Dear Meredith,

I was inspired to write to Love Letters after listening to the podcast. The long and short of it is: My boyfriend and I recently broke up. For the third time. He is English, going to medical school in England. I live in the US, doing research here. We fell in love while getting degrees abroad. Then he lived with me here for a few years. Eventually he had to go back to England, and so the began the international long-distance. For a long while, we had it down – the time difference, the sexting, booking flights, taking time off of work, letters, long phone calls, etc. Things went sour when he got into his dream school, and I did not get the scholarship I would need to be able to get my next degree near him.

The challenges were real. He was busy, I was depressed. His future was full of promise but my path forward was falling away before my eyes. We fought often, mostly due to the angst of separation, but also due to the fact that we were suddenly in two very different places in our lives, literally and figuratively. We loved each other still, and every time we were together it was undeniable. This was how I learned that there are situations when love is not enough. Love could not help me with the practicalities of becoming an international student. Love could not pay off my student loans.

I still believe that if we were in the same place, both moving forward in our lives, we would be together. While he was no angel in the end, I can’t help but feel like my failures broke us.

I’m hoping you have advice for those who deal with long-distance break ups (which have a horrible quality of feeling like that person is still everywhere, somehow); and particularly breakups where two people are still in love, but when love is not enough to keep you together. I cannot imagine moving on, and have no desire to. Where do I go from here?

– Not enough