From a High School sophomore: I’ve been best friends with this boy for almost 4 years now. We’ve been dating on and off since then. He pretty much cured my depression and self-esteem problems. This last time we dated, we were together for nearly 10 months. We fell in love, but he lives about 70 miles away from me, and we barely got to see each other. That was okay though, because it didn’t really affect the way we felt about each other. After a while though, he started getting in a lot of arguments with his friends and his family and I didn’t understand why. I’m completely opposite all of his friends, but him and I are so alike and so close. I never felt right around his friends though.
He broke up with me a couple weeks ago for another girl, but he still loves me. He tells me that every day, and he told me not to give up on him because we’d be together eventually. Now, he doesn’t love the girl he’s dating…but his parents do. His friends love her. Everyone loves her, but not him. I know he really wants to be with me, but I’ve recently found out that no one in his town likes me at all, worse yet, they say it’s also because of the way he acts when he’s with me. But really, all he was doing was being himself. I know who he really is inside, and he pretends to be someone he’s not around everyone else but me. I may be young, but I know I’m in love with him, and I need to convince him that he’s better off with me, because he knows he is, he’s just afraid of what his friends will think. I just want to be with him again, because I don’t remember what it’s like to be without him.
This relationship has been a wonderful gift while it lasted. It helped you pull out of a depression and it showed you that someone can care for you deeply. But for a relationship to grow, people need to spend real time with each other, not just IM and texts with a visit now and then. It’s time for you to find a local boy who can love you and be with you and grow with you – not because of what your ex’s family and friends think – but because you deserve to have someone who is really in your life in an every day way.
You both have a job to do to be really ready for a serious relationship. He’s got to figure out for himself who he wants to be. You’ve got to find out who you are separate from him. Please tell your ex for me that he isn’t being fair to either of you (or the girl he is dating) to keep telling you he loves you when he knows he won’t be with you for awhile. That behavior lets him move on but keeps you stuck!
My best advice to both you and your ex is that you go out with other people and get some experience with other relationships. I know that may seem scarey. I know your feelings for this guy are still strong. But take that positive self esteem you’ve won and give the boys in your own high school a chance.
If your relationship with your long distance love is meant to be, the time to be talking about it is when you graduate. You will then be old enough to make decisions about whether you want to be together and how to make it happen.
I wish you well.
Dr. Marie
