My boyfriend (28M) of 8 months is suddenly dumping me to “work on himself”. I (27F) have the most important exams of my entire life coming up and my friends are all focused on telling me how to get him back. Please give me some actually useful advice.

I met my boyfriend last year and it was a perfectfrom the first date. I was – still am – so so in love with him, he made me happier than anyone ever did, we were the sickening “perfect couple” who had all our life goals and our little quirks and our favorite pizza toppings in sync.

My boyfriend never shied away from showing affection to me, he’s been a great and enthusiastic partner. However he’s struggled with certain issues for the duration in our relationship and before (like mild depressive episodes, avoidant patterns etc.). I’ve been in therapy myself before and I thought he’d benefit from some therapy hugely and I encouraged him to go. So he started therapy January this year.

I noticed he recently hasn’t been around or wanted to talk as much. He tried to put on a good front but after some unusual behavior on valentine’s day I dug in demanding answers and he came clean. We had a week of painful talks but it boils down to, in therapy he’s discovered his issues ran much deeper than he thought, he’s been repressing a lot and he needs to work a LOT on himself. He doesn’t believe he can do it while being in a relationship with me and wants to break up. I understand some of his arguments but his crazy decision to just throw away our relationship seems like a huge, huge overreaction to me but he seems 100% committed to it even though it’s causing him visible pain.

Here’s where it gets even worse. After years in a boring dead end job I had taken the plunge and applied and got into a very competitive program in a field that’s I am extremely passionate about. This field has a potential for an extremely lucrative career but getting into that niche requires EXCELLENT academics. I’ve actually already have a job offer but it’s reliant on me reaching certain (and in fact very high) threshold in my final exams for this program. And if I don’t do well in the exams I will not only lose a job offer but will not be able to get any of the interesting / lucrative jobs and instead will be stuck with an alternative soul crushing career path while trying to pay off the loan.

These exams are coming up this March and will last two weeks (which is why my boyfriend… ex-boyfriend? didn’t want to talk). Meanwhile I am an absolute wreck, I cannot focus on studying, I was usually able to set aside everything in life and just focus on what needs to be done but I can’t even figure out what to do now. I am still talking to my boyfriend, we haven’t officially said we’re broken up yet although it's obvious, he keeps sending me my favorite food etc/ to support me through studying and offered to delay the final separation (how does this even work???), this is a mess.

I reach out to my closest friends and sister (all F around my age). But unfortunately my friends and sister all come from a very conservative culture (so am I technically) so even though they’re all educated women with degrees and careers they have it ingrained in them that a good marriage is the most important thing in a woman. They’ve all viewed my boyfriend as a huge catch (makes me happy, loves me and treats me well, puts up with my shit, great career and house and whatever – not as important to me but to them). So they keep suggesting how to deal with the boyfriend right now to retain our relationship which is just further overloading my brain. Because I don’t want to lose him, I don’t. A part of me would give anything to repair our relationship. But I also can’t focus on this right now. I am literally crying on the bed binge eating, I feel physically exhausted and unable to even drag myself towards my pile of textbooks let alone study.

So I hope someone more detached on reddit can give some sensible advice?

TL;DR: my boyfriend went to therapy, discovered he needs to work on himself, and wants to break up so he can do this. My friends pile up advice on how to repair our relationship. Meanwhile I have life determining exams next month and I am a mess.

Submitted February 24, 2019 at 03:09PM by superiorpizzagreen https://ift.tt/2So4n7p