I (28m) am starting to lose feelings for my girlfriend (25 f) of 4 years and am struggling to wrap my head around breaking it off.
For context, she has recently been diagnosed with adhd, and hasn’t worked or drove since the start of the relationship to due anxiety. I have tried my best to work through this with her but there has been no progress and I’m starting to get tired of having no forward momentum in my life. I care about this women with all my heart but have started to lose sexual interest in her. The problem is that her world revolves around me as she doesn’t have many friends or social life and I’m afraid this will cause her life to spiral further out of control which will likely lead her into a depression. I care about her a lot and I don’t want to see her be hurt but I also know that I don’t have the same feelings I once had and that it’s not fair on her (or me for that matter) to keep it going if I no longer have those same feelings. Would love some advice on how to proceed, please feel free to ask questions if it means getting a clearer picture. And no we do not live together.
Thanks
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The truth is staying out of guilt isn’t love, it’s delaying pain. Be honest and gentle. Acknowledge your time together, own your feelings without blaming her, and make it clear it’s not working. Offer support if needed, but don’t carry her life. Letting go now is the kindest choice.
You have to rip off the bandaid. You’re not helping her but waiting to break up. You’re prolonging the inevitable and pushing back the point at which she can be over it.
You’re not wrong for wanting to break up. You deserve someone you want to be with, but she also deserves someone who wants to be with her. The longer you stay the more you’re in the way of her finding that person.
Tough situation. The first thing I’d recommend is to ask yourself whether you’ve fallen out of love, or if it’s just the stress and exhaustion from what you’re going through. Sometimes burnout clouds everything. It’s hard, but ask yourself: if she were doing fine, would you still feel this way?
If you’ve truly fallen out of love, well… there’s nothing more to do. It’s time for a conversation, and time to let go.
If you’re still in love, then the questions become: Can I handle this? Or is it better to walk away?
You’re in a complex situation, and what matters most is that you make the decision for yourself—not for her, not for what others might say, and definitely not out of guilt.
Talk to her. Tell her how you feel about this.
Don’t make it about her and her actions (or lack thereof). And make it clear that you want to empower her… it’s not possible for you to cure her anxiety or create a growth mindset… she needs to be able understand he motivations, her goals in life. And be able to discuss your separate goals and make relationship goals together.
See what she says, and then it’s her decision. She can choose to work on herself but if not, she understands that your values are not aligned.
Feelings will always wax and wane in relationships, but a relationship is two individuals who choose to do life together. And if goals OR the desire to work together on something hard does not align, then that’s when relationships crumble.
If you have already made up your mind that you’re done with her, then you can certainly let her know too. But I think it’s worth a conversation first.
You just have to do it. Listen, this won’t be easier in two years, five years, ten years, or fifteen years. It definitely won’t get easier if she accidentally gets pregnant. She’s not doing anything to become self-sufficient, because she doesn’t have to. You meet all her needs.
Just take her out to a coffee shop and tell her, “Listen, I love you very much, but I can’t do this any more. I don’t want to be together any longer.” Then, tell her your expectations. If she has somewhere to go, like moving home, I’d just tell her you’ll help her take her stuff to her parent’s house this weekend. If she doesn’t have somewhere to go, I’d formally give her a 30 day notice, so she has 30 days to figure it out. Then, I’d take a step back from all of it, because this is HER responsibility to figure out, not yours.
And after she moves out, I’d wish her the best of luck and block her on everything and move on. It sounds cold, but you won’t be doing either of you any favors dragging it out.
You just have to rip the bandaid off because as you said, it’s not fair for either of you to be trapped in this relationship any longer.
It is not going to be easy and it is going to hurt but it will be far more painful if you keep waiting.
You also cannot let the notion that her whole life revolves around you and your friends cloud your decision. That is not your problem or your fault.
Hopefully the break up will make her realize she needs to make changes in her life and get the help she needs to empower her to do so.
To be human is to sometimes experience hurt. There’s no way to avoid that completely, and trying to usually only creates more hurt. Break up with her by explaining, in the kindest/gentlest way possible without sacrificing honesty, the insurmountable problems you see with your relationship. Tell her you love her very much, but love alone just isn’t enough for you. It’s been four years, there hasn’t been enough positive growth in the relationship for you to want to continue, and you don’t have it in you to keep on trying. Leave out the part about you losing sexual interest in her since that’s just a symptom of the real underlying problem and would only cause her unnecessary hurt.
While I understand your concerns about the potential effects of the breakup on her life/mental health, ultimately that’s her responsibility, not yours. You also have to consider how being in a relationship her partner doesn’t want to be in would negatively affect her life/mental health, as well as your own well-being if you stayed. You deserve happiness just as much as she does, and that’s impossible to find in a relationship where both partners don’t want to be there. Nor will she find it by having her world revolving solely around a man, in which case staying with her does more harm than good. Like you said, it’s not fair to either of you.