I could not keep a promise to my boyfriend, and I think I should break up with him
I am a guy who has been with another guy for about 11 months. We're both gay grad students. He is not afraid to hide himself from others, and he told his parents about me (and even put me on the phone with his mother) about three weeks after we met. (I should add that our families both live very far away from where we now study.) After about 6 months, we had a fairly heated discussion regarding when I might tell my parents about the relationship. I told him at that time that my parents know that I am gay, but that telling them about a relationship would probably rock the boat in a very unfavorable way right now (they and my extended family are very Catholic; my mother in particular would take it hard, and my Catholic priest uncle would probably have a big problem with it).
I tried to compromise by telling him that I would try to tell my parents at Christmas. He then got a little agitated and said that that wouldn't be soon enough, but I explained the situation, and he relented.
Anyway, Christmas rolled around, and I didn't tell them. I was afraid to rock the boat. The fall semester ended up being extremely challenging, something my boyfriend and I didn't know would happen when we had the heated discussion. I was not sure if my Ph.D. advisor was going to fire me, even though I was working hard; we had a communication breakdown that we still have not recovered from, and I don't think that I have my advisor's confidence. During that whole crisis, which still hasn't really resolved, my parents and family were very supportive, and all I wanted to do was come home and have a normal Christmas. I wasn't exactly burning to tell them about my boyfriend because it would have made everything very awkward, and my family time would have been severely shaken. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy my vacation.
My boyfriend called me the other day, and after a little beating around the bush, he told me that he was disappointed in me for not having told them. I acknowledged this and told him that I was sorry but that I really needed normalcy this Christmas and was unwilling to turn things on their head when it would likely be taken very uncomfortably. He responded that there are always troubles in life and that that shouldn't have stopped me, but I said that I wouldn't do it, and that I was sorry about it, but that it wouldn't change for now. He hung up the phone, and I haven't spoken to him since, because I could not think of anything to say that would have comforted him.
I think that, once I return to school, we are going to break up. Either he will break up with me, or I will break up with him because I hate knowing that I am making him unhappy, and I am not at a point in my life where I can be the proud guy that he clearly needs. He also seems to want settling down and marriage in the relatively near future; we're both 24 and in grad school, and I really disagree with that. I've been thinking about that for months, and I know that that would not happen either, so this might be a good time to end it anyway.
The main problem here is that I made a promise (in so many words) that I couldn't keep because I was weak. I need to man up, for one, and I need to not make a promise that I can't keep. I thought at the time that I could do it, but things happened that caused me to break it. Still, I think that I should never have made it. Regardless of how this turns out, there are some big lessons for the future that I have learned.
Anyway, what do you guys think I should do? Should I break up with my boyfriend? Should I wait for him to do something first?
