I’ve been dating this girl for a year and a half, but I’m finding that I’m just not happy anymore. When we first started dating I was very happy, but over time things have gotten bland. We get into occasional arguments but they are all super petty and we end up having very unhappy evenings because of it.

We usually make up, but I can tell that some things we have said still sting. She gets stressed often and I try to comfort her and encourage her, but when I get stressed, I feel she would rather let me deal with it on my own, and sometimes gets mad at me if I’m in a bad mood. We know we aren’t going to the same college and so we figure we’ll probably break up after we go off to college, but I’m starting to think it should be sooner.

I need my space, but I can’t tell her that without hurting her feelings. She admits she can be judgmental and petty, but after a while it still gets old. She’s been going through a lot, she’s constantly stressed with schoolwork and even her family pressures her negatively sometimes, and I feel that if I broke up with her, she’d be devastated. I want her to be happy, but at the same time, I feel I need to be happy too, and I don’t get that sensation I used to. What should I do? Should I break up? Or hope that going off to college will break us up for me, with less hurt feelings?