Long Distance burn-out (20F & 21M)
My partner and I met in high school (boarding school) in our junior year and ended up graduating together. We started as friends, got crushed on eachother, then ultimately dated and fell in love. When we have been in person in the past, it has been some of the best times of my life, he makes me laugh, is handsome, is kind, all the traits I always wanted in a partner.
After our graduation, I went to school on the west coast of the US and he went to the East coast. Usually the time difference is 2/3 hours, and it was fine. I’ve been studying abroad this semester with a 9 hour difference, and we still made it work. The time difference is not an issue for us, we adjusted to it some time ago.
For context, we’ll have our 3 year anniversary in September, with over two thirds of that time being long distance. In addition, I have US/Italian citizenship, and he has Russian citizenship.
This makes it difficult for him to plan future things, because he juggles his student visa in the US, with residency elsewhere in an attempt to get better citizenship than Russian.
Something happened this last December with that that broke a lot of my trust in him. He found out that he wouldn’t be able to see me for about 6 months… and didn’t let me know about it until several days after he found that out. I really thought about breaking up with him then, but didn’t. I chose to go on my abroad semester and enjoy my time there, work on building my own adulthood, habits, routines, etc.
Now it’s 6 months later, and I’ve just been informed that he’ll be coming to Europe before I leave to return to the US. Obviously we’ll meet up. But the thing is, I don’t know if I want to? Before he told me that, I was going to explore Berlin for a week. I can’t help but feel a certain loss now, that I’ve built my own life for 6 months and now he just snapped his fingers and I’ve given up Berlin. (Mind you, there is a context going back to our high school years with this ; I would plan my long weekend off around him, then hid family’s plans would change, or they wouldn’t feel comfortable hosting me as a minor, and I’d be left with no one that weekend.)
Anyway, I know that’s not the reality, this is just the timetable that he and his family do things on, but it’s still upsetting. At the same time, we’ve been insanely in love for such a long time, the ‘honeymoon phase’ has lasted for way longer than other relationships I’ve observed… I honestly don’t know anything anymore.
The plan is that I’ll meet him for the week before I leave, with an open heart, and maybe we’ll have a long important conversation about where this is going.
He really does love me, he sees a future with me, he finds me attractive and beautiful in all states. For a long time, I’ve felt the same towards him, but recently I feel like a rubber band that’s been pulled too tight and has just snapped.
Sorry for the long post! Love you all, thank you 💛💛💛