Should-we-break-up-filter.
My romantic partner and I have been together for nearly six years. We have long considered ourselves to be pretty much perfect for each other. We share a sense of humor, we like the same books, we have great, stimulating intellectual conversations. For the first few years of our relationship we were the disgusting always-together couple. We joked that we accumulated more time spent together in 3 years than most couples do in 10.
We started dating during college, during which time we both gradually lost all contact with our friends from high school. Neither of us made many lasting friends during college. I made one good friend, though, and got in tight with his friend group. She likes them, and they like her, but the group has always been a little more my friends than hers, leaving her without a strong set of her own friends that she could see regularly. She did repeatedly make different friends, but they all tended to flake out sooner or later.
Last summer she met a friend through work, met his friends, and over the course of a few months developed a nice, strong friend group of her own. Over the past year she has spent increasingly greater amounts of time with that friend group. Since my friends were busy getting regular jobs, while I still had a very variable schedule, I ended up not getting to see my friends much, and also not getting to see her much, because she was out with her new people. At the height of this, she was out with her friends four nights a week every week, and I had night classes two of the nights she wasn't out. Her days off and my days off didn't coincide, so we only had one night per week actually spent with each other, besides a few hours here and there. During those "unscheduled" times together, she wouldn't really be on. She'd just want to watch tv and chat with her friends online.
I asked to be more involved in her life, both when she's with her friends and when she's not. She obliged me, but only to a very limited extent. Even when her friends were doing things that I enjoy doing with them (and that, as far as I can tell, they like having me along for) I still was invited along less than half the time. She still was out without me 3 or 4 nights per week. The times that she did schedule to be in with me, neither of us would have any fun. She'd sit on the couch, watch tv and chat. I'd sit in the bedroom and get drunk.
During the past few months she has also been undergoing what she has referred to as "a crisis of responsibility." She had to work much more than I did during college, and was just burned out from working hard for several years on end. She decided she needed a working vacation. She reduced her course load at her graduate program, and then withdrew altogether. She quit her (low supervisory position) job to take a lower-paying job with fewer responsibilities at a store where all her friends hang out. As has been mentioned, she spent a ton of time hanging out with friends. She'd been working harder and more than me for quite some time, and so while I was a little hesitant at some of these decisions, I respected them. She wanted to take a break from life for six months or a year, work someplace fun, reduce her stress level, and be happy. We're at a rare time in our lives where she can actually do that, so I thought ok, this is her chance to get it out of her system.
About 3 months ago, she told me that she'd been having romantic feelings toward one of her friends. That many nights when she said she was out with the whole gang, it was really just him. Nothing had happened between them, but she still felt guilty. Well, this wasn't that big an issue. We had played around with other people in the bedroom in the past, and had also experimented with the poly thing. She had tried having a girlfriend in the past, but it hadn't worked. I told her to go ahead and date this guy on the side, but I laid some ground rules. I told her I wanted to know when anything in their relationship progressed beyond casual dating and makeouts on the couch. I told her that there was one particular relationship dynamic that she was not allowed to enter into with him. She agreed, life went on. She continued with the relaxin' life style. Our relationship did not improve. Occasionally I got specific updates on what their relationship was like. None of it particularly concerned me. The entire time I felt a little bit jealous, but nothing overwhelming, and I was still trying to let her have space, let her have her own stuff, and above all do what made her happy.
Last night I was reading an online journal of hers and it finally clicked with me that I was being played. She and her boyfriend had entered into the dynamic which I had specifically nixed, and she had not told me about it, despite the fact that this dynamic had been going on for a month or two, and we had talked about their relationship a few times during that period.
I talked to her about it this morning. She admitted that it was occurring, that she knew it was not supposed to be. She did not immediately say she would stop, which stung a bit. We talked for awhile and what came out was: 1) going with the flow, doing the stuff she wanted with him, and not telling me had been easier and more fun than either not doing it or else asking me again if she could. 2) she's really been all about what's easy and fun lately. 3) She has felt like I haven't been pursuing her, I haven't been interested/wanted her. 4) She knows I'm the right person for her, long term, but right now there's just nothing there. What would be easy and fun right now would be to keep doing what she's doing (dating him and having effectively no relationship with me) or to break up with me for a few months until she's done with her vacation and ready to come back. Eventually she said that what she thought would be best would be to break it off with him and for both of us to re-invest ourselves in our relationship, even if that wasn't the fun and easy thing to do.
Further complicating factors:
When she dropped out of school, I was also feeling the burnout, and had lined up a sweet job interview. We decided that if I got the job, I would put my graduate education on hold, too, we would both work for awhile, and we would get married (we had already been engaged for some time, but the wedding date had been "when we're done with school.") If I didn't get the job, I would find another and still do the same. Well, I didn't get the job, and I couldn't find another good one. I decided that continuing my degree, at least until something came up, was the best decision. Meanwhile, she had dropped out, and suddenly felt like we had agreed to jump off a cliff together, only when she jumped I didn't. After explaining my reasoning, she agreed it was sound. We decided to go ahead and get married anyway. In hindsight, I think maybe the decision was made as a way of shoring up the relationship and convincing each other that we were both still serious. Obviously, this is not a good reason to get married. By the time the latest shit hit the proverbial fan, we had already told several friends and family members of our wedding plans, and invested some money. Not much, but we're poor, so abandoning it would hurt.
Now we're left with a few possible choices. Do we re-invest ourselves in this relationship, make it work, and get married as planned?
Do we do as above, but cancel the wedding plans until things have become more stable?
Do we have her go take off and sow her wild oats for a couple months, then come back for fast-track rehabilitation and marriage?
Do we send her off for a couple months while canceling the marriage?
Or do we break up more or less for realsies, in which case I go be single for a year and then see whether I want her back in my life with that perspective?
Please send serious questions, private advice, requests for continued correspondence, whatever, to breakupfilter at gmail dot com
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posted by mpls2 at 6:43 PM on May 23 [2 favorites]