4 and 1/2 years and suddenly silence...

[Dianasaur]

--Sorry for the long post!

 

Me and my boyfriend have been dating for 4 and 1/2 years and were having some major issues. We also live together and have been for a little over 3 years. Im not really sure how to go about trying to fix our issues and the fact that he wont talk to me makes it even harder. Ill explain some so that yall can understand better and maybe (hopefully) provide me with some advice/help.

 

First off i should start by saying that we are 5 and 1/2 years apart in age. He is about to turn 26 in a week and is one semester away from graduating college finally. Im only 20 and am in my Sophomore year. We work at the same place. So between working together and living together we pretty much are with each other all the time. We even go to school with each other for class sometimes.

 

We have each been cheated on by the other. Mine were all emotional. His were both "drunken incidents". Or atleast thats how he explains them. In my opinion we have done enormous amounts to get over our trust issues from the cheating. Its been about 2 years since the last occurrence, and we seemed extremely happy. He got back to his old self again and was constantly talking about marriage and children. He was even to the point of saying that he wanted to get married next year, 6 months after hes out of college.

 

We are both big Anime fans and go to the local conventions when they come around each year. Well at the last one that we went to i meet a guy there that is in the field of business that im getting my degree in. When we were talking to this guy my boyfriend seemed fine. He was laughing and joking with him and even comparing classes they had to take in college, my boyfriend is a finance major so he always likes to talk about the business world. This guy was attractive and was hitting on me, but basically all we talked about was business. The guy invited me to go to one of his panels the next day before we left to go home. When we were walking back to the hotel room though my boyfriend said that he didnt want me to go, so i didnt. But when i got home i had this nagging feeling for 2 days that i made a bad choice by not going. So i decided to message him on Facebook. A couple days later i felt bad cause i realized that my boyfriend was very against me talking to him, even about careers, so i went in and took it off without ever telling my boyfriend i did it. Eventually he was going through the history to find an old link he went to and found it. He automatically assumed that i was trying to cheat on him with this guy. So the next day he decided to get back in contact with one of his ex-girlfriends and they went to lunch. He paid, so it looks more like a date.

 

That was last week. Last Thursday out of nowhere he tells me that he wants to go on a break. He said that he needs his space and time to clear his head. The rules of this break would be: we are single and free to do whatever, would last for the month of July so that he can concentration on his summer course, when we got back together in August it would be no questions asked (we would never have to reveal to the other what or who we did during that month), and we would still support each other financially for tuition.

I immediately said no. If i dont live with him i have no where to go, and i have no car so i couldnt get to work or class. He said that he was willing to wait until i could figure it out but he still wanted it. A few days ago i found a text in his friends phone telling my boyfriend "dont hype up this other girl in your head too much, if you get with her and leave Diana it may be too late when you realize you made a mistake". When i saw that i got extremely suspicious.

I made the mistake of mentioning it when we were trying to talk the other day and all it did was piss him off even more.

 

Now he wont even talk to me. He denies anything about another woman and just says that he needs space cause he cant trust me. We are still in the same house together and havent spoken in 3 days. When we go to work it is very awkward for everyone, all the people that work there saw us as the perfect couple. Everytime i try to talk to him he gets more angry. I dont completely know whats wrong with him so i dont know how to go about fixing it. The only thing i know is that apparently he had an emotional break down when i wasnt working a few days ago about "us" but no one will tell me what he said. All of his friends up there tell me he looks sad and depressed when they seem him, but when he has to be around me he looks just fine and is laughing and smiling. I have never been in this type of relationship before so i dont know what to do. I have been told by alot of people to talk to him but i dont know how. Im terrified that if i dont fix this soon or atleast get him to talk soon it will be too late to ever fix it. Help me please.

[seren]

It sounds like he feels like he cannot trust you after finding the text you wrote and has decided to spread his wings, I wonder if he does whether he will want to come back to your relationship. If, and only if you are able to say hand on heart (aside from the mutual flat, finance sharing) that he is the one you want to be with, then I would ask him if you can both meet (outside the flat) and have a frank discussion about where your relationship is heading and if you both love each other, that you can both agree to draw a line under the past and begin anew, even with you moving out and dating each other.

 

You have been together since you were teenagers and people grow, sometimes both realising that you have grown in directions. If you don't talk and also look at why you contacted this other man and accept that this was not a good thing for you to do, then you will not get anywhere. Communication is the absolute key to any succesful relationship, whether you have been together a year or 20 years. You have nothing to lose. if you do decide to be together then honesty and trust will need to be rebuilt.