reconciliation with ex: another bad idea

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this is not an request for advice. this is just me venting.

okay... so i flew "home" on my ex's dime to see if we could work things out between us.

Long complicated story made very short... there was a time, not too long ago, I really wanted to try. But it didn't happen. Partly because though he was all excited when he started talking to me last year, he quickly backed out for no reason he ever gave me, just disappeared. I know what happened - the minute he has to commit to any action, he panics. It happened when i first moved in with him, fifteen years ago; he turned into instant a**hole for a couple of weeks. He always was a moody guy.

So this time he got in touch with me and told me he wanted to see if we could work things out. I told him - i didn't know for sure how i felt, that things had changed since last year, but i knew how i'd been feeling the last two years, and i was willing to give it a try. I said i wasn't willing to jump into anything physical. He said, if nothing works out maybe we can still be friends. I always wanted that, so, I agreed. He said, if nothing works out, I won't put you out on the street.

After committing and backing out three times in about ten days, he finally flew me back to Boston.

Now that I'm here, he evidently harbors an expectation that I will instantly fall back in love with him. Since that hasn't happened, he is now being incredibly passive aggressive. Sulking, being pissy. Also one day he says it's fine, the next he won't talk to me, then accuses me of withdrawing and uses that as proof I'm not really interested. It's making me crazy. I'm not sure what's wrong with him, but I'm pretty sure it's not me. He projects EVERYTHING onto me. He's mad/hurt/insecure, so he reads extra meaning into everything i say (which makes it very hard to talk to him) and I believe wants to make me suffer as a payback. I'm remembering now why we got divorced. Utter pettiness.

One minute he's telling me i need to move in two weeks, the next that i can rent a room in his house, the next that he can't take having me here. Right now he's not speaking to me. It's brutal. I'm sure he's in pain, I get that, but still. Coming here was an enormous emotional risk for me also and I'm the one paying in spades, and I'm the one who has to move, he doesn't have to change a damn thing except go back to what he was doing already. I'm starting to think, though, he might be kind of narcissistic. Whatever it is, it's not normal. Of course, neither am I, but it doesn't make this any more pleasant.

So regardless of whether he decides to let me stay, I think I should go. It's not ideal, but I can move out in roughly two weeks if I can find someplace to stay. Not here - way too expensive. Another state - again.

My only real reservation is that i spent the last two years moving around the country and every place i've gone has been big trouble. I'm really hoping if i move again this time, it will be a positive experience.

The sad thing is, if he could just tolerate the ambiguity of not knowing how things could work out between us for even a month or two, we might have had a shot. I really was willing to try. But he is so black and white with everything and so unwilling to risk any emotional pain (yet willing to put me through hell to try to avoid it), his demands for me to LOVE HIM NOW are just making it impossible for me to feel anything but the desire to run away.

RUN! As my mum would say "TAXI!". Passive aggressive, moody, none of it sounds good, and it kinda sounds like he's trying to control you with emotion. I suggest leaving, as fast and as far away as you can.

And if you did "love him now", then what? I'll tell you what, he'd accuse you of smothering him and being an emotional parasite and needy and etc.

Not that I'm projecting, or anything. I'm still learning that my ex who desperately wanted "friendship" has no clue what a friend is, thinks it translates to "gives me what I want when I want it, then f***s off till I have a use for him/her again".

Where are your nearest friends? At least you're in a reasonable public-transportation hub now. (Is there a reason why you're not headed to VT? I don't know why, and actually I found VT a very difficult place, but everything you write seems to me to yell Vermont.)

From what else I've seen you write, it doesn't look like the alternative was much better (actually, FAR WORSE). Even so, you don't deserve this treatment either.

Can you support yourself? It sounds like you need to be on your own, or with someone who actually considers your needs. I'm really sorry you've been through such a sh!t time.