I’m queer and NC with my entire family since I was 20. I’ve been with my partner for nearly 5 years and thinking of breaking up. It’s not personal - it’s because I’m not sure that a long term relationship with ANYONE, not just him, is what I actually want in life and what would make me happy long term. I’ve never been in a long term relationship before and during this experience, I slowly realized that I didn’t like long term relationships that much. We love and care about each other, we communicate and resolve conflict well, we support each other, we share common values, that’s not the issue. It’s that just like some people don’t want kids, I am realizing that maybe I don’t want a long term relationship.

I know, however, that I need to have a sense of family support and have a network of people who act like my family to be happy in life. I just struggle to figure out how that can look like outside of a romantic relationship or blood relations. There’s no model that society shows you about how that works and I’m honestly just kind of lost. Like, I want to have a family and have the support and kinship that a family provides, but I don’t think I want to be in a relationship with someone. How is that supposed to work?