Me [26 M] with my girlfriend [25 F] 1.5 years. She wants to take a break, I don't. First long-term relationship. Need to know if it was even normal.

Edit: This is long, sorry.

My girlfriend and I have been dating for the past year and a half. The relationship has been long distance until about a month ago when I graduated law school and took the BAR, so I was finally able to move home.

She was my high school crush. We reconnected at an alumni soccer game and started texting and snapping. She lived with her alcoholic ex-boyfriend at the time. She would talk to me, but then he would get mad and pull her strings and they would get back together for a week (this included hooking up) and then we would start talking again shortly after. I finally help convince her that she could come back to her hometown and start nursing school, and with my help she was finally able to get away from him, move home, and start school.

While I was courting her all this time I made promises so that she would give me a shot, the big promise was that I would come see her every weekend. During the fall semester this worked well because she didn’t start school and we could split every other weekend coming to see each other, however once school started things began to get rough. She could no longer come up because she had school all week and then had to work on the weekends, so it was me coming down every weekend. I made a promise that I would leave my school when I got out of class and I would stay all weekend and head back Monday morning before class.

At first this was ok, but after a while things started to change. First she would be at school all day Friday and then go to work, so I would literally be down Thursday night and be waiting to see her all day. Second, she wanted me to leave town right when I got out of class at 5 p.m., I lived in Houston and I told her about traffic and she said “if it were me I would want to spend as much time with you as I could so I would wait in traffic.” And third, I started to feel like I was missing out on my life up at school as well. My friends who were so close to me the past 2 years wouldn’t even text me anymore when they were doing things because they knew I would be gone, and I also felt like I was just living out of a bag since I was only home for 3 days out of the week.

We had a huge fight when her cat died. I was scheduled to have dinner with a friend before I headed down to see her. This is my best guy friend who I had to bail on twice already for me to go down and see her on the weekends. He ended up being late to dinner which made me late getting back to see her, and she was not happy about that. The fights continued with me not wanting to come down right away on Thursday or wanting to do stuff with my friends Thursday night, it was a constant struggle.

Then I made two very big mistakes. First, I was talking to a friend to a friend one day (who was a girl) that my girlfriend new from coming up to see me. They got along very well and one day she and I were talking about her relationship issues with her boyfriend. At that time my girlfriend called and my friend wanted to answer the phone. I thought the answer was going to be like “hey girl, how you doing? You need to come up, we miss you,” but instead it was “hey, I’m borrowing your boyfriend right now.” Yea…. Second I have class with another girl, who was one of my closest friends in law school (and who my girlfriend knew and liked). We went to get drinks before family law class a couple days after the phone incident and that made things worse.

We had our first real break up shortly after. She was supposed to come to law school prom with me, however after these recent events it was constant fighting and she ended up telling me the week of that she needed to study for an exam. So I went and planned things with my friends. The day of we start yelling and fighting constantly, I don’t remember why. On a whim she decides to drive up and calls me halfway, my reaction was “oh, ok wasn’t expecting that” when she was wanting an “OMG yes babe, thank you so much.” More yelling ensued and finally I just said “look, maybe you just shouldn’t come because I just want to have a good time, and us being there in this state is not going to make things fun. This is my last law prom and I want to have fun with my friends.” Probably the worst things I could have done… She told me never to talk to her again.

I had never been in a break up before, I casually dated in college but this was my first long term relationship. I immediately consulted my parents, who of course had my side but after that talk began to treat my girlfriend different, as if we weren’t as serious. The breakup lasted about a week, we ended up getting back together, and things were good for a while until after finals. I came home for 2 weeks before BAR exam preparation. While I was gone one day she went through my iPad and found all my messages between me and my friends during the whole break up thing. She claimed almost everything I said was bias and when my best friend suggested that I date my best girlfriend in law school and I said “maybe I should.”

I don’t believe her but she claims when she talks to her friends that both her and her friends are completely unbiased and now my friends hate her because I twisted everything my way. After she read the messages she wanted me to go talk to all my friends I vented to and set the record straight on everything that happened in an unbiased way. I thought that it was stupid, because in my opinion your best friends are there for you when you need them and they know that you’re venting and being bias, so I never did. She then started telling me that she didn’t want me around the phone girl, drink girl, or my best girlfriend anymore.

Come BAR exam time I’m studying 12-14 hours a day. I have studied for finals every year with my best girlfriend and have made decent grades. I tried studying by myself but it was not working so I started studying with her and my other friends again without telling my girlfriend because I thought that gave me the best shot to pass. She called me out on it a week before the exam saying she knew but didn’t want to say anything because I was studying and wanted me to bring it up. The last straw that summer was one of our good mutual friends coming up to see her family wanted to grab lunch with me. This girl and I had a party/makeout buddy relationship about 6 years ago when I was a freshman in college. Basically we would party together, hangout and do things, but we never got past making out. Since then she had become a really good friend of mine who would do things with me in Houston or when I would come down to my hometown. He and my girlfriend also hung out pretty regularly as well.

I finally move back (and she is one of the primary reasons I moved back and took the job I did) and I’m ready to start my life with her and things seem ok. One night she is asleep after a night of drinking and one of my friends that went out with us that night asked if I could send him all the pictures we took. She keeps then all in her Snapchat Memories, so I went there to find them. I start seeing pictures of us so I keep scrolling and smiling until I hit that week when we broke up and I find a picture of her ex naked playing guitar. She had went and slept with him that week we had broken up. I confront her and she says she was going to tell me when/if we are going to move in together and that we were broken up so it didn’t matter, which is a load of bull in my opinion. Albeit this was the same guy that constantly blew up her phone during our entire relationship, called her off random numbers, and she even admitted whenever we would get into a big fight she would unblock him and start texting him. This communication between them had been going on throughout our relationship. I had suggested starting fresh when I moved back, she was hesitant until this happened, but after this she agreed.

My parents had planned a family trip to Jamaica a couple months back for me and my brother’s graduation and she couldn’t go because she had school. She really wanted me to stay back and not go but I told her they did this for me and that I was going to go, which she didn’t like. After the trip (which was about a month ago) things seemed like they were going perfectly, however yesterday she sits me down and says that she wants to take a break.

She says that she just doesn’t feel the same way that she did 8 months ago before all this stuff started happening and that she saw me trying so hard since I moved back but that she didn’t feel like her heart was in it right now. She wanted some time to figure things out and didn’t think it was fair for me to keep trying so hard when she was feeling that way. She said that she still loved me but it was more of a love she would give a best friend, not a boyfriend and wanted to see with time and space if she would get those feelings back.

I tried to ask for some parameters on this break like “how long? Are you going to see other people? If there was another guy, and will we still communicate” but every time I did she would just say “do whatever you want and that it was up to me on the communication part.” As I left in tears I gave her a long hug and a kiss and told her that I loved her and she said I love you too, and now I’m writing this. I want to wait and see if she changes her mind.

These are all the issues we have had, but it was also filled with a lot more good times than bad. We were deeply in love and would take trips together all the time. Loved just hanging out all day and watching Netflix laying on the floor building a nest, going out with friends, laying in the yard watching the stars, going to sporting games, etc. She is the love of my life and I love all her little cute quirks and sayings. I really planned on marrying her, I started putting a little bit back from each paycheck at my new job to save for a ring.

So now I’m here, sorry for the long story but I have been meaning to post this for a while. She makes it feel like I screwed up everything in this relationship when I just had a hard time understanding some of the issues she had. Like I hang out with girls in law school that have no interest in me what so ever, we are just friends, but she doesn’t see it like that. I should want to be down to see her right away, but I’m thinking logically about avoiding traffic. Because I want to hang out with my friends doesn’t mean I’m putting them before her. I feel like throughout this relationship she has been immature, my friends agree, but since I never have been in a long term relationship before idk if she is being immature, or this is just what a normal relationship is like. The big question is, is this what a normal relationship is supposed to be like? Or did I screw all this up?

I know 90% or more of people on here will say breaks don’t work and that it is most likely over but I feel like there is something still here. Has anyone had success with a break? I don't think she is doing it to see another guy because she isn't like that, I honestly think she is just taking time away.

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tl;dr: First long-term relationship. Advice on whether it was a normal relationship. Girlfriend now wants a break. Don't know what to do.