[steph618]

My boyfriend and I have been together for 1 year and 3 months. We’ve had a very strong relationship and often talked about how we are soulmates. Although most people think that the woman is the one who always brings up commitment or major milestones first, it was actually Dan. He was the first to bring up “I love you” and he was the first to talk about wanting to move in, and he has said many times without my influence that he can’t wait to spend his life with me and phrases including “my future wife” and “make you my wife” and “you’ll be a great mom”. He and I have talked about our future and I thought we were both on the same page feeling really good about things. Then he had one long stressful week at work where he was so busy that our schedules never matched up and I was really hoping he would drive over to see me late at night and then he didn’t and then I ignored him for one day because I was upset, and while this is not typical for us, we haven’t ever gone more than 12 hours without texting/talking, and although we didn’t talk for a couple of days, by no means did I think that it was anything other than us just being stressed by his work schedule and I had NO IDEA that he was about to say just days later that we needed to “talk”. So basically one day he was telling me how he can’t wait to spend his life with me, but one week later he came over and said he’s been questioning things and he feels uncertain about us. When he told me these things my whole world fell apart and I was a crying mess, physically telling him to stay and don’t leave me. He stayed the night after hours of us both crying. I was trying so hard to ask him questions about why he was feeling that way. I was desperately wanting specific answers about what went wrong. He kept saying “I don’t know. It’s just how I feel.” The next day he texted me and said, “I deeply care about and I know this will hurt you, but I think we need to spend some time apart. I really do love you, I just am not certain we’re what’s best for each other. I am sure I will regret saying this to you as I have very much wanted to make a life with you. I couldn’t be anymore sorry about this. I’m hoping that these feelings go away and when they do and I come back to you on my hands and knees that you’ll accept me back. You will forever be my love. I love you so much.”Basically, that’s the last message he sent and I took it as a breakup because he hasn’t said anything for over a week. The thing is, his dogs had been living with me because he couldn’t keep them at his apartment, and he said that he’d make arrangements to get them out as soon as he could, but he has yet to tell me when he’s picking them up and he hasn’t bothered to get all of his belongings, I don’t know why he’s dragging it out. I guess I’m confused: did he actually break up with me? Why does he want time apart so suddenly? What happened? Should I hold on and hope that he comes back to be with me? Or is this a slow process of breaking up because he doesn’t know how else to do it since I was so emotional about it?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Okay, so first of all, yes, this is a break up. And no it didn’t come out of the blue — for him. No matter what he said or did, he was thinking about a break up and whatever happened in his life without you was what finally compelled him to act. He had a different experience of the relationship than you did, and there are things going on in his own life that are different that what is going on in yours.

He’s left the dogs at your house because he hasn’t found a place to house them and if you want to hold onto them because it feels like he’ll come back as long as they’re there, that’s fine for now. But if you’re ready to move on, you should give him a time when you’re going to drop the dogs off at his house. If he’s not your boyfriend, it’s not your responsibility to take care of his pets.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions. If you do write back, let me know how old you are. That always helps.

[Member]

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