Breaking it off long distance: over the phone or in person?

[WakeMyMind]

Hi, I'm new here, I've read a few of the other topics on here, I thought I'd share my story and get some advice if I could.

Since November last year, I've been in a long distance relationship with a girl that lives interstate. She live 950kms away from me. We try to see each other every month, although she has never come to my city, she was planning to in April.

We've always sort of bickered and argued a lot, even before we started going out we had a lot of disagreements but we thought we could make it work.
We've done a lot for each other too though, we always try to make each other happy, and despite how hard a long distance relationship was, we try to keep in constant contact by calling each other every night, texting each other frequently, talking online, mailing letters and little presents to each other etc.

But I haven't been in happy for a while though. While I do still love her, I also feel trapped and like maybe me staying in this relationship would be unfair to her.
She can be a very jealous person sometimes, she would get into big fights with me if I so much as spent a day with my friends.
I blow off plans with my friends all the time, I quit my band, decided not to go to college this year so I could spend as much time with her as possible, yet she still alway tells me that "I'm not around" for her. Except for work, I spend almost every day at home so I can talk to her, and I only work 3 shifts a week.
For example, last week, my friends invited me out to spend a night in the city together. I said okay since I haven't hung out with my friends like that in quite some time, I told her and she went off and started freaking out.
I feel as if being in this relationship, it gives me a choice, I can either have her or have my friends, yet she doesn't make me feel like I should feel all the time.

Also, she wants more out of this relationship than I have. I've always seen it as something special but I've just more or less been taking things as they come and haven't had any real major plans for us. I'd like us to move in together sometime in the future but I haven't been sure when.
She's been talking a lot recently about how she wants to move in this year, and how she wants to get engaged as soon as possible (i.e. over the next 6 months or so). This isn't something that I'm ready for, we're both still young. I'm 20 and she's 19. She told me if I don't want to get engaged and if she's going to be waiting more than a year or two for me to propose then we might as well break up right now.

So I called her up last night and broke up with her.
I called her, we talked for about an hour, I told her the distance was getting too difficult, which it has been, especially since I can barely afford living expenses on my wage, let alone afford to be able to travel and see her every few weeks.

The thing is, we've been planning a big Valentine's Day trip together. Next Thursday, I was meant to drive over to her house (which is a 12+ hour trip), and we'd spend the week together in a cottage. We've both really excited about it, but we've still had problems recently.
I was sure that I had to end things, and the people I talked to told me it would be better to end it before Valentine's Day or else it would just raise her hopes and expectations if we spent a full week together and then I broke things off.
In my mind, that was the more appropriate thing to do, why travel all that way on Valentine's Day to break up with her?
I felt she deserved a face-to-face breakup, but we live so far from each other, I ended up doing it over the phone.
She tried to reason with me, and asked me to wait until Valentine's Day and said I could break up with her then. But I didn't want to, I thought that would be more hurtful than anything to wait and see me all this time just so I can break up with her on that day of all days.

So I ended it over the phone last night. She now says she hates me, hopes I hurt forever for doing that to her and says that I'm gutless for ending it over the phone and not to her face, despite her face being 950kms away.

She said that she would still give me another chance if I wanted her back but I would have to go and see her next week, or, if I still wanted to remain friends, then I would still have to go and see her and break it off in person.

I don't want her out of my life, but I don't think I can cope in a relationship like this any more. A part of me wants to end it completely and say no, that I'm staying here, but another part things its only fair to her for me to go there and do it in person.
I'm conflicted as to whether or not ending it like that was the fair thing to do or not, or if I should go over there at least to say goodbye in person so we can stay friends at the very least.

Any advice would be much appreciated

[DonkeyKong]

You were in a tough position. Generally I would definitely say it's bad form to break up over the phone, but in your case, was it really worth a 12 hour drive to do it in person? I don't know what I would've done in that position, but one thing I can tell you is you made the right choice to break it off. This girl sounds like one of those people who expects every accommodation to be made for them without putting in any effort in return. First of all, NO girl is worth your time if she's keeping you from your friends. Any girl that can't respect your need for time out with your buddies (ESPECIALLY since you live so far apart!) needs to be gone. Was she out hanging out with her friends? Why is it fair for her to expect you to stay home all day talking on the phone to her when you could be out enjoying the other people in your life? She sounds very insecure, like if you give anybody else attention besides her she'll freak out. Second, why is it always you who has to make the trip to see her? That hardly sounds fair to me. All long distance relationships are difficult, but if one person has to put in all the effort it's not worth it. End it, and keep it off for good. Let her find some guy who lives nearby whose life she can rule over.

[DonkeyKong]

Also, who cares about Valentine's Day? It's not even a real holiday anymore, it's just a corporate invention used to sell flowers and candy and make people feel like they're inferior or supposed to be unhappy if they're single on that particular day. It would've made no sense to drag things out until Valentine's. I'm currently on NC with my ex, and frankly, I'm glad to have such a clear view of where we stand right now. Who wants ambiguity in a relationship on Valentine's Day? My breakup process started the day after my birthday, and some people might view that as a cold move on her part...I don't care, it's just another day. When you boil it down, holidays are just like any other day. There's no reason to treat them differently when deciding how to handle a relationship. You might feel a bit lonely on V-Day this year, but so what? Is that worse than feeling like you're stuck in a dead-end relationship? I don't think so.

[WakeMyMind]

Exactly, thankyou!

It's a really tough decision, and if we hadn't planned on spending Valentine's together, then I would probably be more sure that I'm doing is the right thing.
But it's at the bare minimum, a twelve hour drive, which can get quite dangerous (I blew out a tyre and was stranded in the country over night last time), all that way just to hug her and say goodbye.
I know that it would be a very sweet and considerate thing to do, but at the same time, if she really wants to say goodbye like that, then I wouldn't stop her from coming here, but she doesn't want to.
She's never come here before, originally she was going to come here in December, but I somehow ended up going there instead, then she was going to come here this month but she's "never travelled alone before," so she postponed it until April and only agreed to it if I drove all the way out to her house, picked her up, drove her back to my city, stayed with me for a few days, then drove her all the way back home again. That's a solid $500 in petrol alone at least, and about 48 hours worth of driving.

She doesn't hangout with her friends as much these days since she lives in a small town and lives an extra half hour away from everyone else she knows, but she still goes into her town regularly and always bumps into her friends there anyway.
When I've confronted her about the whole me not being able to spend time with my friends, she's said that she's just jealous that I get to see my friends more than she sees hers and she's jealous that my friends get to see me when she doesn't, and tells me she isn't really mad at me. But I can't remember a time in the last three months that I've gone and hung out with a friend without her getting weird about it, sending me all these text messages ("when are you coming home" "should I bother waiting up for you" "you're never around when I need you" etc) however, I hangout with my friends once a week at the most. Sometimes I've gone a solid month without seeing any of them just to keep her happy.
The last time I went to a party, I left at like 10.30, even though the party was going on until like 4 in the morning, this was because she said she needed me around and if I wasn't home before midnight then she "didn't know where our relationship would stand."

Despite all this, she does do a lot for me and care for me, but I can't handle it any more. I have no time to myself and I have barely any time for my friends, or for anything else. There are a lot of things I still want to do, my old band has been asking me to come back, and I really want to, but when I mentioned the possibility of rejoining my band, that of course sparked another argument because band practice would apparently take up all my time and I'd only be able to talk to her for like an hour a week, according to her logic. She's also been uneasy since the vocalist in my band is a girl and she gets jealous easily.
I also need to find a new job, I don't think our relationship would survive if I found a full-time 40-hour a week job, but I desperately need a new one. There are things I'd like to study but I don't have time to do that since I spend everyday talking to her.
And my friends are slowly starting to give up on inviting me out since I almost always say no now, and if I do, I only hangout for an hour or so before leaving.
I can't sacrifice my friends for a relationship that I'm unsure about.

And you're right, Valentine's Day is just another day. I know it's sad since all the couples are going to be celebrating their relationships on that day and she'll be single (so will I), but at the end of the day, it's just another day. I buy her gifts and do sweet things for her all the time, doing that on Valentine's Day wouldn't make a difference.

Ah /endrant