I got Crohn's and lost a boyfriend

It wasn't exactly a cause-and-effect type thing. We had been having problems for a little while, and this just seemed to exacerbate them.

When your girlfriend is in the hospital, a couple of text messages doesn't exactly cut it. And a one hour visit where you can't wait to get out of there doesn't help either. I felt like we didn't really talk anymore.

And I was scared. A chronic disease, which I'm going to have for the rest of my life. And one with symptoms that aren't exactly polite dinnertime conversation.

I didn't want to tell him. And I kind of needed some time to deal with everything myself.

So we went on break. He didn't exactly protest, telling me that "he'd respect any decision that I made" and later in the conversation asking if "I even still loved him".

Feelings aren't a light switch that you can turn on and off, but sometimes they aren't enough.

We met one week later for coffee, and ended up having more fun with breaking up with each other than we'd had dating in a long time.

We'd gotten boring. School, work, plus an undiagnosed chronic disease left me exhausted all the time. I didn't want to go out, and hanging out in my room wasn't all that much fun.

It's been a couple of months now, and I know that it was the best decision for me, at the time. Our relationship barely made it through one hospitalization, I'm glad it didn't have to try and survive the next two. As well, when you miss weeks of class and all of your exams it helps to have a lot of free time for studying.