

In the future, however, don’t play silly games to try to figure out how to avoid the temporary embarrassment of being rejected; they don’t work and often only make things worse. You do far better to be up front with your interest and to say what you want than to hint and hope and imply and to try to read the tea leaves.

Love is a full-contact sport; there’s no way to play without the risk of getting hurt, but trying to only play half-way is a good way to ensure it.

Good luck.