My now ex-boyfriend (23) is moving to another city and I’m (27) curious about advice on keeping a friendship with him. We had an extremely stable relationship up until the end. I’d be surprised if I ever have a more stable partner in the future. He’s a real solid guy. Communication was excellent and we have a lot of common interests. It always seemed like there was a genuine friendship beyond our romance.

Ironically, the pandemic is what brought us together to the same place. We started dating in August of 2020. My BF had just graduated college and had started his first full-time job. I’ve been working for 5 years now and am a bit more settled career-wise. His job has been remote because of the pandemic, and he has been living with his family in New Jersey, near where I’m based out of. It was clear from the get-go that he would eventually be moving away for his job when the pandemic subdued and his company asked everyone back to the office. I also made it clear to him that eventually I’d like to move back to New England where my roots are.

He is four years younger than me, so I have longer experience than him in the gay dating world. The peculiar thing that always struck me is that he’s a self-described “date-aholic”. He loves the thrill of meeting new people and going on new dates. Possibly a result of being young. Didn’t sound like someone who would want to commit.

Fast forward three months to October 2020 and we agreed to an exclusive relationship with the full understanding that one or both of us would eventually move away. It was 6 months of bliss. We went on wonderful weekend trips together. Went skiing several times. Introduced close friends and family to each other. It was a lot of fun for me, especially since my previous partner was emotionally unstable.

There were a few minor hiccups along the way. I realize that no relationship is perfect. I gave him a hard time for not spending Valentine’s Day with me. He planned a ski trip with one of his girlfriends that particular weekend. I’m not sure if that was tactically planned, but it wasn’t a big deal as we talked it through, and we did a nice getaway date weekend the following weekend instead. In March, I got a little upset that we had a slight dry spell and he hadn’t slept over with me in a month, mostly due to busy schedules. Again we talked it through very maturely and discussed our needs. I have higher sex-drive than him, but again we found ways that, at least I thought, were sufficient to meet our needs. It was largely an emotional bond and a bond of deep mutual respect, rather than a sexual bond, that held us together. We had long been having a discussion on how things would play out when he moved. We agreed that whatever it would be, we wouldn’t completely cut ties after the move.

We planned a trip to Disney World for April 2021. He went down with his family for the first half of the vacation and then I came for the second part. The day I traveled down, he had a company quarterly meeting where they announced a return-to-office date of September 1st. I could tell something was off when I got there. As we went to bed the first night, we were cuddling, and he was closing apps on his phone. I briefly noticed one of them was the dating app we had met on, The League. Didn’t question him about it until the next morning.

He apologized for still having The League on his phone. And I didn’t really press harder since I really did (and still do) have a lot of trust in him. I also wanted to enjoy a really fun day with him at Epcot. I did start to probe about his quarterly work meeting and eventually got him to divulge that day about his back-to-office start date of Sept 1. Again, the moving away ordeal didn’t come to me as a surprise, but the dating app certainly did.

Fast forward another day, he put his phone down to do laundry, and curiosity struck me. I’ve always been one to respect his privacy. Never opened his diary, never had any urge to spy on his texts, but now things were different. I looked though the phone and found the dating app, The League, on the list of recently installed apps. Damn it was still installed. I took a look at the three guys he had matched with. He had messaged them within the past hour. I was immediately pretty shaken. We he got back from the laundry, I told him to sit down and have a talk with me. At first he was a little defensive about me looking at his phone and saying that he knew I’d look. I started to get more upset and it turned into a super awkward conversation and crying session (on my part, but he remained stone cold). He admitted he had downloaded that app just the other day. An hour or two, I was able to regain my composure and we went out for ice cream. I tried to keep the discussion about our future going. Eventually I did get a very heartfelt apology from him for downloading the app.

When we got back to New Jersey, he said he wanted some time to himself to let the dust settle and think things through. A week later, we went out for a very nice date and I asked if he was ok with staying in the exclusive relationship until he left in August. He responded with a hesitant yes, but that he was still thinking it through.

Four days later (last weekend) we went out on another wonderful date and as we were walking around town after dinner he took a deep breath and began to talk. He said he wanted to end the relationship now, because he felt it would be too tough to breakup right before his move in August. He also felt that since I had expressed interest in friendship post-breakup that it might best that we start trying to be friends now while he’s still in New Jersey, rather than attempt to establish the friendship after he leaves. As far as breakups go, it really wasn’t dramatic. We established that were now just friends. We had pleasant words to say, had a nice smooch, and held hands as we walked back to our cars.

I don’t think there is any one right way to breakup or form a friendship. However I found the expedited breakup surprising, albeit not an impossibility especially after the Disney affair.

We have been texting each other back and forth every day this week since the breakup (although with longer pauses between messages) which I see as a promising sign for the future of our friendship, but I’m still not sure if this is giving him (or maybe even me) proper space to decompress, even though keeping in touch with him does make me happy.

My strategy for the time being will be to let him have his space, but also have him be in the driver’s seat as far as the direction for next steps. Is this a good strategy? Is there anything ill-conceived in trying to maintain a friendship like this given the circumstances of our short-term romantic relationship?