“He Wants to Break Up Before He Deploys”

Is he really just a commitment-phobe?

Original column: Dear Wendy, no date

My take: Seven months ago the LW, a grad student, met an air force pilot. They jumped into a relationship with both feet, even though the air force was about to move him across the country.

They were a perfect match! When he had to leave, they agreed to continue long-distance. Once separated, they texted continuously and spoke every day. They planned for her to move to be with him when she finished her degree.

Then, abruptly, he told her he was getting deployed. He also said he was getting cold feet about her. He canceled a planned visit. He told her he has commitment issues.

She begged him to not to end what they had. After “many teary conversations” he asked for time to think, and she stopped contacting him. Now it’s been more than a week, and she’s heard nothing.

Is this deployment stress, she asks, or is she getting “strung along” by a commitment-phobe? She signs herself “Stuck in Limbo” and says this uncertain state is “really confusing and painful.”

Wendy’s answer is "deployment stress.” She writes: “It’s understandable that as the reality of that beast looms, he would freak out about how it will impact your relationship.”

Wendy says the boyfriend is trying to protect the LW from the pain of separation while he’s deployed. She also says he’s trying to protect himself from the pain of losing her, if she can’t cope.

She advises the LW to “give him a few more days and then reach out again.” But she also writes: “don’t put your life on hold for too long for someone you’ve only known a few months.”

Sigh.

You can’t help feeling for this LW. Her letter has that tortured, defensive odor of “this was real / I’m not making it up.”

I sympathize with Wendy, too. She seems to have grown up in a military family, so when she writes about deployment, I assume she knows what she’s talking about. And I guess she means to be kind. She certainly shines the most flattering possible light on this drama!

But the LW is suffering from limbo, and feeling strung-along, and unfortunately, Wendy’s answer will only prolong her misery.

Telling the LW not to put her life on hold for her departing boyfriend, after Wendy’s made such a romantic hero of him, is a head-snapping about-face, and will lead to nothing but heartache. If the LW continues to believe her pilot is “the love of [her] life”—which Wendy’s account of him invites her to do—seeing other men will be an exercise in futility.

It won’t matter if she lands a date with Prince Charming. She’ll be emotionally unavailable. The prince will be nothing to her. He’ll be unable to compete with the paragon in the LW’s head—the man she already loves, the perfect man, the man who isn’t there.

Wendy should have told the LW to follow this crucial rule for the lovelorn: Assume He Means What He Says. (Or what she says. Works both ways.)

I admit this can be very hard to do, especially when blinded by love. In the long-ago days when I was single, I spent a shocking amount of time in conversations with my girlfriends, developing theories about why the various men we were dating were so slippery to deal with. I wish I could get all those hours back! (Not really, because my friends and I bonded, and most of us are still close. But you get my point.)

The fact is, throughout those long, long, conversations, we were guessing, my girlfriends and I—just guessing, with a big scoop of wishful thinking on the side. And so is everyone who does that, including the LW.

So what should she do? She should hear what he told her. She wants to know if he’s a commitment-phobe? He told her he is! Asked and answered!

So what should she do? She should leave him alone. Pace Wendy, under no circumstances should she contact him again.

If they do end up talking, which Advice Obsessed does not recommend, here’s her best script: “I understand. Let’s go our separate ways. I wish you all the best.”

And then—this is the hard part—she should, for real, move on.