My girlfriend’s dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer when I was going to break up with her.
I’ll try to keep this short–
I have been dating my girfriend for a little over a year now. We haven’t had any fights, there are no red flags or conflicts in our relationship.
Rather, I’ve come to see her as more of a friend than a romantic partner, and am no longer interested in continuing our relationship. I had been planning to end things with her and meet up with her to have this conversation about a month ago.
The day before we agreed to meet up, her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
I couldn’t tell her I was breaking up with her after that. Not on that day.
The past month has been a lot. I’m torn between wanting to be supportive, but also worrying that she will only grow to lean on me further and that when I eventually do break up with her and that it will hurt her even more in the long run. I’ve been trying to find a good time to break the news–and between the holidays and everything else on her shoulders, I realized that there might never be a ‘good’ or a ‘right’ time.
I’ve gotten conflicting advice, including some that think it would be better if I remain supportive for months until she is in a better place emotionally and mentally. Others have argued that it’d be leading her on and only making it that much harder for her in the long run. The other thing is that we don’t know how long her dad has left. It might be years. Weeks. Months.
I don’t know what the right answer is.