Grow my hair as long as possible

My hair’s not that long yet. It (just) brushes past my shoulders. But! But! But! I have been getting compliments on how good it looks. Har har har. I leave two days in-between washings and gently dry it. I don’t try to bend or stick it to places where it doesn’t want to go (which is a lot considering my hair usually has it’s own ideas of how it should look). So no strings, pins, bows, or anything in my hair. And sometimes it even sticks out on one end just because it feels like it. But it’s shinier and softer than ever before. Even after I had streaks bleached in it, it’s still shiny and glowy. This makes me so happy I can forget about the odd end flopping into my face at inconvenient times. (Think chocolate desert disasters.)
So far this has definitely been worth doing. I can’t believe I’m actually patiently waiting for it to grow! Haha.

Ok, so I would love to have long hair. I always sort of wanted it, but there was never a moment when I said “that’s it, now I’m going to let it grow, and grow it shall!”. That moment has now arrived. Mainly because my boyfriend really likes super long hair and I thought, maybe this is the little push I need..?

But! Ah yes, there is a but. I once wanted to get my hair long, and started growing it out. It went quite well until I got the dread of all hair-lovers here: Split Ends. Kicking and screaming, I was dragged to a hairdresser and he cut it all off. It was only past my shoulderblades, and now he cut it ‘till right past my ears! The reason? Split Ends, like I already said. They’d originated from another hairdresser, who had cut my hair in layers. Then, when I got it trimmed, the moron only cut the lower layer, so the upper layer just kept splitting and splitting and falling out and splitting… cries It was horrible.

Now, I had decided, I would not be fooled again. Haha! I cut it all off, layers and all. It didn’t even reach the lower half of my ears. I thought if I kept it in one huge mass (coz it’s a lot of hair <.<) the hairdressers would not get confused anymore and do ALL of my tips if I asked for a trim. However, last time I went to get a trim, this guy started telling me how flat my head looked and I really needed layers. He already cut it before I could do or say anything. (I wear glasses and sometimes don’t even know what people are doing to me when I get my hair cut ;) ) Right before I attempted murder, a friend pulled me out of the salon. So now I have layers again.

Does anyone else have this problem? Is it possible to have long hair without split unhealthy ends – with layers?

Thanks~