Emily,

Whenever someone tells me what they want and who they are then I take them at their word.  Your boyfriend wants to “find himself,” remain friends but not be in a romantic relationship with you then I really wonder what does that look like?

I wonder about him.  I’d ask him: How do you know when you find yourself?  What aspects of yourself did you lose or looking for? What does being friends look like?  Does that mean we still talk but no sex?  How does that help you find yourself?

I would ask yourself: What do you want from this halfway relationship, i.e. not being his girlfriend but “friends?”

Mark

Hello.

My boyfriend just broke up with me last night and I’m quite lost. We’ve been dating for 6 months and a half, we’re neighbors, so the honeymoon phase faded out real quick. I thought we could work everything out. He and I walked at the same wavelength—his interests were mine, we were great friends who so easily trusted each other when we started out our friendship because we just clicked. We had no issues on cheating, lying, heck, we never even had an argument where we had to shout at each other. I thought we would do fine. He was the one who made promises such as he’s sworn he’d never let me go. But how come he just did last night?

The day before, we were all good. He was at work and he even called me at 1:43pm while we were texting, he told me “I love you, and I’m having lunch outside in a while.” Then the night fell and he went out somewhere without telling me, which I found odd because he never did that and he always told me he’d tell me whenever he’d go somewhere else. He called, that’s how I knew, so I asked him why and he said he didn’t want to be in their house. I just told him to not come home late because he’d find it hard to commute on the way home and for him to take care. When it was almost midnight, I texted him, asking him why he hasn’t come home yet, that it’s late. Then I called him… until 12:30am, I called him 7 times. He never picked any call up. At 1am, he texted that he was fine and that he’d come home a little later. I also texted him previously that I hoped he was safe, that I was worrying so much, and that I just wanted him to at least be home.

The next day, at night, that’s when he showed up at my front door and told me he wanted to break up because he needed to find himself. It’s because he lost his father just 4 months ago, and that was also when my anxiety issue sparked up, that he didn’t get to grieve properly. Then his best friend of 15 years also just left him last month. He’s often misunderstood by his friends at college, so he’s just starting to find new friends recently. Because of that, we hadn’t spent so much time together, along with how busy he was at his internship, that I’d budge in with how he and I haven’t spent time together. He’d say sorry and that he loves me and that we’d spend time after this week… but I guess that’s not going to happen now because he broke up with me.

I want to leave him be now, but a part of me wants to get us back together. A part of me still wants to love him and just naturally cares for him. What should I do? Do I wait for him? He told me he wanted to break up because he wanted to stop “thinking about me”, I probably felt like a responsibility or a burden… something that caged him in. But he said he’s not sure with how he feels for me, but he does know he wants to be alone and with his own person to find himself now. What do you all think?