I'm so, so sorry. I don't think it's a matter of whether you want to leave him or not. He's leaving you. I don't mean he's leaving the relationship, although he sort of is. What I mean is he's traveling halfway around the world. You can call, and Skype, and Facebook, and text, but it's still a year apart.

This is the kind of thing that would strain a relationship with two people who have no doubts or anxieties who have been together for decades, who have no history of any cheating or problems in their relationship, who are on an incredibly stable footing. Unfortunately, your relationship isn't at that level. He hasn't even left and your anxieties are off the charts. How are you going to feel 3 months in when you're bogged down with your PhD duties, and he is having a blast exploring new cultures and experiences on the other side of the world?

And that's the other thing I wanted to share, because I've done exactly what your boyfriend did. I went away for a year to South America. While I was gone, the people I left behind me all felt a loss. There was a hole where I was missing. Sure, they did other things or Meadow their friends, but what I mean to say is the surroundings, environment, and routine was the same, it's just that a piece was missing.

On the flip side, I was having entirely new experiences and adventures. How could I possibly describe them to the people back home? Everything was different. The food, the people, the language, the music, the culture, the sights, and the experiences. Everything was completely different, and the people back home simply couldn't relate.

All they felt was a loss, the feeling of missing me. All I felt was delight and excitement at being overwhelmed at all of the new and exciting experiences in my life. I didn't have time to miss anyone back home, I was having too much fun and trying to find my footing in a new environment.

You're going to be home, pining away, feeling a loss, feeling a gaping hole that your boyfriend's presence used to fill. You will be so lonesome, and wanting to communicate with him all the time, and text him, and call him, and let him know what's going on in your day, just like you do now.

To him, while he will still care about you of course, all of that is going to be so far removed from everything he's doing every day that it's not that he won't care, it's just that he can't care very much, because his life will be filled with tons of things that are so completely different and immediate and far away. He will have the immediate and challenging task of establishing himself in an entirely new culture, he'll have his own anxieties and challenges to deal with on a daily basis, and unfortunately, he won't have the time or energy to deal with your anxieties over the relationship, as he will have urgent, daily-life types of issues he'll need to sort out right away and adapt to.