Hi, Carolyn: I recently broke up with my boyfriend after two years of a long-distance relationship. We had also dated as teenagers and dreamed of getting married.
In the last few months of our relationship, I could feel us being more and more disconnected, especially on his side. I had to insist that he call, etc., as it became clear this year would also not be the year when we are finally in the same physical place permanently.
A few weeks after the breakup, he shared that, in the last months, he had kissed two women on two different occasions, though they didn’t have sex. He took responsibility for it and asked for forgiveness. He didn’t ask to get back together.
Even if it was only two passionate kisses, to me it feels like a complete betrayal of what we had. Part of me feels lied to because the multiple times we talked about our issues, this never came up explicitly. He did mention having been in situations very close to another woman, but when I asked whether something had happened, he said no.
Another part of me thinks one day, if circumstances are right, we could be together again. Other than these last few months, I have been very happy and felt so loved by him.
What should I do? Should I propose we work on our relationship? Should I just let him go? — Disconnected
Disconnected: Breathe, is what you do now.
Right?
This all just happened. It happened because you couldn’t be happy with what you had as-is, and no one was relocating, and you couldn’t figure out what was wrong or a way to make it better. You decided to break up after you did all the overthinking, all the talking about your issues, all the adjusting at the margins.
Do you really want to do even more thinking, talking and adjusting? Ugh.
Let your breakup do its job. Be apart. Hand the fussing over to time, and let it work some of the knots in the background.
While it does that, remind yourself what your days can look and feel like without him in them. I know he wasn’t there a lot due to distance, but he was there by commitment and now he is not. So be committed now only to you. This process of building your own happiness after a relationship can help you understand what didn’t work — sometimes even more than analyzing the breakup can.
This may seem like a lot of … a lot, without any mention of “he was cheating on me.” Which he was, as much as he said he was or more. But I don’t think exploring even that new development helps you now, either.
You have as much information as you need. Either the disconnection in your relationship created the space for his interest in other women, or his interest in other women created the disconnection you felt. No matter: What you know is that the relationship lost power, and when it did, your senses registered that accurately. That’s good to know.
You also learned that your impulse was to address-ask-analyze, and his was to aVoId!! Also good to know.
And you learned that, given time and space, he stopped avoiding, addressed his stuff on his own, circled back and told you. Great to know.
