Long story abridged:
Me and [ML] have been together in a sex/affective relationship for a year and a few months. Last October they asked me to start a committed relationship and we lived together until mid-January 2023. At that time I moved to a different country and they moved to another one, so since we will be far away they preferred to leave me and change our Committed Relationship to Lovers status.
[ML] say that we are not going to have a relationship again, but we keep talking to each other, and liking each other, we plan to see each other in May, and in June we are going to a concert together and in short, in my perspective, we continue to have a relationship, only at a distance. But in their case is different.
for they, since we don't have something real in the present time (that is, being together in the same place at the same time) this would not be a relationship and because of that, we can't commit again.
Anyway, I think [ML] is a loser and is confused, but I leave the debate open to Manifold.
Also, maybe there are also different options that I have not considered :)
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You guys seem to be communicating decently and clearly charting your own path instead of relying on default assumptions. That seems good and helpful.
Yet it also seems to me like you disagree on what "relationship" means.
For you, a "relationship" is a description of circumstances that you find yourself in.
You say: if we spend time and love together, then that must mean we are in a relationship.
They say: Yes, we spend time and love together, but a relationship is a decision. It's a conscious choice to spend and structure our lives and future together. The status of "relationship" for them is not really about the love and the feelings, but about the decisions and structure.
Because you have different definitions, you both end up thinking the other is confused.
In general you could try tabooing the word "relationship" in your discussions, and talk about the things it means.
They'll use the word "commitment", but personally I don't like that word very much as my brain won't parse it. A structure or plan seems equivalent and easier to understand what it means to commit.
In the long term I'd advocate adopting their definition of "relationship", as it improves communication; you can love each other, but that's just a feeling that you can decide to put into a structure, or you can just let it float free; you're not automatically in a relationship. You can have sex, but that's just an event, a singular experience; once you put a structure around it, you become "something together", like lovers or friends with benefits or partners, depending on your favorite structure. You currently like each other and do things together, but there's no conscious decision to be people who do these things together, just a mutual vibe of feelings.