Soldier returns after a month to find GF wants him to move out; 'you depress me.' CONCLUDED
"I (25M) went to serve in the military for 1 month and came back to find my GF (24F) had changed"
Neshdim
Hello reddit. My gf and I have been dating for 2 years. I was planning to propose in the next 3 months and I was extremely sure that she was going to say yes, as we have been planning our lives together. She was hinting that I should propose by sending me cheeky proposal posts, signaling that she wants an engagement ring on her finger, and she sometimes would say "When we get married..."
We live together. Admittedly we started fast and we rushed into things. We started living together a month into our relationship. We have been living together ever since.
She was always so loving with me. This is the best relationship I've ever had. She always made me feel loved, cared for, and even if she is somewhat selfish by nature, she ALWAYS put me first. And she loves me very much. And I love her very much.
I have been the perfect boyfriend. I kept on taking her on dates, giving her gifts, helping her around the house, solving her problems and giving her affection and care. We never fought, not even once. But then, things changed.
I had to go and serve in the military for a month. She dropped me off to the bus station, kissed me, hugged me, cried, said that she loves me and would miss me a lot etc. While I was in the military, she sent me texts saying how much she misses me and she called me frequently, speaking in a loving manner.
After about 4 days though, this stopped. During the month we barely spoke, and only when I called. She sent me 20 texts at least. When I came back, she came to welcome me. She was very distant. She didn't even seem happy that I was back. Everything felt off about her.
We went back to our home and I asked what was wrong and why she was acting this way. We spoke about it for hours and she said that during my absence she realized that she had too much love and wanted to cool off a bit. She said we rushed into things and she wants me to move out, as she was not ready for this kind of life where we live together.
She said that she wanted to live a little and not do everything together. She wanted to go on dates with me and experience the things we haven't experienced because we immediately moved in together.
She wants to go out and have fun on her own too and she wants the space for herself, her own order of things. She is studying medicine and she's in her last year, and she wants to focus more on that too.
I said okay, I will move out. But I don't feel like this explains her being so distant. I asked if there was somebody else and she said no. She said that she only wants to live her life like a 24 year old and not a 30 year old.
I don't keep her from dressing the way she wants and I don't get jealous when she goes out with friends. But I understand that me being there 24/7 can make her feel burnt out. She said she loves me and wants to keep working on the relationship and everything will be better for us this way. But I feel kind of icky about this.
I feel like our relationship is dying. Everything changed so fast and she doesn't even say I love you back when I say it. I feel like there's a distance between us all the time. I got a house and I'm moving out tomorrow. I canceled my plans to propose and I'm ready to take it slow like she wants to. I feel like this can break us though. Can our relationship survive this? Why can this happen? What's the outlook?
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this initial post:
lyingtattooist
Whether there’s someone else or not, she’s making it clear she doesn’t want to be with you. She’s just trying to be nice about it by saying you all can still work on it. Take the hints. Move out and move on. It sucks for a 2 year relationship to end, but life goes on and I promise you will meet someone else even better at some point.
ZeruS666
The thing I've never liked about doing it that way is its not a nice way to go about it. It really comes across as they're leading you on, when although you don't have to be blunt about it you could be up front and just say it without ambiguity.
carlitospig
Twenty-four year old women often don’t have the confidence and skillset to be that confident in breakups. It’s rare, unless your boyfriend screwed up so badly that you’re breaking up with rageful glee. This is totally her version of a gentle PERMANENT breakup, guaranteed.
Andyboro80
You went away and she got a taste of life on her own.. and liked it!
It doesn’t have to be something sinister with someone else, it could just as easily be this.
queenafrodite
Holy sh*t who hurt all of you. It doesn’t mean she found someone else. It’s very likely that she had time to re-evaluate her choices and doesn’t want what life would mean for her if she were with you.
Med school is hard and time consuming. She may be thinking that she’s missing out on her youth and is regretting it. She could be burnt out and having the relief of not having to be a gf and uphold what that means when y’all were a part could have really been a big relief of pressure for her.
Relationships are hard work. Marriage is a whole other ball game that most people who are older aren’t truly real ready for because very few people knows what it really takes to be a partner and uphold that kind of commitment to another person.
Sounds like she’s trying to relieve some pressure. Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes it holds up a clear mirror and allows us to see what it is that we really want at the time.
The next say, the OP returned with an update.
"UPDATE to: I (25M) went to serve in the military for 1 month and came back to see my GF (24F) had changed"
Neshdim
First of all, thank you for your thoughtful comments. It meant a lot for me to see you coming to my support and providing valuable insights. She said "I love you" unprompted the evening of the day I made this post. I thought this was my go sign and started up a conversation about our relationship. It was a really good talk. She was honest and I could feel it. I will be honest with you too.
To address the obvious thought everyone had: I thought she could've cheated as well but nothing like that happened. She has made it clear that she didn't cheat in a respectable, clear way and tone. And I am convinced she didn't. I trust this without any doubts now. Although all the comments about Jody made me laugh! I needed a good laugh.
This being a "soft breakup" was my other concern. I asked her if she considered breaking up with me and she said the thought came into her mind, but she didn't want to as she loves me and was sure that she would love the future we will have.
She didn't want a life without me. I asked if me moving out will eventually lead to a breakup and she said she doesn't think it will, that she thinks it'll only make us stronger.
The problem was, as it turns out, that I went from being a happy person to someone who was worrying and depressed. She only realized this was the case when I was gone and I wasn't around to spread negativity anymore. She said that she fell in love with me because I was happy and eccentric.
She mentioned that while I was doing things that a good boyfriend would do, she felt I was doing them out of duty and that I used to be very excited about buying her flowers. But lately, when I came home with flowers, I didn't celebrate this small occasion with her. I just gave them to her and went to bed.
I admit, I have been very sulky the past few months. I was always worrying about my career, finances, and not being able to accomplish my future goals. I had already realized this while I was serving, and worked through it myself. I think I am in a better place now and she says she saw that I am.
Her solution to this was me moving out. My negative energy (I wasn't aware it was so contagious) wouldn't affect her anymore. Because it did, and she already has a lot to worry about. She needs a positive attitude to stay strong and I was making that harder.
She also realized that we were too codependent and too much in a routine. She thought me moving out would solve this also. I agree. We both were very independent people at the start, but then we got lost in love. I was always waiting for her to come home and she was always waiting for me to do anything.
This ordeal made life somehow stale. She realized that because I did so much for her, she became heavily dependent on me to solve her problems, making her feel weak and incapable. Because of this reliance, she even had a hard time paying the bill and this got to her. She missed her old self, the one with confidence and power.
I realized that I lost myself too. I was a social person who commonly took the initiative to do something, with a lot of flash and crash in my life. I lost that, I lost friends and I lost my active lifestyle.
She wants to go out with friends and not include me in everything. She wants to not worry about the things she says while with friends because I might be uncomfortable with it. She wants to sometimes take long walks alone. She doesn't want to ask me every time she wants to buy something. She doesn't want to feel guilty when her day-to-day plans don't include me.
A problem some of you may have big issues with: She admitted that she received flirtatious male attention when doing her internship at school. I wasn't surprised as she is very good looking and with a very feminine personality to boot. She says she would never cheat on me, and didn't want to respond to anything, never considered anyone else but me in her life, but she liked it.
She enjoyed the ego boost and that made her feel guilty. Guilty that she could like such a thing while I was away facing hardship. I said it was normal to like attention from the opposite sex, especially when you're lonely. I appreciated that she immediately tried to shut down advances and stayed committed and loyal to me. I don't think this will be a problem and she looked very relieved when I thought it wasn't a big deal.
In the end, she said that she missed the old me, the one that was happy and excited about the little things. She said she loves me very much and she is ready to continue the relationship we had before if I could get away from my sulky self finally.
She tried to make me happy but I was feeling bad for too long. Me regaining myself meant us regaining the amazing relationship we had. Us shedding away our codependence meant us having a stronger, more stable future where nothing like this happens again.
After the talk, everything changed for the better. She looked so relieved and I gave her my word that I will try to not fall into this situation again. She hugged and kissed me, and gave me a gift she bought for me while I was away.
I took her out to a nice place to drink and celebrate afterwards. I felt happy and unencumbrant for the first time in a long time. We had an amazing time and discussed many things. We came back home to have the most intimate and amazing evening we had since the beginning of our relationship and stayed up all night cuddling and listening to music.
So, things are looking good for us right now. I thank all of you again for your support and especially the longer messages that were speaking from experience really helped me. I am very happy we got over this and I'm very excited about the future. Thanks again, reddit.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after the OP's update:
djchickenwing
Sounds like two people who aren’t ready for a serious relationship figuring out they aren’t ready for a serious relationship using tactics used by those not ready for a serious relationship.
xdem112
Not at all the positive update you seem to think it is. So you’ve been going through a slightly tough time and you were no longer 100% outgoing or positive? So she wants independence that she could so incredibly easily curate for herself while being in a relationship?
So she ignored you for an entire month without one single prior discussion about her feelings? That doesn’t bode well at all for a life with this person. Life is gnarly, it throws some nasty curveballs and she’s proved she’s not mentally prepared to support a romantic partner through the tough times at this point.
You’re far too trusting and she’s out of touch with herself at best. You don’t move out your long term partner, enjoy the attention of others, and admit you want to hang out with friends without “thinking about what you’re saying” (I.e respecting your partner) because you want to work on your relationship.
You both are just drawing out your breakup pretty clearly, she just wants to be single. I just hope she has the integrity to end things if she comes to that realization herself instead of jerking you around or becoming manipulative.
ObjectiveCoelacanth
Man, Reddit needs to get off its One Narrative train. It's super easy to slot this into place, but it's not exactly helping the OOP. The actual situation, as described: Guy has been getting more down over time, relationship was getting a bit codependent. Gf didn't realise this until he was away, thought they should take a step back, since they moved in together after a month.
He feels worried because she withdrew while he was doing military training (he has no choice in.) Understandable! Meanwhile, she's starting something incredibly stressful at the same time, has had a patient die, wants to get a fresh start with their relationship since they rushed it at the beginning.
This is a very realistic scenario, and yeah, being that they're so young and struggling a bit, they might break up! That might be because people being attracted to her makes her realise it's not working any more. That's fine, though sad. Luckily, he's being much more level headed than Reddit, so that's a good sign for weathering this.
Repulsive-Fuel-3012
Idk I feel like this wasn’t as bad as ppl are making it out to be…