My boyfriend is best friends with his most recent ex that he said was his first and only love. Is break up the only option for me?

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I’m trying to build up a set of criteria for when a couple should and shouldn’t break up, or if I can’t do that, at least when I should break up with a girl. I haven’t seen anything in there that makes it clear to me, and when things are unclear, I want to start to work to make them clear. Once they are clear, then you break up.

Reason is, if you break up now, you won’t have really learned anything about yourself. There’s nothing here that’s concrete, something where if you see it start to happen again in the future, you’ll know to head it off if you can or break it off if you can’t.

My situation is remarkably similar to yours. The girl I’m with is still hung up in some way over her first true love. That guy was amazing and I asked her how she let him get away. Well, in short it wasn’t her fault so I can’t hold it against her. At the same time, I can’t deal with half a relationship and I’m getting increasingly family-minded over the last few months so I’m not at all sure what to do about that.

My advice to you is to give it time, and try to learn a little bit more about his situation every time you talk to him. Encourage him to talk openly and honestly about his previous relationship. Maybe it’ll give you some clues as to how you could maybe change things up so they work better for him.

If it really starts looking like he can’t move on, then I’d say it’s time to give him the boot. But make a good-faith effort to really know before you pull that trigger because once you pull it, you don’t retain the option to un-pull it. But at least this way you’ll know with greater certainty why.