Is time apart whats needed for me and my fiance?

[limitededition]

Hi everyone. Thanks for taking the time to look at my post and try to help me. I guess I will get right to it. Before I go to deep into all of this I want to give some info on me and my fiances relationship.

 

Me and my fiance have been together since 2001( we are highschool sweethearts)..(I know your probably wondering why have we been together that long and arent married, but I will explain that below). We have a very strong love for oneanother that I like to think not many people have. I can honestly say that she is my very best friend! As any couple, we have had our ruff roads. 3 years into our relationship, she developed an addiction to narcotic pain killers. As you can imagine, durin that time our relationship was very stressed. She was lying all the time, stealing, and just beig plain mean to me all the way around. This lasted for ruffly 4 years, at which point she went to rehab. During her stint in rehab, she became extremely distant, she didnt want to have any contact whatsoever..She did occassionaly call me,. After rehab, things got even worse at first for us. She became even more distant, and blamed me for the relationship problems we were having. It all came to a head, and she said she needed time apart. A few days later, She calls me and says shes is so sorry, and she made the biggest mistake of her life. Keep in mind this was 3-4 years ago now. We started trying to put our relationship back together, and have been working on things since. We are both still living with our parents due to the fact that our relationship has had problems. And we both have had problems holding a job due to depression and anxiety which we both are taking meds for. Recently, for the past year and a few months, we have hit another ruff patch. Today, I have started wondering if we BOTH need a break. The past year has been an extremely stressful one. Not just because of our relationship, but with issues with our families, jobs, and just llife in general. I have NO doubt that our love is strong and that we both want our relationship to make it. We are best friends, and love each other beyond measure and have been thru sooo much together. But...Im not sure what we should do. On on hand, I can see how taking a break would benefeit us both. We could spend all of our time and energy on bettering ourselfs by getting the help we need for our depression and anxiety, by rediscovering ourselves, and by simply having a break from all of the stress. But on the other hand, the whole idea breaks my heart..I would miss her beyong measure, and it just plain breaks my heart. But I dont know what else to do. What do you all think? What are the pros and cons? If we are both commited to the relationship, could this be what we need?