My [23F] girlfriend [23F] of three months and I broke up because our schedules didn’t align

My girlfriend and I started dating in October 2019 and broke up two days ago. Basically, we broke up because our schedules were both busy, hers especially. I am doing some travelling interspersed through January and February. She is a classical musician playing in an orchestra this weekend — which involved early-morning practices through the first three weeks of January and late-night practices this week — and coming up has some auditions for graduate programs, has to record clips to gain entrance to summer music programs, and has to start practicing for her final undergraduate recital, on top of other schoolwork. So, super busy!

I understood that she was really busy and tried to be accommodating, but on the other hand, I felt not-very-cared-for because she didn’t seem bothered when we couldn’t spend time together. This also relates to her demeanour; she can be rather impassive about most things. I started to feel like she didn’t care, felt sad, and then felt some resentment developing. So we sat down and talked about the situation.

In deciding what to do, I said that if the busy-ness and resulting lack of seeing each other was temporary, then I could wait a while (a month? a few months?) and deal with not seeing her, but that if it was an indefinite pattern then things probably wouldn’t work. I also expressed my hurt that that was the case, along the lines of “as much as I want to say it won’t be a problem if we don’t see each other, it’s clearly already a problem, and I don’t want to have this conversation over and over again and then break up acrimoniously in future.” She said the busy-ness was probably going to be indefinite, “as much as I want to say that it won’t be indefinite, I know that won’t be true and I will let you down.”

We ended on good terms. We are both quite sad about the situation. But we also recognize it as the right call in that we were conflicting about scheduling and it wasn’t working for either of us.

Some part of me wonders if I could become okay with seeing her infrequently. I’m wondering if anyone has experience dating someone where this schedule conflict was an issue, especially if you were in my position where you felt that you were available but the other person wasn’t, and how that resolved for you? Were you able to adjust your expectations and see them infrequently but be fine? Did you also end up breaking up? Are you still with them but unhappy? etc.

For those not familiar with classical musicians, they practice for ~4 hours per day (on top of the other stuff, like classes and orchestra practice and whatnot). But you don’t have to have dated a musician to help here; anyone who has dated someone who invests a lot of time into one thing can help — people who prioritize their career, professional athletes, students who work at the same time as attending classes, etc.

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tl;dr: my girlfriend and I broke up because I wanted to hang out more but her schedule couldn’t accommodate that, and I’m wondering how people in similar situations have handled being in my position.

Submitted January 31, 2020 at 12:13AM

My girlfriend and I started dating in October 2019 and broke up two days ago. Basically, we broke up because our schedules were both busy, hers especially. I am doing some travelling interspersed through January and February. She is a classical musician playing in an orchestra this weekend — which involved early-morning practices through the first three weeks of January and late-night practices this week — and coming up has some auditions for graduate programs, has to record clips to gain entrance to summer music programs, and has to start practicing for her final undergraduate recital, on top of other schoolwork. So, super busy!I understood that she was really busy and tried to be accommodating, but on the other hand, I felt not-very-cared-for because she didn’t seem bothered when we couldn’t spend time together. This also relates to her demeanour; she can be rather impassive about most things. I started to feel like she didn’t care, felt sad, and then felt some resentment developing. So we sat down and talked about the situation.In deciding what to do, I said that if the busy-ness and resulting lack of seeing each other was temporary, then I could wait a while (a month? a few months?) and deal with not seeing her, but that if it was an indefinite pattern then things probably wouldn’t work. I also expressed my hurt that that was the case, along the lines of “as much as I want to say it won’t be a problem if we don’t see each other, it’s clearly already a problem, and I don’t want to have this conversation over and over again and then break up acrimoniously in future.” She said the busy-ness was probably going to be indefinite, “as much as I want to say that it won’t be indefinite, I know that won’t be true and I will let you down.”We ended on good terms. We are both quite sad about the situation. But we also recognize it as the right call in that we were conflicting about scheduling and it wasn’t working for either of us.Some part of me wonders if I could become okay with seeing her infrequently. I’m wondering if anyone has experience dating someone where this schedule conflict was an issue, especially if you were in my position where you felt that you were available but the other person wasn’t, and how that resolved for you? Were you able to adjust your expectations and see them infrequently but be fine? Did you also end up breaking up? Are you still with them but unhappy? etc.For those not familiar with classical musicians, they practice for ~4 hours per day (on top of the other stuff, like classes and orchestra practice and whatnot). But you don’t have to have dated a musician to help here; anyone who has dated someone who invests a lot of time into one thing can help — people who prioritize their career, professional athletes, students who work at the same time as attending classes, etc.tl;dr: my girlfriend and I broke up because I wanted to hang out more but her schedule couldn’t accommodate that, and I’m wondering how people in similar situations have handled being in my position.