-- Question for John --
I’ve been chasing the same girl for four years ever since I met her. We have always been close, but about 4 months ago I told her that I loved her. I do love her. There’s no question about it. We had been back in forth with liking each other about 6 months before that, but I told her all the reasons why I knew I loved her and she finally realized that she loves me too.
We’ve been together ever since and we’ve been intimate and it’s been the happiest days of my life, but recently, for about two weeks, she pushes me away. She doesn’t like to be close or hug or kiss and sex is gone. Her whole mannerism has changed. She just doesn’t act the same. She told me last night that in every relationship that she’s been in, this happens where she just doesn’t want to be affectionate anymore. She said she still loves me and cares about me, but it’s a very strange situation. She said she doesn’t know why this has happened. I’m clueless.
She said that every relationship that she’s been in was based on the long term idea, and she said maybe she’s just not ready for anything long term. We’re leaving for college in a week and she will be in florida and I’ll be in New York. We had planned on staying together through college, but she doesn’t know now. I want to understand her, but I need help. I don’t know what’s going on. Do you have any ideas?
-- Answer from John --
Accepting the Situation
The best thing you can do is to begin to just accept the situation. You don’t know what her response is about. It may be that she truly isn’t ready for long term. That’s hard to hear right now for you, but if it’s true, what can you do?
Actually, there’s only one thing you can do. Accept it. And know that it is not about you. It is not a reflection on you at all. It’s all about her. If someone really loves a type of car, say a Corvette or something, and they really really want that car, but then, in reality, they are not ready to get that car, or possibly any car, because they don’t have the money to buy it… That is not about the car. It’s about them. Maybe she does not at this time have the inner “money” to “buy” a lasting relationship. I hope you get my analogy. I don’t really mean that there is inner money or that we buy relationships. Anything but. Yet, maybe the true part of the analogy is that this turn of events has absolutely nothing to do with you and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. So the only thing left is to just accept it.
This is truly a difficult situation even if you both were clear that you wanted to make it work long term. It’s called geographic incompatibility. That, combined with both of you starting up in some new place… This alone is a major challenge to even the absolute most committed of relationships. There is no denying that. Even happily married couples will tend toward splitting up if they were facing a number of years in separate locations. Long distant relationships have never worked out for me, at least… and I have heard very few stories that indicate they do.
But who knows what can happen?
At any rate, given the overall situation at hand, my best advice right now is the hardest to take. Just let it go. Move on. Do not blame her. Do not take this personally yourself, for you are a great guy who, in fact, is young and has a long life ahead full of many major pleasant surprises in store in the area of relationships. As much as possible look at the positive things about your love for her… which is the very fact that you have such an open and passionate heart in the first place. There are many guys walking dead in that department… closed down… or afraid to ever open in the first place. But the cost of this openness is that you will also have to face the possibility of pain. You are now in the testing of this. As your ally in the enterprise of getting to great happiness and intimacy in your love life…. my very best advice is to accept this situation, feel the pain and bring some of that love you have in your heart to you… to touch that pain inside with your love… let go of her now… and start to look at your own new future with some positive curiosity.
