I need to hang out pretty much every day and text all the time with my partner during a relationship. If not, I unfortunately and shamefully forget about the relationship and am bound to start getting closer to someone else who's mostly there.

When I met my boyfriend, I was casually dating a lot of people since I had come to the realization that I can't handle serious relationships. My boyfriend convinced me to try to be exclusive and said that he could handle me and all those things it'd be nice to believe. So I allowed myself to be convinced.

A big factor in my decision was that we were co-workers, sitting literally side-by-side 9 hours a day, 11 hours when we started commuting together. After work, both of us would do our stuff and forget about each other, knowing for a fact that we would be together the next day, so my need to text diminished and I was even OK with not seeing him during the weekends if necessary. I had a certainty that next day would come and he'd be there by my side no matter what. The relationship was complicated, though, but probably not borderline related.

Then he got fired. I had no certainty about us and the relationship anymore. It was the biggest grief I'd experienced in my life. His absence felt like a death. I went into depression for a while. I was so afraid of the future. How would I hold up if I had no certainty of his existence anymore? I would have to *trust* that he'd want to see me everyday, that he'd choose to be with me, that he'd make time for me, that we wouldn't drift apart.

We decided to meet everyday after my work. It was hell for me. I needed my alone time, I needed to work at my other job, I needed to do other things... Yet I chose what I considered best for the relationship and made the effort. Still, sometimes I felt like I was putting too much of an effort into it compared to what he was doing... but then again, the problem is me / mine.

December and January came. My worst months. My therapist had to pause our work since she moved countries. My boyfriend got depressed. The relationship struggled a lot. Very bad things happened.

My boyfriend finally just got a job. I'm so happy for him, but I know that our relationship is doomed. He won't make the effort to see me after his job, after I spent all this time sacrificing myself for him (I know it was my decision, but still).  He'll meet new people. He has a tendency of dating co-workers. He has cheated (not on me, though). I don't want a relationship to be a weekend relationship. And on top of that, he wants to hang out with his friends, without me on weekends.

As stupid as it is, I start pulling away if he takes too long to reply to a text. 

Sum all of that together... I just know I can't handle it. Maybe someday I will be able to handle time, distance and change as a healthy person, but right now I can't, even though I'm in therapy.

I will drift away, hang out with people who are closer, start forgetting about my boyfriend...

He wants us to try until the very last breath, but I don't think it's ethical to put him through this.

I hold on to the hope that I can change, but there's absolutely no evidence of it.


I don't want to hurt him.