I have never been in a relationship like the one that I am in right now. I love her with all my heart, but she is just SO scattered right now. When we met, everything was great. Better than great! It was amazing! She had plenty of money. I did too. All was well in our lives. And then all of the sudden, she had some pretty catastrophic money issues happen. And she has been scrambling ever since to rebuild her whole life basically.
I genuinely cannot do anything for her. I would say that all I can do is support her, but she hates it when I say encouraging things like, "Everything's going to be okay" etc. She has started snapping at me, "I don't need your advice, and you are not my therapist." We used to text each other sweet little messages all the time. Now, overnight she barely texts me at all. She used to call me all the time, and now she rarely even answers the phone.
Under any other circumstances, I would have bailed on this relationship a month ago when all this bullshit started. But I KNOW that all of the problems come from her absolutely throwing herself into her job to try and save the ship from sinking. She never answers her phone because she spends 23 hours a day on the phone with clients. She doesn't text, because she isn't even thinking of me anymore... she has her mind on the 45 emails piling up in her inbox, and the appointment with a client that she's already 10 minutes late for. So I have a hard time just being like, "Screw this!" and leaving her. Because for 9 months prior to this, she was my little princess who was my love and my best friend. I'd hope she would cut me the same slack if I ever hit a bad spell.
But now... after this past weekend, I really think that we need a break. I've never said that before, because I always just thought that "Let's take a break." was a cowardly thing that weak people say that can't admit when something was just dead in the water over. And well, now I either am admitting that there is such a thing as a healthy break, or that I am just now that weak person that can't admit it.
Anyway... how does it work? I believe in structure. I don't believe in, "Let's just see what happens." Because I'll tell you what will happen. I will meet someone else in about 2 weeks, have sex with them, and then it will all be over. Because she'll ask, and I am not going to lie. Or also... what might happen is, we agree to take a break, and then we just never stop calling each other, and there never was a break.
So... what does it mean to take a break? Does anyone have any successful experience with this? And please, this is my life here, and I take it seriously. If you are just going to give me your hunch, or some angst-filled response that is filtered through your own past failures... please don't. I know it's tempting as hell to launch into your opinion... but if you don't have first hand experience with "taking a break", please move on. Thank you, really.