[Anonymous]

My boyfriend (23) and I (21) were friends in high school before we started dating the summer before my freshman year of college. We’re both somewhat introverted, nerdy science types and I feel like our friendship/relationship is rare because it’s hard to meet people to “click” with.

We attended colleges 4 hours apart and stayed together until the fall of my senior year. Now he’s a masters student and I’ve just finished my bachlor’s degree. We had our ups and downs through college. We recently broke up for 5 months when he suddenly grew very detached and unresponsive. He had nothing to say to me when we spoke on the phone and was very distant in person. I began catching him in lies about who he was spending his time with at school and eventually I found out that he was emotionally/romantically involved with another girl. When I told him that I couldn’t share him with someone else, he essentially told me he didn’t care how I felt about it and we broke up.

He changed his mind after a few months and asked for me to take him back and I’ve very hesitantly done so. We’re still long distance but much closer now that I’ve finished undergrad. Now we’re facing a new delimma. He will likely enter a PhD program in the fall and I’ve been accepted to pharmacy school in a neighboring state. Our time together has been great lately and I’ve considered taking a year off and applying to the pharmacy school at the university where he will be getting his PhD. We always planned to go to graduate school in the same place.

I’m pretty terrified of him after the lying and cheating that went on last year but I’ve tried my best to put it in the past. I would like to hope that it was only the stress of being long distance and making tough decisions about school that drove him to act the way he did. Am I crazy for even considering the idea of making plans for my future around his PhD? Am I a fool for thinking he will change and not lie anymore?

He is very closed off to this kind of discussion. I’m trying to not put much pressure on him because he’s still in the interview/decision-making stage, but more than anything I’d like to know what is going on in his head. If he’s not sharing that information and including me in his plans is it just because he doesn’t really see me in his future? Should I just tread water and hope that when he’s made his final decision we will have the talk about how we’re going to work? I’m trying to respect the fact that he’s making a very important decision about his life but it’s difficult not knowing where I stand after everything I’ve dealt with in our past. I’m afraid to get too close and get hurt again.

Any thoughts you have would really be helpful. Thanks!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I think you have to take the wool off your eyes and face reality even if it isn’t what you want to see. That your boyfriend is not sharing his future plans with you means he’s not interested in sharing the future with you. The fact that he cheated on you and then broke up with you when you were long distance once, is a flashing yellow light that he may do it again. You’re making excuses for him when you say that you think the stress of his situation was what caused him to cheat on you. The reality is that stress is a part of life, and if cheating is his reaction to stress, you’re in for a bumpy ride. I think that when he asked you to be his girlfriend again after his cheating episode, it was because he didn’t want to be alone and wanted to keep his options with you open. You were safe and easy and willing. Now you’re facing another potential long distance situation, and you’re absolutely right to be wary and to wonder if this time things will be different.

However, the response you’re getting from him, that you’re ignoring, is a tacit no. Your boyfriend is making his own future plans, and I think you need to do the same for yourself. Don’t follow him or move your career to be near him without some promise of a future together from him.

I hope that helps. I know this is hard for you, and disappointing, but he’s not looking out for you, so you have to.

[Anonymous]

The only thing he says on the topic is that he wants to be with me and thinks that things might somehow work out for us in the end. Since my moving to be near him is the only scenario I can think of, I’m assuming that he’s either expecting me to do that or he’s avoiding the conversation that would lead to our break up when he enters the PhD program in a few months to keep me around until then. Maybe I’m not thinking about it the right way but he’s not trying to have a serious talk about our situation and I feel like that is an important thing to do rather than just hope it all works out when it’s time for him to move.

Either way, you seem to agree with my fears that he’s just not that into this relationship. In fact, just tonight he asked me if I would be okay with him and the “other girl” who caused our break up (they work in the same lab) to take a long road trip together to visit a graduate school that they’re both interested in attending. I was shocked and hurt that he thinks that would be appropriate.

Anyway, guess it’s time for me to face reality. Thanks for your opinion, April. You have great insight on these things.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I think that road trip your boyfriend wants to take with another woman is the writing on the wall you need to read. He’s keeping you around like an old blanket for comfort while he explores a future that may or may not include you. If he was serious about you, you’d know it. That you don’t know it is why you wrote me.

You may have to be the one to break up with him because he’s acting passive aggressive with you. The break up will hurt because you’re disappointed that you didn’t get what you want, but if you can stop looking back, and just look forward, you’ll see there’s great opportunity for you in every area of life — especially love.

[Member]

Posts