I never post on reddit and I'm sure this is going to get back to him but I really just want advice overall because neither of us know how to proceed and im beyond caring. For context me and my boyfriend have been dating for 7 years, since we were 16 years old. He was my second ever boyfriend and I was his maybe 2 or 3 girlfriend.
As juniors in highschool we kinda decided once we go to college, long distance wasn;t our thing and we would breakup, but obviously easier said than done. I ended up choosing the same college as him to stay together with both of us being pretty close to home. Throughout college though I studied abroad twice, with both times being pretty bad for the relationship. Moreso for him. We aren't good with communicating often and I knew that was something I could be better at.
Fast forward to a year ago when we graduated college. I moved to a larger city about 3 hours away for an internhsip which turned into a job after 4 months. Now, 10 months after I moved, he's telling me that the long distance is getting to him and he had a breakdown about it. He said the only way he can get past this is if he feels less attached to the relationship so it doesn't weigh on him as much and he's scared how he'll feel after 6 months (which is when his lease ends and we plan on trying to move in together). He says when I was gone the other times it was really hard for him and he would end up isolating himself form his friends and whatnot. He is having some doubts, but he doesn't want to break up because it won't solve missing me.
For reference, the long distance obviously isn't fun, but it's not something that weighs this heavy on me. I see us as 2 separate people who don't complete each other but make each other better and i know that eventually we'll be together and it will be just a dot of time in the rest of our lives together. I did a lot of work to not have my life and happiness and mood rely completely on my relationship. He says I'm in the miniority about this not affecting me as much. I never once doubted our relationship.
After this revelation I don't really know how to feel. I know long distance is a lot harder for him, but I feel like this comes with the territory of dating in our most formidable years (high school, to college, to starting our careers). I feel like it's more unrealistic to think that we would stay together physically through every big transition in this time.
On top of that, I now have to live with the fact that only one of us has full faith in this relationship and its not him. And despite him saying he doesn't want to break up, there doesn't seem to be a solution except get over it? We could try and visit more, but he said the weekends every 2 weeks doesn't really help and it's also hard. I think its unfair to complain about distance and then say trying to see each other more is hard, but he says this was a hardship he never wanted to sign up for in the first place, but he doesn't want to end our relationship.
Is 7 years sunk cost? Is there even a solution here that isn't get over it or breakup? I don't think either of us even know where to go from here.