Ask Molly Ringwald: is my girlfriend saying goodbye?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/26/ask-molly-ringwald-relationship-advice

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I am 23 and my girlfriend wants to take a "sabbatical" from our relationship: to take a year out and travel the world, without promising to stay faithful or even in touch. She says we can see where we are in a year, and I'll have my freedom, too, but the idea makes me feel sad: is she right to buy a bit of time, or is this just a creative way of saying goodbye? She says it's not – that she's a free spirit, loves me, and is pretty sure we'll pick up where we left off – but I feel like I don't have a say.

Dear Lovesick,I don't think she is being creative about saying goodbye; she's just saying goodbye. And there is no right or wrong. Your "free-spirited" girlfriend wants to wander, as free spirits do, and if you think about it, her sense of adventure was probably one of the things that attracted you in the first place. If she is close to your age, she's picked the perfect time. No school, kids, responsibilities, except for that bloody, pulpy mess of your heart. And really, that's not her responsibility, it's yours.

If you can, try to think of it as your girlfriend's "Rumspringa" – the Amish rite of passage between adolescence and adulthood that offers the chance to discover the world before committing (or not) to the Amish way of life. Not that I'm comparing your relationship to a religious sect – it's the deliberately letting go and allowing those we love to choose us that I find interesting.

Of course, in the end you will also have to decide if you choose her. Though it isn't what you wanted, I guarantee that during the year there will be someone who turns your head. You might even fall in love. You're 23! Enjoy the fact that you can eat Hobnobs every night and not have to spend an hour in the gym working it off. Or, if you love the gym, you can do so without having to rush home to read your kid The Runaway Bunny for the millionth time before collapsing from exhaustion. A free–heeling life doesn't sound so bad now, does it?

If you and your soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend (I know, that hurts, but get used to saying it) both choose each other after the year apart, and you feel you can reconnect without punishing her for the agony you feel now, you have a great opportunity to have a real, honest relationship, not the fairytale myth we've all been fed since birth. Or, then again, you might find yourself thanking her in your wedding toast to the new one. Only time will tell.

• Send your dilemmas about love, family or life in general to askmolly@theguardian.com