I found this searching for help with this kind of thing and I can't believe how amazing this site is. Some of the advice has really helped me already but I wish I had found it earlier.

The story goes:

My girlfriend and I have been together 11 months this Saturday. We have a long-distance relationship, as she is a senior in college and I just left last May. Even though we are separated by 3 hours, it has never mattered before. Then last Tuesday she started asking me if I thought we don't talk like we used to and all these questions about why aren't we the same as when we started dating. She told me she wanted to take a break and I freaked out.

She said she wanted to take a break, and I fought her on it for hours, eventually getting her to say we won't take one. That was such a huge mistake. I went to see her that weekend and she was so cold around me, she wouldn't even kiss me unless I had asked her to. She used to be all over me the second we were near each other, and her sex drive was crazy, wild and passionate. But we just went to sleep Friday night and in the morning I asked her why she didn't want to have sex and she cried and told me that she just didn't feel like it anymore and she hadn't for a few weeks and she didn't know why. So I left and came home and then a few days ago, Monday the 13th, I told her she can have a break and I was stupid for not letting her last week. And of course I hounded her with questions, do you want someone else? Do you still love me? Why are you doing this? Are you better now? She said she still loves me very much and doesn't want anyone else but me, but doesn't know why she has to do this or what she is hoping to accomplish. So I have decided to just let it happen after reading some of the advice on this site, which I wish I had found before last week.

What I am wondering is, just how much space should I be giving her? She told me that she doesn't want to cut off contact with me, but if I call and she doesn't want to talk I have to understand, and I do. I am going to give her space and time to be alone and think about herself because I am in love with her and I want her to be happy. For the first few days this week I was constantly telling her I loved her, telling her how awful I felt, sending her messages every few minutes, anything to keep her thinking about me. We used to tell each other 'I love you' constantly, ten times a day, just because we were thinking about the other person. But now, she doesn't say it at all unless we are talking on the phone, which I guess is still good, but it still hurts.

I am going to see her next weekend, so I am just trying to give her as much space as she needs to feel better about herself before then, but I worry that if I just cut her off completely she will think I hate her, or that if I talk to her then nothing will be accomplished because it will feel like nothing has changed. She has taken a job offer from a place 5 hours away from where I live starting at the end of May and lasting until mid October and I am pretty sure that the prospect of being apart without physical contact, just through calls and texts and skype for five months is scaring the out of her. I'm fine with it, and I trust her to be faithful the time we are apart. I just don't know what to do with her right now because I don't want to push her further away but I don't want it to seem like I don't care, but I keep telling her I love her all day every day just hoping that maybe this time will be the time she says it back and everything will be OK. I guess I just have to wait it out a little longer and see what happens. I think she will be OK by next weekend but it just sucks for now and I'm glad I found this site, it has helped me deal with what I'm going through, and I didn't think there was anything in the world that would help with that. I'm still just so confused and heartbroken because it feels like she doesn't want me or love me anymore but I can't tell her that because I have already and she keeps reassuring me that she does, but always repeating whatever I've said back to me. What am I supposed to make of that? If I would say 'i love you with all my heart' she would say it back exactly. What does that mean? Does that mean that she is just trying to calm me down and she doesn't mean it?

She has called a break before, last year in August. That time she had been on the other side of the country from June till August, and the day before she came back she asked me if she had been acting strange lately and then admitted that she was lost and confused and needed a break to focus on herself and find herself and fix herself and I let it happen as much as it hurt. I think that's why I fought it this time, because we've already done this and it was stupid before and she even told me later that she felt terrible and regretted it and was more sorry than she could say. I just don't want to make a mistake and hurt her or lose her.

If you've been reading threads similar to yours, then you won't be surprised by what I have to say.

Let time go by without contact.

If you can't handle that, then MINIMAL contact.

She is confused on who she is, what she wants.

She does not want to lose you, the familiar, the comfortable.

She may be afraid to hurt you with the truth, because she does love you.

The truth may be that she wants to explore the world, other men, etc. If that's what she wants, she also wants you waiting for her when she's done. Not fair, is it?

Give the no contact a try. Read the stickies. Best wishes

Leave her alone, and work on your own confusion, and see where your heading without her in your life. That's what you need, and so does she.

Her confusion will never end as long as your influencing each others feelings, and to be honest, she has been trying to break away for a while. More the reason to let go, so she can decide for herself, if its you she wants to be with or not.

You need to establish your own healthy, balanced life, that makes you happy without her.

That simple, so you both have your own thing to do, for yourselves, without each other.