How to handle the breakup of a long term relationship?

Not saying that there isn't other stuff going on, but: She has told me that her birth control pills and the stress she is under have affected her sex drive. I believe her when she says that she wasn’t cheating, but the reasons for the decline in our relationship seem a little shallow to me. Stress and birth control pills are not a shallow reasons to not want to have sex as much. I mean, either acting alone can do the trick. Did she get on hormonal birth control when you moved in? Because epressed libidos are a really, really common side effect for a lot of women on hormonal birth control I've seen it happen to a lot of women, and I've had it happen to me. It's pretty awful because you just. don't. want. to. And at least for me, the guilt/resentment about not wanting to have sex bleeds into other things, such that I don't want to do anything that remidns me of sex, like cuddling Also, I note that you talk about how the first semester was great for your relationship, but you don't mention whether it was great for her. Did she do academically as well as she was used to doing? Did she have to work much harder to get the same results? How much time did you guys spend together before you moved in -- was it an hours and hours every day sort of thing, or was it a few passionate encounters a week? How have the two of you been handling day-to-day living? What are your living arrangements like? How are chores split? What are the academic work loads? There's a lot that you haven't mentioned, and it makes me think there is a lot more going on in the story than just one partner suddenly changing her mind.

She has told me that her birth control pills and the stress she is under have affected her sex drive. I believe her when she says that she wasn’t cheating, but the reasons for the decline in our relationship seem a little shallow to me. To be a little flip: you've never been on birth control pills, have you? To be less flip: hormonal birth control can have significant side effects for women; mood changes, depression, and decline in sex drive are some of the most common. They are real, and they have physiological components. They do not make her "shallow," and unless you would like to be seen as rather shallow yourself, I would gently suggest you educate yourself on this score.

Also, it seems from your comment that her reasons for not being passionate seem shallow. You think this way because you are young and self-centered (no offense intended, I am young and self-centered too). You think the reasons should be about YOU, but she is telling you very clearly that the reasons she is 'withdrawing' are probably more about her. The best thing you can do is listen to her and try to alleviate some of those reasons - take on more of her household chores, create more unscheduled stress-free time in your lives, go back to condoms so she can go off the BC, etc. Really this is both of your problem! She has to be part of the solution or the 'fixes' will be impossible to sustain.

Don't underestimate the changes that can be wrought by birth control pills. They can completely kill even the most active libido. And if affection and sex have been generally linked in your relationship (as they are in many-- once a couple starts having regular sex, it's easy to fall into a pattern where all private physical intimacy leads to sex), this may be why she's avoiding other displays of affection. She may be afraid that if she cuddles with you on the couch, kisses you and hugs you, you'll want sex, and she may be completely freaked out about the fact that she doesn't, and therefore, whether consciously or not, avoiding that cuddling. If you do want to save this relationship, you may want to talk to her about looking into other birth control options. Switching to an IUD made a world of difference for me. Do it soon, though, because the longer this goes on, the more your relationship will be damaged by the distance between you. Do understand though, that sometimes the passion does just disappear, and it doesn't mean there's no hope for future relationships. Your first long-term relationship probably (statistically speaking) won't be your last, and that's not a bad thing. You learn something from every relationship, and you get better at relationships as you learn, meaning (ideally), that your relationships just get better and better.

She assured me that she wasn’t cheating, but has yet to give me a satisfactory answer about why she is so distant. You know, I would trust her on the birth control stuff. I would just trust her until she says anything differently. You haven't been rejected. So I wouldn't worry. You sound like you're feeling really lonely. And she sounds like she's extremely stressed. The passion will be back once school is over and things are more settled. And your girlfriend is not every woman. Most women would kill to have a committed and caring partner, and be good to you for it. So don't worry.

Anonymous OP, people are calling you shallow, self-obsessed, too young... but I think they're skipping past the part where you said, "the affection she once showed (hugs, kisses, etc) has slowly gone away as well." If, as you suggest, all affection has gone away, you aren't being shallow at all. A low sex drive is one thing - but that has nothing to do with cessation of normal, everyday physical expressions of affection. That takes a drop in affection (or some other serious psychological factor). If it's really about the sex, wait until break, and see if things improve. Be supportive in the meantime. If it's about your love interest acting as though you're little more than a roommate (her words aside; I mean actually behaving like a girlfriend, with or without the sex)... time to move on. In that case, something has changed, and it's not grad school, nor pharmaceuticals.

I can offer nothing of value but I was a bit bothered by your statement that "at some level she loves me." Well, yea. At some level I love my ex- wife too.

I can tell she genuinely feels terrible about hurting me This is not enough. If she felt bad enough she would alter her behavior to stop doing things you have already asserted hurt you.

A couple things: 1. Problems are normal It sounds like your relationship was really close to perfect initially, with no problems, and then once the problems showed up the relationship went down the tubes. So it's understandable that you would have a feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop, feeling as if the relationship could end at any time when difficulty shows up. But ideally, in a relationship, you'll have good times, and you'll have problems, you'll work through the problems, and then you'll have good times again. I think if you have that experience, rather than this perfect one day, dead the next type of thing, you'll feel more stable. But that requires . . . 2. Being communicative about/honest about/working through problems I don't know if this is a problem caused by your gf only, or if both of you contributed to it. But as your question was written, it sounds like your girlfriend was not all that communicative or honest about the troubles in your relationship. Birth control pills could explain the lack of a sex drive, but they don't explain lack of hugging or desire to lie to you. And that's only the first step. Even if she were honest, the two of you would have to take concrete steps to work to solve the problems. It sounds like even the smallest attempt was not made to do that. If you dated a person who was communicative and honest, and did display effort to work through problems, I think you would feel a LOT more secure that when problems cropped up, the whole relationship wouldn't just die.