Hi Everyone. My situation is complicated because I have a commitment to a job that separates me from my ex by several states so I have been engaged in a long distance relationship. So I was dating this girl for a little over 9 months before we decided to break up. She was my first girlfriend and I was her first boyfriend. We had a normal relationship from February up until the end of May in which we were both going to the same university. We spent almost every day together, had a lot of good memories, and we were both deeply in love with each other. In May, I graduated and was required to move several states away for my dream job. We decided that we wanted to stay together despite the distance and time (she still had 3 and half years left of school - neither one of us could make the move to the other even if we wanted to). We said that we would somehow make it work because we love each other.

I moved away, and things seemed fine for the first three months up until September. During that time I was able to come home once in August where we spent four days together. We had a great time and a lot of fun but it was painful for both of us when I had to leave. Things finally hit its first bump at the start of September after returning from training. She tells me on skype that she does not think she can do the long distance relationship. She says she loves me but her feelings are different because I am not there. That it does not feel like a relationship without me there and that she is having a hard time being with me by simply skyping or calling. When she told me on Skype (about a week before going home), I was absolutely devastated. I did not have much to say other then to dig deeper into why she wanted to do this so I said I'd call her later. About half an hour later she texted me telling me to forget it, that she loves me and that she wants it to go back the way it was. So we resumed our relationship, but now I was hurt and concerned that the relationship was a ticking time bomb and it was inevitable that this was going to become an issue again.

A month later she tells me she wants to break up again. She says she loves me but its different because I am not there. She says she wants to go out with me when I am home but she cannot date me when I am not there. That its too difficult for her to deal with the fact that I cannot be there. She says she does not want to have a boyfriend right now, that she wants to be able to enjoy college without the burden of having a boyfriend who is not there. I asked her if that simply meant that she wanted to hook up with other guys. She tells me that she wants to go out with her friends and drink and have fun. That she has no intention in hooking up with anyone else but she feels restricted in how she acts around other people because of me. If she begins to talk to other guys she starts thinking of me and gets depressed. She says she also feels bad if she begins to flirt (which she does when she is drunk) She's not looking for anyone else but she said that if someone came into her life she would possibly want to go on a date. Other than that she wanted us to maintain the same contact and same role when I came home. Again I was hit hard by this. It sounded like an open relationship and that's what we agreed to call it for the time being. She broke up with me at the worst time possible (the night before I had training that would leave me without my cell phone for a four day period). I was distracted throughout the week, was unable to function properly, and came home and told her I could not do it. I told her how hard it was for me the previous week and that I could no longer talk to her. We talked for a couple of hours and eventually we decided to go back to the way things were because neither one of us wanted it to end.

Its been a month since that has happened. A lot has happened at my work and some negative things were the result of me being distracted by the relationship. I called my girlfriend out and gave her an out to the relationship because I felt like she was maintaining it until I came home for Thanksgiving to talk about it. She tells me the same thing as before, she just does not want a boyfriend for the same reasons but at the same time she still wants to talk to be with me in an unknown role. We broke up two days ago. She wants us maintain a relationship and she wants to hang out on Thanksgiving. Since then I have been questioning her about why she wants to break up, what type of relationship she wants with me, is she still sexually attracted to me, if there is someone else, etc. I have talked to her a couple of times the past few days and she says she is doing fine and she looks like she is doing fine. I believe this mostly has to do with the fact that everything is staying the same for her (other than changing our relationship titles around). She expects that we will have the same level of communication and that we will still hang out like we promised to before and that we will be happy together. I wish I was able to adapt the same mentality.

I am torn about what to do. I have no interest in bringing the relationship back because of the mental strain it has caused me when my career needs to be my central focus. I have had this feeling of wondering if the relationship was going to die every day since she initially tried to break up with me which I no longer want to feel. I am worried that if I maintain this new type of relationship that I am going to always question what she is doing that night, if she met anyone else/hooked up with someone else, if she maintains the same feelings for me, etc. I feel that the fact that I no longer wish to date her because of the mental strain it has caused me and the amount of interference it has given me at work has made it an easy choice to end communication.

At the same time I am in love with this girl. I had plans to hang out with her on Christmas and looked farther ahead of being together once she was out of school. We were both deeply in love with each other before I left and we expressed those feelings daily up until recently. I love talking to her, whether it is sending her a good morning text or talking about our day on skype. One of the biggest things she would note is that if its meant to be its meant to be. She would refer to two stories of her friends that she relates to our situation. One of her friends is in a relationship where they break up when they go to school but when they return home for summer they are back together. She says that they are most likely going to get married after college. Another friend of hers broke up with her boyfriend because of distance and eventually they got back together down the road and married. She wants to keep our plans to be together on Thanksgiving, at least then we can talk about the issue a little bit more in person or just enjoy our time together. The complexity of the situation where I am going to be away for at least three years and half years makes me feel like I can take a different approach to this relationship when the common answer would be to end communication. I would like to think that I can talk to her, be happy, hang out with her when I am home because I understand I can no longer date her and do not wish to be in a relationship, but when I am not home I can focus on my career and keep her in the back of my mind. That is what I wish would happen, but is it actually possible? I think it may still boil down to me having to get over her which means no communication. If I could I would eventually go back into the dating scene once I felt better but for the next couple of months I am on a tight work schedule and I really only get Sundays off. Right now my head is not on straight because I am dealing with the reality of losing her and I am having a difficult time looking down the road. I appreciate any responses and I apologize for the long post.