How do you guys stay strong during a break?

[Jessipoo]

How long did your breaks last?
Did you guys cut off all communication during that time?
Was there tension in the relationship (and stress in your lives) leading up to the break?
Did it help?


I know the obvious one is find your own path, stay strong, keep busy. I have been doing that, planning all of my weekends ahead of time so that I am constantly doing things with people. But I'm wondering if other people have any other suggestions I may have not thought of?

[Haley53]

How long did your breaks last? A little over a month. I don't remember when we reinstated titles, but it was a little over a month since he called for the break (put a right damper on my Halloween, it did ).
Did you guys cut off all communication during that time? No, but it was limited due to circumstances beyond our control.
Was there tension in the relationship (and stress in your lives) leading up to the break? Yes, there had been tension in our relationship as far as limited contact and he had withdrawn. He called for a break about two weeks after his mother's funeral.
Did it help? I don't think so, no, but we didn't take a break for the sake of our relationship or to improve it any, so maybe that's a reason why. He took a break from the titles (we were still exclusive and talked like lovers to one another) simply because it was not something he could handle with everything that was going on in his life at the time. His world was completely turned upside down and he needed to find a way to get back on his feet. Being honest, the break was more like putting everything about "us" on pause. I go back and forth about thinking it made us stronger. I do think I feel more strongly about our relationship, but that's more because of what we've been through together the past several months as a whole. I think the break itself still sometimes causes me to feel anxious and insecure, because it plays off deep rooted insecurities I had going in to the relationship. It was definitely something I had to learn to let go of and move past, and something I have to work on reassuring myself about because it's unnecessary to bring up something he regrets in ways and is sorry for but can't change. It's been a matter of forgiving and letting go, and I think that if it's one lesson I took from taking a break, it's that you have to be willing to let it go.

[Jessipoo]

Are you worried it may happen again?

[Kiyama]

I had a break with an ex a few years ago. I initiated it because I found out about a major lie (on of many over the years). I needed time to breathe and to find out what I really wanted. So I wasn't the one waiting and hoping but maybe it will give you another perspective. To be honest, I hadn't been happy in the relationship for a while and even though back then a break was what I needed, I knew it was the beginning of the end. I don't want to scare you and it might be completely different in your case but you should be prepared that the break might become permanent. I think our break lasted about two months before I called it quits. The break definitely helped me to see things clearer. I had been in a relationship for six years with a guy who frequently and easily lied or at least hid the truth and I was able to evaluate the consequences of a future life with him. We still got on well so without the break and my feelings still strong I might have stayed and forgiven him once again. Once again because I had given him a second chance a couple of years before that but eventually I had to realise he just wasn't going to change and that I didn't want to spend my life with him.

Did you get to speak about having a break? Was that a decision he told you about or do you just assume so? I can't quite recall it from your previous threads, sorry.
I find it important to not let the other person "hang in the air" for an unspecified amount of time. Of course you might not know at the beginning but at some point you have to make a decision or at least set a date when you will talk again.
I would also use the time to reflect about your relationship. Even though it his him who wants the break, I believe that it often involves two unhappy people to cause an unhappiness in a relationship.
Other than that I can't tell you much more than you already know: stay busy, stay strong! I hope it works out for you *hugs*

[Jessipoo]

No, we didn't talk about it, he just disappeared on Whatsapp and never responded to any of my emails or phone calls, but he hasn't had time to respond to many of my messages lately anyways. That's what makes this very difficult. We had a fight 2 days before he disappeared on me and we ended it with yes I still love you but one more thing and I'm done. We spoke for 2 days following, small chat like we did nothing serious nothing upsetting, and then he just disappeared. Either he re read what I had written before the fight (where I told him I felt broken hearted and that I felt our love was not there anymore and if this situation was to continue like this that I couldn't keep going on) or one of his gazillion problems worsened (family illness).

I keep beating myself about it but my sisters say honestly, it takes 2 people. Even though he had a lot on his plate, serious stuff, it wasn't fair for him to not make any time for me, even if I would cry or plea to give me 5 minutes of phone time, he just didn't care and eventually it blew up to me "not putting his needs first" and such, which is more or less true. I would send him videos, emails, photos to keep him updated on my life or just cheer him up and the only time I knew he actually watched my videos or enjoyed them was when he was down and asked me to send him, which I had done before even reading the email because I could just sense he was upset.

I requested just a cheery love message once in a while to keep me going, to keep me strong so that I could be strong for him (which he never did.. I understand being busy but god, don't people take poop breaks lol) and one video from him which he never sent me (and later he claims that he tried and it didn't work.. I don't know why he couldn't just be upfront about it). He's very much a focus on one thing at a time person, if he devotes his time to something, it's 100% that and it seems nothing else. It's just hard to constantly be the person that has to stay strong when things weren't going that great on my end either. So I guess we were both being selfish in that sense.

They also said maybe this is a wake up call, that he puts work first (he did says work trumps all sometimes which I found was not right) but it's been 3 months out of 10 months we've done LDR and that he went into this crazy new job in a company that doesn't value work life balance whatsoever and ignore employees requests for time off. I feel it's become me vs his job for a while and he would tell me to stop analysing his job but he would never give me feedback on questions I'd ask or give me his conference traveling schedule (even though he said he would give it to me then later would get upset and give me xyz reason as to why he didn't give it to me and get mad at me for asking it again) or this or that. It's hard to know if this was a permanent situation or temporary (with work just being busy for now) because we'd never dealt with this in the past. But all of our promises were broken and he didn't feel sorry about it at all.. just that this is life and I should be more understanding. Every time a promise would break, I'd try to reinstate new promises with less expectation so that we could meet half way. Those would break again.

Our love never felt one way in the past, if I was upset he'd always try to cheer me up and vice versa. And then all of a sudden, it became one sided. I understand life can be difficult and stressful but not showing your partner appreciation or giving them some time (he did at the beginning of the LDR) is difficult. There are probably many reasons on both parties that led up to this point, cause and effect. At this point, it feels like I love him more than he loves me, which was never the case in the past.

[Haley53]

Are you worried it may happen again?

No, not really. I can't say at this age, I would have the emotional maturity to handle losing my mother, becoming semi-homeless, and having to take care of my younger sibling while still being able to maintain a relationship either, even though that took me a while to come to terms with. To me, however many people may disagree, I feel like breaks due to crises are different than breaks in general, that the ways people respond to and handle crises vary and it needs to be realised that sometimes, those ways are going to leave a lot to be desired for a relationship. That being said, I do feel we grew as a couple from the situation, and I also believe that this is who my partner is at his worst, so to speak, as in, losing a mother you are close to will leave you in the most amount of shambles you will ever be, and so I'm not necessarily scared of it happening again. With all this said, I was told throughout the experience that I was a lot more patient/forgiving than others would have been and I know a lot of people who would not have put up with what I did. I put up with it because I understood it, simply because I saw my mother grieve the loss of her mother, and that understanding allowed me to realise that I was not at all a priority at the time but that didn't mean it was going to stay that way.

[Kiyama]

I understand the problem you have with your SO's work situation because, well, mine is similar
My SO has a super busy job. Highly paid but also highly stressful and he has a lot of responsibility. He gets called on weekends, during the night even because the unions don't allow weekend or night shifts so he has to be available 24/7.
For a while I accused him of putting his job first, of not making time for me but eventually, I realised that wasn't the case. So I can only tell you what I had to learn the hard way too. It's not about you. It doesn't mean he doesn't love you anymore and it doesn't help blaming him about a situation that is crappy and he can't get out of at the moment. It is still frustrating but not his fault. And maybe he's made compromises you don't see as such?
My SO calls me even in little breaks of a few minutes. I work as a teacher and when I'm at school, no matter whether I have a lesson or a spare hour, I'm either too busy to make calls or I just want to relax for a little bit. That's important too so I admire that he calls me because I don't know if I could if he wasn't asleep anyways lol. I was only able to see this recently. So what I'm trying to say is that not every expectation can be met but maybe he's done things you just overlooked?
I know your situation is even more difficult because it's not just about the job though. I'm not sure what advice to give here. The only thing you can do for the moment is wait I guess :/

[Jessipoo]

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I understand the problem you have with your SO's work situation because, well, mine is similar
My SO has a super busy job. Highly paid but also highly stressful and he has a lot of responsibility. He gets called on weekends, during the night even because the unions don't allow weekend or night shifts so he has to be available 24/7.
For a while I accused him of putting his job first, of not making time for me but eventually, I realised that wasn't the case. So I can only tell you what I had to learn the hard way too. It's not about you. It doesn't mean he doesn't love you anymore and it doesn't help blaming him about a situation that is crappy and he can't get out of at the moment. It is still frustrating but not his fault. And maybe he's made compromises you don't see as such?
My SO calls me even in little breaks of a few minutes. I work as a teacher and when I'm at school, no matter whether I have a lesson or a spare hour, I'm either too busy to make calls or I just want to relax for a little bit. That's important too so I admire that he calls me because I don't know if I could if he wasn't asleep anyways lol. I was only able to see this recently. So what I'm trying to say is that not every expectation can be met but maybe he's done things you just overlooked?
I know your situation is even more difficult because it's not just about the job though. I'm not sure what advice to give here. The only thing you can do for the moment is wait I guess :/

I wish it was just a job stress.. unfortunately it is not, it's job stress + 1000 other unresolved problems.

I was probably jumping the gun with this one but I kept harbouring feelings about maybe he won't want to move after a year (he said he'd try to transfer after a year, but seeing how the company deals with things now, I see that will be impossible and he'll probably be there for 3 years at least...) or that if I moved there he still wouldn't make time for me or my god what if we kept going on like this and 10 years down the road we had kids and I'm basically a single mom with a non existent husband? Yep, jumping the gun but he kept saying how much he loves his job and he wouldn't reassure me that I was more important or that even if he loves his job he loves me more.. so I would harbour all these feelings that would come out in another way, but it would boil down to the feeling of neglect. He would ask me to send him things to look at (school or work stuff) but would never respond to them, despite him asking me to send it to him..

At the beginning for sure I overlooked some of his effort or I would expect more, but I quickly realized it wasn't possible and became more lenient. I still feel he can offer some sort of explanation for a missed call or not taking 5 minutes or making 5 minutes to call me. It's been even more difficult because on weekends, he's away on conferences. I feel that is a good time to try to make 5 minutes, but he probably uses that time to schmooze with other people at the conference, etc. It's just difficult when it's a 24/7 thing... I know I would handle work stress differently. I always make time for the people in my life. If my mom calls out of worry because she hasn't heard from me in a day or 2, I don't freak out on her, I take it as a sign of being cared for (but I know some people would react differently to this).

If it weren't for the family illness situation, I feel it would maybe be better, but at this point this is what it is. I think I overestimated his strength and resilience too, he is a very strong person but he has never moved to a new country (and dealt with all the difficulties that come with it) on top of all of this. He also wouldn't keep me up to date with things getting better, worse or resolved and sometimes they would get resolved and I would figure it out later so I just started to assume if he doesn't say anything about something, it's cuz it got better or resolved. And if I brought it up, he'd get defensive.

If I would bring up but we said this or that he'd say you don't think I know that already? Ya it sucks. But nothing would get dealt with or change..

Because even when work finally does calm down (which from he's told me will be end of July I think), he'll still have the family illness situation to deal with which doesn't show signs of improvement.

When he disappeared, I even asked I am super worried, I just want to know if you are okay, that's all I ask. He didn't even respond to that text. I told him I woke up at 2:30 am and couldn't fall back asleep because I was so worried but he just didn't care. So I went to work the next day with 2 hours of sleep and being worried. I know he is alive though because I saw online activity from his soundcloud page last week.

This whole thing is messy. Anyways, back to the original topic.. suggestions on how to stay strong?

[Jessipoo]

About a month and a half ago, we both wrote ourselves notes to ourselves in our phone, mine was to not send out frantic messages and him not writing wasn't a "lack of love" as he put it. His was to try more or something (not sure what he wrote actually). But all of that goes out of the window when another crisis happens. To me, there is always a way. Promises don't have to go out of the window completely when a crisis happens or when work picks up, they can be modified slightly though

I sent him an apology email 2 Wednesday ago (a few days after he disappeared and I sent a few worrying texts) from then to now I sent a few random emails to cheer him up (random youtube clips) and some hope things are better texts and you are always on my mind, and I'm sorry for not putting your needs first (even though that's not 100% true but he said that when we had our fight).

I know people said don't write him at all but it's so difficult given the situation. My last resort was to show up at his door step and wait until 2 am if I had to in a month or so when I take my vacation time, my mom was willing to go with me but now she's starting to have a change of heart. Yup, I'd "waste" my vacation time and money to do that.

I haven't been writing him everyday though and I keep them as positive as I can. At this point, I don't think I will be apologizing anymore, although I do have a second long email that I was working on and contemplating sending him in 2 weeks (1 month total no talking on top of it being my birthday).

[Haley53]

But all of that goes out of the window when another crisis happens. To me, there is always a way. Promises don't have to go out of the window completely when a crisis happens or when work picks up, they can be modified slightly though

I mean this with all due respect, but have you ever lost someone you loved? Someone that you were genuinely close with and bonded to?

[Kiyama]

I agree with Eclaire on this. Loosing someone you love doesn't compare to an ordinary crisis.

With regard to his not calling: how did your phone calls go back then? I'm asking this because if you spent the little time you had on the phone with fighting, he would feel even less inclined calling. I don't know if that was the case with you but it sounds like you gave him a hard time about it as well.

or that if I moved there he still wouldn't make time for me or my god what if we kept going on like this and 10 years down the road we had kids and I'm basically a single mom with a non existent husband? Yep, jumping the gun but he kept saying how much he loves his job and he wouldn't reassure me that I was more important or that even if he loves his job he loves me more.. so I would harbour all these feelings that would come out in another way, but it would boil down to the feeling of neglect.

Nobody knows what the future will bring us. Life can change so quickly and planning ten years ahead is simply not possible. Also it sounds like you are in constant competition with his job or at least you put yourself in some kind of competition, which I don't understand. Don't compare yourself to his job. You can't make someone choose between the job they love and their partner. It isn't the right thing to do. He loves what he does but that doesn't mean he doesn't love you.
And unfortunately, I think someone on the forum told me this when I was new to the whole ld thing, a close distance relationship doesn't compare to a long distance relationship. What he does now, he might not do when you are close distance or did you have this issue cd as well?

[Jessipoo]

yes, but I don't block people out when that happens. I understand different people have different ways of coping, I was with him when his grandma passed (well he went to the funeral not me) and he wasn't like this. Although he wasn't going through the other stresses. I guess I'm just more short with him because of putting work above me for months.

And this is family illness, he hasn't lost this family member yet and I hope to god he doesn't because that would be very painful for him.

---------- Post added at 04:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:44 PM ----------

I agree with Eclaire on this. Loosing someone you love doesn't compare to an ordinary crisis.

With regard to his not calling: how did your phone calls go back then? I'm asking this because if you spent the little time you had on the phone with fighting, he would feel even less inclined calling. I don't know if that was the case with you but it sounds like you gave him a hard time about it as well.




Nobody knows what the future will bring us. Life can change so quickly and planning ten years ahead is simply not possible. Also it sounds like you are in constant competition with his job or at least you put yourself in some kind of competition, which I don't understand. Don't compare yourself to his job. You can't make someone choose between the job they love and their partner. It isn't the right thing to do. He loves what he does but that doesn't mean he doesn't love you.
And unfortunately, I think someone on the forum told me this when I was new to the whole ld thing, a close distance relationship doesn't compare to a long distance relationship. What he does now, he might not do when you are close distance or did you have this issue cd as well?

We did fight once in a while on the phone but not always. I guess when you are both disagreeing on something, each person sees their point of view as the right one. His phone is often on vibrate and not always on him. And since my long distance plan is better, we decided I would be the one to call him. I got overly sensitive at time, I guess I'm just different. If work was that busy, I would always tell the person sorry, I'm on the phone with work. Or I'll call you when I'm free or I'll make it up to you.. or something. I was expecting a lot from him.. including when he asked me for my full shipping address so he could send me something (and nothing ever arrived - I know this is me being picky but I was getting so excited, and he did say he had a lot of things planned while we were doing long distance, I just never saw them. I didn't hold this against him because it's something nice and I don't want to turn it into something negative, it just hurts to see he has time to post things online here and there on soundcloud but not take a few minutes to write me something nice)

anyways, as for close distance, his job wasn't as demanding and I had never seen him go through one of these intense production modes. He told me at his old job there would be weeks he'd just live and breathe at work non stop. CD, he stayed late a few times but would always make it up (insisting I meet him for dinner before he headed back to work) or pick me up so I could sleepover but we'd always have our weekends to each other (minus a few exceptions but none due to work). I asked him to ask at the interview if there was overtime at the job, the HR person laughed and said no, it's 9-5 but I was so naive to believe such a thing.

[Haley53]

yes, but I don't block people out when that happens. I understand different people have different ways of coping, I was with him when his grandma passed (well he went to the funeral not me) and he wasn't like this. Although he wasn't going through the other stresses. I guess I'm just more short with him because of putting work above me for months.

And this is family illness, he hasn't lost this family member yet and I hope to god he doesn't because that would be very painful for him.[COLOR="Silver"]

I really don't mean to sound horrible, but maybe you shouldn't be in this relationship if this is going to be your viewpoint. You're saying it would be painful for him, if his mother passed. You don't think it's painful for him now, while she's dying? Yes, the cancer has been diagnosed. Hopefully she can receive treatment for it. However, that does not take away the fear and it also does not take away the fact that people die from cancer; there is no cure from it, and even going into remission is a gamble as far as how long it's going to last. On top of this, it's all happening while he's at a distance, which makes it that much harder. I know you're upset he's putting work above you, but it's not just work. He's lost four people since you've been together, you mentioned, even though he was only close with one (his best friend, so I'm guessing his attendance at his grandmother's funeral was hard on him, but not soul destroying, if they weren't close) and his mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Those alone are more of a crisis than anything. You say you've lost someone you loved and you understand people have different ways of coping, but you aren't providing him with any understanding at all, rather latching on to those who say "it takes two." Until you've lost your own mother or have seen your own mother wither away due to terminal illness, maybe you can't understand, but I'm honestly starting to feel like maybe it's better you two aren't together, simply because he can't provide for the needs you can't set aside.

[Jessipoo]

I understand everything sounds horrible the way I'm writing it out, I'm probably not expressing myself properly as well; I'm not here to defend myself, I don't have energy left to do that. Writing from a place of confusion, pain and hurt things never comes out right and I took full responsibility of my fault and wrong being as transparent as I could here. This isn't based on one instance or one situation. It was a slow build up. Either way...

I can't say what the state of her cancer is and maybe I was insensitive to it because haven spoken to my sister (who is a doctor) she told me that people rarely die from breast cancer. Unless it spreads, then that's a whole other story, I don't know details of it so right off the bat, I went into thinking everything will fine. And of course I believe it will be painful now, I guess it's just this whole time we were together, I never saw him as being close to his parents, often shooing them off in conversation on the phone with them.

But parents are parents, no matter how close or unclose we think we are to them. I'm not belittling the situation he is in, I'm not trying to analyse his family relations either (though he said but don't know if he meant that he was closer to my family than his), by any means. Family illness is difficult on anybody. And that friend that died of his, I have no idea if it's his best friend or not, either way it's not a pleasant experience. He just said it was his only friend in LA, I don't know if they were close or not but he was close enough for him to take time off work to attend the funeral. At this point, I don't care what the past few months in the LDR has been, difficulty wise and who did or didn't do what. Adjustment period is finally coming to an end. I just want to move past it and be there for him.

My only gripe is not knowing what is going on now. And anyways, I started this thread for suggestions on how to get my mind off of things not to rehash the problems

[Jessipoo]

I'm trying not to get too influenced by anybody and my family have tried to be encouraging only because they know how I feel about him.

My family is saying the way he's treating me is unacceptable, fighting to this degree without letting me know anything and how hard can it be to give someone you love 5 minutes, that it's total emotional abuse and that any time we had a little fight in the past he wouldn't forgive and forget (like if I would complain once about not talking enough or this or that he'd get super upset and defensive rather than try to find a solution and it's obvious he's holding grudges) so if we can't get past things now, that it would've come out in the future.

They keep telling me you will get over it, that I have to start moving on and that I'll find another soul mate.. although it doesn't feel like it. I will still hold on a little longer. I want to try until end July but.. we'll see.