I am NOT OOP, OOP posted from 2 accounts: u/ificouldgobackwards + u/ificouldrewindj
Originally posted to r/relationship_advice
My [31M] girlfriend [26F] of 6 years recently quit her job to travel the world. After 2 months of travelling, she's considering ending things... I'm blindsided. what now?
Editor’s Note: changed letters to names for readability
Original Post: May 30, 2024
In a nutshell, the title ^
For reference I will call myself Michael and her Lisa.
But for more info, we have had a truly wonderful relationship. We met 2 years before dating, and at the time I was dating someone else. Lisa was one of my flatmates at uni (I'm in the UK) and we bonded very quickly. So we were friends for a while. My gf at the time broke up with me and I had a brief fling with Lisa, no sex, but kissing etc. - we were very close as friends and this felt very natural. However, I moved out a week after and moved to the other side of the country. At the time, I was in a very bad place for a variety of reasons, and we slowed down talking as much.
Then a year later, she randomly reached out again, and we started talking. And we just reconnected completely. I was just graduating uni and she was just about to enter her final year after taking a gap year for work experience. She came to visit me at uni, and at this time I fully expected it was just a friendly visit, but it quickly became more. Soon after, she was back home and we were chatting every day for literally up to like 12 hours on Facetime. We did it so so often. I fell completely in love with her, and soon after, we became official.
We've lived together for the last 4 years, having moved in together about 6 months before Covid. We had an amazing time. We adored lockdown - so much time to just develop our relationship and love each-other. We have had such a wonderful relationship, always able to communicate with each-other about our feelings, understand each-other, and always insistent on not allowing ourselves to become too codependent. We lived our own separate lives and we liked that. When together, in our flat, we lived in our own wonderful bubble full of in-jokes and words we ascribed our own meanings to. We always likened the strength of our relationship to the fact we were friends first. No jealousy ever, rarely ever arguments, and when there were arguments, we always managed to handle it well. We've talked extensively about our future, we've said we want to be married to each-other (I have jokingly proposed to her dozens of times, always mortifying her) and have even picked out names for our future kids. We're not ready for anty of that yet, as we are building our careers, but it always felt like this was it.
So she's had a job for the past 4 years that she ended up hating. She quit earlier this year and has been saving up to go travelling. She did the Philippines and is now in Australia. She's been there for two months now. When she first went, I told her that she needs to fully embrace it, and not to worry about me. The arrangement was simple really: our tenancy in our flat ended at the same time she planned to travel, so I've moved in with my friend, and she's away for 3 months. Our goal which we discussed a lot was that when she returns, she'd find a new job, we'd find a new place, and resume building our life together. Slowly, we started talking less and less, and whilst at first I was happy, there were little things that were ringing alarm bells. Such little things, but when you know someone so well, and when you know your relationship so well, these small things stand out. She'd not reply for days at a time, but still post on her IG story. She'd post things, like feeding a Wallaby, but not share that with me. I love animals and she loves how childlike I get around them, and she always said she feels sad seeing animals without me because she can't see my reactions to them. But now she's not sharing them with me.
I brought this up 1 month into her travelling, firstly framed in a "I miss you" kind of way, and it landed well, and she said she'd try to talk to me a bit more. But she just withdrew even more. I brought it up again 2 weeks later, this time with a bit more of a "maybe can we try to talk abit more?" I also mentioned at this stage that I regret telling her before she traveled that I would be fine with not talking much, and that whilst I truly meant it at the time, in action, it was hurting me more than I expected. She understood and promised we'd talk more. But we talked less.
A few days ago I bring it up again, and this time, it was different. Each time, she's always insisted that she is in a "bubble" and that she needs to just focus 100% on the travelling. I asked her if she could just give me 5 minutes every few days, jsut to say hello, but she said she wasn't sure she could even do that. Thsi really upset me, because we are 6 years in, and we have always had such a strong relationship, that I was surprised at how unwilling she was. I said we needed to talk about this properly over the phone, and she suggested the folowing night. Her time in Oz would make it around 8-10am my time. I was ready at that time, but she postponed it an hour as she was going for a sunset walk and then going out for dinner with her travelling friends. Then, it was postponed further, but I could no longer make the call as I had a client meeting. I told her how upset I was that she prioritised a sunset walk over our relationship, and that she had already had 2 months of them, and that I was only asking for one evening so we could talk about the future of our relationship. She agreed we needed to talk about the future of our relationship but said she couldn't do that until she returned home in 5 weeks. I said I couldn't wait that long and quickly called her (my client was late, luckily).
Essentially, she said she's so confused right now because she's in a bubble of travelling, but she's just not sure if this is what she wants anymore. She floated the idea of wanting to move out to Australia. She clearly doesn't see me in her future anymore. I am just so blindsided, because we were so so close and strong and happy before, and now she's traveled it's just totally changed everything. I asked her if she still loves me, and she wasn't sure she could answer that. She was very much "down the middle" about everything - clearly confused about the situation, but not wanting to cause too much of an interference to her bubble right now. My impression was that she wanted to just ignore this was happening until she came back.
So where do I go now? I am so lost, so confused, so hurt. :( I want to be with her, and spend my life with her, but she just might not want that now.
tl;dr - girlfriend of six years is currently travelling, and has decided she's not sure she wants to stay together. This is very blindsided and I'm confused af.
Relevant Comments
wotsname123: I mean, you guys managed to put a wonderful gloss on how great extended solo travel was going to be for both of you, but that I’m afraid was never realistic. If one person feels the need to disappear for a long period after 6 years then the relationship just wasn’t that strong in her mind. I couldn’t imagine leaving my so behind. That she could makes me think things weren’t as rosy in her mind as they were in yours. High chance that she wanted some space from an intense relationship to think about if she was building the life she really wanted and it seems like her answer is edging towards no.
Unfortunately it looks like heartbreak. Even if she comes back now, I am not sure that her behaviour is consistent with just getting back to normal.
OOP: This is certainly a possibility. She has always been passionate about travelling, and did so before we met too. She lost two close grandparents 2 years ago, and has been extraordinarily stressed about her shitty job she had. If things weren't as rosy, I trust she will tell me when she's home and out of her bubble.
I think that there's certainly credence to this for several reasons too - the life she was living with me may be marred by her job, by the general depressing dullness of England etc. - and living such a different life whilst travelling in beautiful places will only reinforce that, and make her associate it all with me.
Update: June 12, 2024 (2 weeks later)
Original post - tl;dr - my girlfriend of 6 years went travelling and started pulling away. Now we might break up.
Tried submitting this update on the other account but for some reason it keeps getting autokilled by a spam filter. Probs will happen here. If you're reading this it means it worked!
UPDATE: So, it was a gruelling 2 weeks, in which I took everyone's advice, as well as my own judgment, and didn't contact her at all. It was insanely difficult, because I didn't really know anything about her perspective at all. I felt like I was in limbo: I didn't know where I stood, and didn't know where she stood. Every day was "day 1" of grieving, and the longer time went, the more difficult it became. She had acted so coldly with me with regards to talking to me about what was happening, and as I said in my original post, she had prioritised her travelling over my wellbeing and/or the wellbeing of the relationship. It was really hurting me, because she knows me well and I felt very confused and frankly traumatised that she was refusing to give me any answers. It really was driving my insane. I wasn't eating or sleeping. I wasn't working (self-employed) and couldn't concentrate on anything. I cried a lot. After a certain point, I decided that I couldn't continue this any longer, and although I tried to respect her need for space, I needed to respect my own need for answers, so I reached out to her again.
Two days ago, we had a long, 2 hour video chat. She's currently in Vietnam. She sat in the hall of a hostel and we talked openly, warmly, honestly, and in-depth about both of our feelings. There were a lot of tears. It was a very emotionally draining conversation, but it gave me a lot of answers and resolved a lot of the turbulence that I had experienced. I had written her a letter on the morning of the scheduled call, and I read it out to her. I explained how she had made me feel, and how unempathetic I felt she was. She took this on-board on a profound level, deeply apologised, and I could tell she was truly hurt with herself that she had behaved like that. She acknowledged that she had buried her head in the sand from the feelings. It was truly powerful to hear her be so candid. This was the girl I had fallen in love with. She was usually so empathetic, smart, sensitive, so her behaviour in the past few weeks being so the opposite of that created such strange feelings in me. I was glad that we were talking back on the level we were usually so good at.
But long story short: it is over. You see, I am her first boyfriend. Sure, she has slept with her fair share of lads, but I'm her first relationship. We met when I was 22 and she was 18. I was really the only man in her life for a long time. She's now travelling, and just feels a deep sense within herself that she needs to explore herself and her life without a partner. She needs to be alone to do this. I completely understand this. It's not what I wanted to hear, but it's something I obviously understand and won't at all stand in the way of. She's planning to move to Australia for a while and continue her soul search. Right now, she just doesn't see a place for me in what she needs from her life. It's heartbreaking. I'm heartbroken. I love her deeply. She still loves me. But somtimes that just isn't enough, and that's all there really is to it.
A lot of you suggested - sometimes with quite a cruel snarkiness - that she was cheating. She wasn't. I'm sure some of you will still believe that, but that's fine. Maybe you just haven't been in a real, adult relationship where there is honesty and transparency. This is not about another man, this is just about her recalibrating what she wants from her future.
Now I need to figure out how to recalibrate my future. We had talked extensively about marriage. I was ready to spend my life with her. We had already named our future kids. Everything about the future that we had envisioned is now gone. It is really difficult right now to imagine being with anyon else, because the depth of our relationship was so strong. Every night, I am awoken by the isms of our relationship - the small quirks, the in-jokes, the made-up language we used, the tone of voice we would speak to each-other in, the food we'd eat together, the things we'd do together, the songs we'd sing together, our touch, the warmth of her body against mine, the smell of her perfume, the way she'd say my name in a cute way when I'd done something cheeky... so many things that are littering my mind right now. I'm struggling to see through it right now. I have no idea how I will make it through. If anyone can share any advice that can help me, please do. I know the obvious stuff: gym, focus on yourself, rebuild your life... but they are all intangible to me. How do I repair my soul? How do I move on from someone I am still actively in love with?
She returns to the UK at the start of July and I will be spending a few days with her. A goodbye, if you will. It will be hard, and every fibre of my being wants to beg her to find a way to include me in her future, or to finds ways to entertain the notion that, in the future, we will find our way back to each-other in some grandiose fatalistic stroke. I had truly defined her as my soulmate, and my best friend - and she had done the same for me. Right now, whilst she's still travelling, she's not able to sit in any of these feelings, but I know they'll come for her too once she returns to her parents and lives there for 6 months as she saves for her future travelling. I don't know what the future looks like now. If anyone has any advice, please do let me know.
TL;DR - it's over, but in a somewhat beautiful and amicable way. I'm heartbroken and sad. How do I heal?