Dear Heather,

I am in a long-distance relationship that I need to end. My boyfriend lost his job last month, and I think it forced a lot of difficult feelings and issues to the forefront, none of which he seems to be really sensitive to as a threat to our relationship. I was having doubts about our relationship pre-job loss, and the fallout following the job loss has brought these doubts to the surface — not because he does not have a job, I have full faith that he will be ok and bounce back, and the no job thing does not reflect poorly on him for me at all. It’s more about communication and our ability to connect, which again, he does not have a problem with. He calls me the love of his life, wants to marry me, etc. and I feel awful that I have to end this. I’ve been twisted up about ending things with him for weeks, and feel physically sick over it at times.

I want to add that he has a history of mental illness, and has a tendency to fall into deep depression, and I’m concerned for him. So much so that I was considering putting off the breakup. However, he started looking for jobs where I live, and I don’t think it’s fair to have him continue do that if I want to end the relationship, of course.

Ideally, I would have liked to go to him to break up with him, but we had existing plans for him to visit me, and I can’t change course without him being suspicious (tried and he got testy, and is insisting he come here). Would it be really awful to break up with him here? How can I do it? I’m really twisted up about this and hope that you can answer. I’ve been scouring your archives for something similar, but decided I wanted to ask you directly.

Thanks so much.

Celeste