DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been reading your advice for a while and I always enjoy it.
Anyway, to the matter at hand.
I’ve been with my current boyfriend just over 2 1/2 years and I love him dearly. We enjoy a lot of the same things and he treats me with the utmost respect. He’s my biggest cheerleader in life and I truly don’t know what I’ve done to deserve him.
That being said, I’m currently enjoying a low point in my life. I feel like I’ve hit my absolute rock bottom and this is the lowest I’ve ever been, and I’m longing for something new. I feel like my life needs a shot of rejuvenation and a fresh start.
I have ZERO idea how to go about this. No matter how I word it, he’s gonna take it personally and I’m gonna end up being the bad guy. Another reason why this is giving me anxiety is because I’m TERRIFIED of starting over. Not to mention dating as a whole is kinda miserable anyway, but doing it as a gay man in a small town is even worse.
I’d love some suggestions about how you think I should go about this.
Sincerely,
Rocky Bottom Blues
DEAR ROCKY BOTTOM BLUES: There’s an Alex Norris comic I’ve seen on Facebook and Twitter, RBB; maybe you’ve seen it too. It features a pink, abstract blob of a character, looking at their room and saying “I want things to be different”. Then after smashing things and spreading chaos around their room, they look around and say “oh no”. The implication being that yes, they got their wish… and that made things worse.
I bring this up because, frankly, I’ve seen a lot of folks who get a desire for things to be different and think that “different” means “destroying everything I have now”. In trying to make changes or make things different, they change the wrong things. Rather than figuring out exactly what the issue is, they take a scorched earth approach and burn everything down around them — the better to start over from scratch. The problem is… in tearing everything down, they quickly realize that the answer wasn’t “things need to be different” and they’ve often lost things that they cared about or that were important to them.
That, honestly, is a somewhat long-winded way of saying “are you sure you want to do this?” You have a boyfriend that you love, who makes you happy, who treats you well and brings good things to your life. So why, exactly, do you feel that you need to give that up?
That’s not an idle question, by the way. I’m sincerely asking. You say that you’re at a low point in your life — the lowest you’ve ever been — and that you’re looking for something new. Ok, I get that. But what does that mean, exactly? Are you stuck in a rut? Does this mean that you feel as though you’re not making progress towards your goals and ambitions? Are you feeling like you’ve reached the limits of what you can achieve in this particular place at this particular time? Or is it that you want out of this relationship and you can’t bring yourself to admit that?
A lot of times, when folks decide they want out, they don’t like to face the fact that they’ve just decided that they’re done. A lot of people feel as though they need to have a reason to leave that they can point to, some causus belli that justifies a break-up to themselves and to others. If they don’t have one, they’ll often invent one. Sometimes they’ll slam their hand down on the Relationship Self Destruct button and cheat in ways that ultimately get them caught. Other times, they’ll look to other reasons to rationalize the break-up… such as, say, deciding they need to shake things up and start over.
The thing is, in a some of cases, this is less a “needing a reason to motivate themselves to leave” and more of a face-saving measure. They want to break up because they want to f--k other people or because they’re no longer attracted to or love their partner… but they know that admitting this can make them look like The Asshole to others. So having that external cause becomes a way to justify doing what they already wanted to do, without having to take responsibility for it. It couldn’t be helped, this just had to happen, ah the tragic fate of star-crossed lovers, oh well, life goes on.
And while I totally understand not wanting to come off like the bad guy in the break-up, it’s better to have the integrity of owning your desire to be single again. Does it make you selfish? Yeah… a little. But selfish isn’t automatically bad. It may suck in the short term, but it’s better in the long term. I mean, how do you think your boyfriend would feel if you stayed until you had a “legitimate” reason to leave, only to discover that you’d been quietly dying inside the entire time? Wouldn’t that initial selfishness be better in the long run if it meant that you were freeing your boyfriend to find someone who did want to be in that relationship with them, instead of spending that time with someone who doesn’t?
However, that’s not the only possibility here. There’s also the possibility that what you’re feeling is transitory and will change sooner rather than later. In that case, you run the risk of making semi-permanent changes because of a temporary situation. A lot of folks have thought that they needed to shake up their lives and be free again, only to realize that they didn’t need to throw everything out in their eagerness for change. It would be a shame to give up an otherwise happy relationship that doesn’t need to end just yet.
You may notice that I haven’t exactly come down on “yes, end this” or “no, you should stay”; that’s because of that lack of information. Without knowing more about what your situation is, it’s hard for me to tell you whether breaking up with your boyfriend is the right move or the wrong one. Before you decide to start over as a gay man in a small town, you should see if you can pinpoint what is causing this malaise and why. The more you understand the root cause, the more you’ll know about how to proceed and what the best option would be. Maybe there’s a way you could have both the changes that rejuvenate your life and the boyfriend that you love and who treats you well.
Or maybe the relationship has reached its end point for you. The only reason you “need” to break up with someone is that you want to break up with them. If that’s the case… well, then the best thing would be to break up. And yes, there is no way of wording things that’s going to make this not hurt or not make you look like the asshole in the short term. Unless you and he both recognize that your time together has come to its natural conclusion, break-ups tend to be one-sided affairs, and being told “I don’t want to be with you anymore” hurts. But as the saying goes: pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.
In that case, the best thing you can do is avoid causing unnecessary pain. If you’ve decided that breaking up with your boyfriend needs to happen, then it’s better to do it as quickly as possible. The clean break heals the fastest and the short, sharp pain fades the quickest. Dragging it out makes things worse and risks damaging any future relationship the two of you may ever have together. The process of breaking up works best when it’s accomplished in as fast and efficiently as you can manage; the lingering issues of, say, continuing to live together in the aftermath can make things hurt even more. So if you’re going to break up with him, have the conversation with him on the same day that you sever ties, rather than prolonging things. Tell him that you’re ending things and that it’s not because of anything he’s done. Let him know that he has done everything right and he’s amazing and treated you like a king and that you treasure the time you’ve had with him; it’s just that your time together has ended for you and you need to go. Don’t drag it out, don’t let it turn into a negotiation or otherwise buy time before you have the conversation again. Let it be a swift, sharp pain and then let it be over so he can heal.
If you want to help give him a softer place to land, then let your mutual friends know that it’s happening and that he’s going to need comfort and care; this way, you’re not leaving him to sit with this alone. At the very least, he’ll have folks who care for him to support him in the early days after you leave. Just because you’re ending things doesn’t mean that you can’t still do something kind and loving for him.
But as I said: before you make any decisions, make sure you understand how you’re feeling and why. It’s a lot harder to take back a break up if you realize you made a mistake than it is to say “Ok, I need to do X, Y and Z things differently.”
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com