My bf and I have been together for 2.5 years. We love each other a ton, but at the beginning of this year I underwent a very stressful selection process with a national public examination to enter residency in my country. It went well and I got into my dream hospital for my desired medical speciality, but my relationship hasn’t been the same since.

During this time, my bf and I entered a loop of cyclic arguments and resentment. Basically, I felt he wasn’t showing me support the way I had expected him to (though he did make efforts), and in turn he felt he no longer could be honest with me because he had to protect my feelings.

In the months after the exam I recognized the mistakes I had made and how I had been maybe a bit too sensitive and demanding at times. He apologized for having pulled away when I had needed him most. The arguments stopped for the most part, but for a while we struggled with intimacy. He wouldn’t initiate sex more than once a week (it used to happen way more often for us than that) because he said he felt emotionally disconnected to me.

I have confronted him about this in a gentle manner several times, and asked him if he no longer wanted to be in this relationship, to just leave. Every time we have sat down to have a serious talk he has said he wants to stay to give us a try and work together on fixing our issues. However, he will sometimes get stressed when there’s minimal conflict between us and start saying things such as “he doesn’t see a point in trying” and “being in this relationship feels like work to him now”. I asked him please to refrain from saying those things if they weren’t actually true, but if they were true to just break up with me because they were pure agony for the both of us. For context, he has had a very stressful time with work from April to October, with less than one free day per week, so any free time he had he ended up (by his own choice) spending with me. He agrees that the fact that he resents the relationship for it is not my fault but rather his work schedule not being sustainable and plans on making changes, but some damage is already done.

We had one last serious chat about our relationship and he said he had felt an improvement in terms of feeling connected and wanting intimacy, and that he wanted to work on our relationship now that he had more free time. I have always wanted to give us a try as long as he’s not staying just out of fear of hurting me, which he says he isn’t, that he wants to try for himself too. So we came up with solutions for dynamics that weren’t working and supposedly left that conversation feeling hopeful.

But 12 days after that I called him to meet up like we had agreed to days prior and he felt off, so I told him if he didn’t feel like it we could take a raincheck. He went on saying he didn’t feel like it because the relationship doesn’t make sense to him. We ended up meeting up but I knew this wasn’t sustainable nor helping anyone, so I told him I wanted to take a break. Before getting into the subject he asked to just cuddle for a while and he was super affectionate with me in person. He initiated making love and told me he loved me many times during, told me he was really glad we were getting to cuddle and I was so confused because why did he say he didn’t feel like seeing me on the phone just an hour earlier?

So we went on to talking about the break and he asked if we please could postpone it because he really felt like spending Christmas together and doing the plans we had discussed together. I was even more confused? But I said no, we had to take it now because truthfully there’s tons of cool plans we could be doing at any given time and we won’t if he keeps on being so ambivalent. He then said something like “okay, so we’re sacrificing this year’s Christmas so we can spend many more Christmases together”. Again, just so incoherent. We had a chat and he said he rationally did always want to be with me and work on our issues, but that for the past few months the thought of seeing me or me calling him made him anxious. He said maybe it was conditioned from the time we had frequent arguments and associating those negative feelings with me.

So we decided to take a “break” within the relationship. Basically it’s a month without seeing or talking to each other to try to “reset” some unhealthy patterns and the resentment and anxiety we feel. I say within the relationship because we aren’t seeing other people, we’re still together and what I got from the conversation is we both have already decided we do want to continue to be together after this break, so it’s more like a “tool” than taking the time to make a decision. We are meeting on December 23rd, we planned the date together and we’re supposed to resume the relationship then.

But now I’m so scared that it was a mistake and he will change his mind again. So many people on the internet say breaks definitely doom a relationship. Is there any chance this will help us or have I doomed the relationship by suggesting a break?

TL;DR: My bf and I are healing from a period of stress that drove us apart but he’s ambivalent about wanting to keep trying to solve our issues. I suggested we take a month-long break within the relationship, did I doom the relationship?