My heart tells me to break up with her, but I can't do it

[Wyeth]

Title. Just let my thoughts run here and they are kind of jumbled. Responses are appreciated. Much love everyone.

 

Got into a relationship with my current gf about a year ago. She seemed like the perfect person for me at the time, very intelligent, feminine, cares strongly about the world, perhaps I might have even put her on a pedestal because I thought she was Spiral Dynamics Tier 2 and people like that are so rare. After being in a relationship with her for over a year, I want out. I have realized she is very codependent. This has been very emotionally draining for me. She cries when I don’t spend enough time with her (I am an extremely busy person and spend time with her as much as I can, we still see each other in some capacity every day even if it just sleeping over) and she also says she feels guilty that she feels this way because I am busy and she knows she is not entitled to my attention all the time, but still nonetheless it plays a major role in our relationship. I just feel like I am constantly attending to her and her emotions that I have become so emotionally numb and can barely feel any emotions anymore unless I use weed. My extremely busy schedule is also contributing to my emotional numbness, not just her, but still it sucks to feel this way. She definitely has a diagnosable anxiety disorder, sometimes it gets to the point where she gets sick and throws up…all of it just so much to attend to and I feel drained. But more than anything she does not value spirituality and awakening as much as I do. I tell her about my spirituality and awakenings and she understands them as best as she can on a conceptual level, and does not seem very interested in the subject as a whole. I don’t think she truly understands how serious this stuff is to me, my entire Life Purpose revolves around this spirituality, and my partner does not even really understand it? That does not feel good. I tried to get her into meditation but she is not really interested, and her body is extremely sensitive to any substances so doing psychedelics for her is off the table. She literally gets sick for 3 days from having one shot of alcohol, and literally throws up if she has even a 5mg weed edible. I just wish she was more low maintenance and less codependent and we shared more of a similar spirituality. 

 

I don’t want to act like there are not positives to the relationship. I’m just spewing the negative things off the top of my head. I first fell in love with her because of her radical honesty and beauty and intelligence. She studied religious studies, psychology, and ethnic studies and I have learned quite a bit from her about those topics that I have grown from and incorporated into my worldview. She also values honesty extremely highly which was a value I deemed most important to a relationship, but I later realized there was baggage to this value because her anxiety and guilt complex are so strong that she will literally get sick if she lies too much. Like something about that doesn’t seem right to me, it’s like she isn’t honest for the sake of honesty, but rather to keep the guilt away? Idk I’ve always been confused on my thoughts about it. But at the end of the day obviously I am grateful that she is extremely honest, it has resulted in our relationship having A+ communication, at least it has been A+ up to the point now where I want to break up with her but can’t bring myself to do it. We also want to live similar lifestyles when we are older, we want to buy land and live in a foresty area and be really creative with what we build on the land, we have several page long ideas of what we want to do on the land (I won’t get into it much here, but the point is we have similar visions for where we want to be and how we want to live in the future). Oh, and our sexual chemistry is good as well…lots of positives to the relationship but I feel the negatives are starting to outweigh.

 

For context I am in my final year of college and she graduated last year. She stayed in town so we could continue to be together (we do not live together) but now I just feel so insanely terrible to break her heart and end things. She cares so strongly about me, I know she sees me as the one she will be with for the rest of her life, and to just end all that and hurt her pains me so deeply, but it’s also slowly eating away at me to stay in a relationship my heart tells me is not right. I have nothing but respect and love for her, I wish her the best. But man I am hurting right now thinking about how she will be hurt. Fuck. I don’t know if I have the capacity to make someone suffer like that. In my head it seems impossible to do.

 

[King Merk]

Man, I empathize with your situation, I really do. I’ve been in a very similar one and it’s gut wrenching to think about.

The truth is, it’s going to hurt her more in the long run by dragging things on.

Your resentment & burn out will result in you uncsonsciously mistreating her. You don’t want to put her through that abuse.

You know what to do. Muster up the courage and listen to your heart

[integral]

I think the core of the issue is that you need to set healthier boundaries for yourself and not be leached off of to the point where you feel drained.

I would give it one more chance but you need to put down some ground rules and focus on your own health first.

Have a open conversation about how you feel with her without threats of break up and see if that facilitate some change in the dynamics of the relationship.

Edited November 8, 2022 by integral

[LordFall]

Probably you will end up having to do it once it gets painful enough for you, just a matter of time.

Is this your first relationship? Those are always the most brutal. You will learn the hard way what you like in a partner and what you can't tolerate. She will probably end up growing from the pain the breakup will cause her and she'll toughen up and blossom into the person she's meant to be. 

[ThermalTide]

No matter what action you do or don't take at this point, this is a burr in your brain, big and painful enough to eventually cause the failure of the relationship anyways. I've been in a few serious relationships at this point in my life and I've realized that honesty and open communication is absolutely essential for it to work at all. If you really think the relationship is worth saving, your communication of all of this is necessary. Do you think actual change would come from a conversation like that? Is it worth it for you to stick around and feel drained while you navigate this? These are things only you can answer and act on. 

[thepixelmonk]

If your heart's genuinely not in it you need to break up, no way around it.

[Wyeth]

@King Merk Thank you for your response. How did you go deal with your similar situation?

[Wyeth]

@integral Maybe that is the issue. I'm not sure. I don't have a problem attending to her when I have the time. It's when school and work get extremely busy (which happens a lot) that I just want to relax at the end of the day and not deal with her anxiety and negative emotions. And given that my near future and LP will require me to be extremely busy for the next several years I don't envision myself always having the energy do deal with this all the time. We've had conversations before about her codependency and she kind of realizes that she is a little codependent and has said she is trying to center herself more in life. It's been all talk and not really any action on her part so far though. Maybe I should get more serious about it

[Wyeth]

@LordFall It's my first real adult relationship, I guess. I had a couple relationships in high school but I was just a dumb teenager at the time, but still did learn quite a bit about relationships. In both of those high school relationships I was the one that got my heart broken, so that makes it all the more difficult for me to break it off with her because I know how terrible heartbreak feels. It completely broke me for months after, although it was one of the most defining experiences of my life that I am grateful for. But putting someone through that immense suffering is a lot, it's so hard to do. 

[Wyeth]

@ThermalTide Thank you. I do think having an open conversation about how I've been feeling is the course of best action, especially considering our relationship was founded upon honesty and open communication.

[flyingwhalee]

I have yet to meet a girl seriously interested in awakening or valuing / seriously pursuing it. I don't know if it's very wise to expect from your girl to be on the same exact page as you on this. At the end of the day, it's the loneliest path possible (solipsistic pun intended), that's how it is and it's fine.

As for her guilt and codependency problem, do you think you can be patient and help her on this ? I think that would be the best thing. It sounds like you got yourself a very nice girl, I wouldn't give up before playing all the cards. 

 

Good luck !

[meta_male]

@Wyeth Is there anything else holding you back besides the fear of hurting her? I was lingering in a situation like this without making a decision.