Did I not get the hint?

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It does sound like he broke up with you when he said he wasn't interested in a relationship. While this isn't 100% clear as it wasn't stated like "I'm breaking up with you," the fact that he hasn't responded to anything in 6 weeks is a pretty good clue. Most people don't state it "I'm breaking up with you," and instead use a kind of hedging (Ie. I'm not interested in a relationship at the moment) as a way to be more "polite".

You need to stop messaging him. It is harassment. If, in fact, it does turn out that he is simply withdrawing, he will contact you eventually. Do NOT contact him again until/if he contacts you first.

I am a married man and I can say from experience that if anyone (male or female) expects a relationship to be easy, then they certainly aren't ready for a mature adult relationship. No relationship gets easier, especially without doing the work to maintain one. My two cents is that he gave up.

Now of course: when someone (knowingly or unknowingly) triggers your insecurity moving forward, the best response, no matter how hard it is and how much you have to work on it yourself, is to not give in and control your emotions better.

^ It is possible he just used an excuse, not wanting any relationship right now is often just wording for “I don’t want a relationship with you”.

I directly asked him if he wanted to break up and he avoided that question so I thought that he was unsure and withdrew. That's the assumption I was under for most of the last 6 weeks but now started wondering if that was a break up line, i.e. permanent break up rather than him actually just not being able to invest in the relationship for the time being, which is what he had told me a few times was going to be difficult for him

I take things literally so I assumed he meant just "right now I can't"

I have stopped messaging him and don't intend to do any more but I did feel the need to apologise and calm the waters first

Yeah I have started wondering that, but he told me many weeks in advance that he was going to struggle to be present in the relationship but that he did want to be with me. And then when I made things harder for him, and things in his life at home were getting more difficult at the same time, that phone call happened and he's stopped speaking to me

So I don't think it was an excuse, it would be too elaborate for him to plan an "excuse" that far in advance but also still be saying he wanted to be with me? I think it was a genuine concern and his life is genuinely difficult, and he's also said some of this to our mutual friends when he saw them a while ago. But I'm not sure if it was also a breakup and that he's not coming back, or if he is avoiding dealing with things and we have a chance later on

I am so confused and struggling. I don't see how my closest friend could just not talk to me again

Even if we just stayed friends, I need to hear from him because I am so deeply insecure about being abandoned. It's killing me. I don't have many friends and he is one of the few people in life that I've had a genuine, lasting connection with (and he had said the same about me as he might be on the spectrum too)

Thanks for this. It does seem that he gave up, but I am not sure if he was talking about things getting easier with me - I think he meant he thought his life would get easier (he does have things pretty difficult) but that new, pressing issues kept popping up. I think he acknowledges that relationships don't get easier, and that's why he's probably backed off from ours because he knows he has to invest a certain amount in order to keep it going, but he doesn't feel able to do that with other stuff going on. Does that seem like a logical way that a man might view a relationship? And if that's true and he just gave up, does that mean he hasn't necessarily closed the door?

I am working really hard to control my emotions. I haven't had a meltdown in 6 weeks. Before, I would express whatever negative/positive emotions I was feeling often. But since that phone call I have only sent apologies and short, supportive messages. And now I'll back off

He was just too lacking of balls to say “yes”.

Don’t apologise to him. Just leave him be. It doesn’t sound like you owe him an apology, so I wouldn’t. Just move on with your life. You will be ok in time.

Being abandoned is horrible, the first time it happened to me when I was a lot younger, I was depressed for a month. Sometimes you want to tie up loose ends, but you don’t get a chance to. You may never find out what went on. You may never get closure. But you get over it eventually, and you learn.

I agree with this.

If a relationship is meaningful at all to someone, he’ll make it a priority.

The takeaway I get from all this is that he likes the LDR thing when he’s in a dry spell in meatspace. I’d go so far as to say he’s probably in a relationship and just not telling you. Depending on how many times you’ve been together in person, I’d also wonder if he liked your online personality and maybe was disappointed by some superficiality.

It’s a sad situation. Let this one go and try to enjoy your life with someone else.

Goes back to a familar saying: If someone wants to make time for someone or something, they will. If he had been silent beyond a reasonable time period, then that will indicate something to you.

He's not in a relationship. I know his life and I know all of his friends. I can see what he gets up to when he goes out with people because it's posted all over social media. So just because I'm not there doesn't mean I'm that far removed from reality

He also doesn't have time for a relationship outside of what he was giving to me because he's a single father

We've spoken a lot via Skype and phone. I don't think he was disappointed by my presence in person - he said I was more attractive in person and it seemed that he was more upset that he couldn't see me as often as he wanted to and that our relationship lacks the physical intimacy a lot of the time. But I would be moving there in less than a year if things worked out

Editing this to say thank you for the comment though, as now I am going to wonder if there was indeed some clue as to a superficial reason he might have decided to leave that compounded the issue... I kind of doubt it, because I am very attractive (I get told this often and I am stared at a lot in public, he's also said occasionally he thought I was too good for him)...He also seemed pretty happy with the physical intimacy. But maybe I missed something

Last edited by honeymiel on 25 Nov 2017, 11:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.

That's possible that he didn't know how to say that he wanted to break up. But he also told me on the same phone call that he didn't know what he wanted and that things were just difficult in his life. Hence why there's this part of me that can't come to terms with it, and in the very least I don't think I did something horrible enough that he could never speak to me again. I think that's the part I'm struggling with the most. He has a lot more emotional issues than I do but I just put up with them and tried to reassure him, so in some ways I don't even care if he doesn't want to be in a relationship, I just miss my friend terribly

I have unresolved trauma from losing both my parents and he knows this, so if he did actually abandon me, it is beyond cruel. I can't bring myself to believe that he would do that right now, and it's not something I'll get over in a month

I know it seems a bit weird that I'd be happier if there's some superficial reason he didn't want me, but having any reason to latch onto is better than wondering.

Because my current reasons are that I messed up and he's got too much going on right now, which makes me think that I still have a chance

If I know he's not coming back because he really doesn't want me anymore, it makes it easier (have also said this to him before)

Not knowing what you want is another let someone down easy line, I’m sorry to say.

Being dumped is a really hard situation. You have no say in the matter, it’s all them. It seems really unfair but there is nothing you can do. Though you will find over time that it’s better to be alone than with someone who really no longer wants to be there. It takes time. Have you thought about making new friends, independent to him?

I know that it is a let down line, but it was more like "If you don't want to break up, then what do you want?" and he said "I don't know" and then I think has just decided to avoid dealing with the situation. He even said at the start of the phone call "I don't think you took me seriously when I said I wasn't going to have much time for the relationship" which indicates to me that he wasn't just finding excuses to leave. He genuinely has a difficult life but he also genuinely cared for me and made me know it, often made time for me even when it was difficult

I don't think it was quite as simple as "I don't know whether I want to be with you" because I genuinely believe that he was overwhelmed with other things in his life. So it's more that I am uncertain whether that particular line about having to put aside one of his priorities was him saying he's done, or just reiterating what he had been telling me all along

I think it was him giving up and saying I just can't do this right now, especially because I wasn't happy with him taking space to deal with things going on in his life. So putting the pressure on caused him to stop talking to me

Maybe I am in denial but I can't help but believe deep down that it's not really about whether he wants to be with me but whether he can sustain a relationship at this point in time. So I know it was a break up but I just don't know if it's permanent

I'm still trying to think of some reason why he wouldn't want me and that's the only conclusion I can come to. Maybe he has other reasons he doesn't want to tell me

Yes, I have thought about making other friends and I tried recently but I'm not very good at it

Last edited by honeymiel on 26 Nov 2017, 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks to everyone for helping me put things in perspective anyway. I can handle the fact that maybe he's broken up with me but I have a nagging feeling that it's not that simple and I feel like we're not over, which is making it hard to let go. I don't know why I have that feeling, and I wish I didn't. I wish I could just block him on social media and move on with my life

But ... this has sort of happened before in a different context with him (before we got together) and we were better off after he got back in touch with me

It's helpful to arm myself with the knowledge that it might have been a break up, in any case

I appreciate your feelings on this matter. I found breakups difficult when I was younger, and I know I wasn’t ever an easy bf to deal with. My insecurities were mostly that I was never anyone’s type. I’d latch onto whoever I had an infatuation with and go full-on stalker with those who took a chance on me. There was one last unfortunate young lady towards the end of college when I finally decided I was done with that part of my life.

When I finally did start exercising some semblance of sanity, I ended up in an extended relationship that lasted entirely too long. The girl served me with an ultimatum: either put a ring on it and impregnate it, or move on.

Over 10 years and 3 kids later, I’d say I made the right choice. She worries that she forced me into it, but she had every right to threaten me back then. Maybe I wasn’t ready just yet, but what she needed was something more than empty promises from me. And it really, REALLY would have sucked to lose my best friend over something genuinely stupid.

You know your situation better than I do, of course. You’ll figure it out. I just think you’re in the same place my then-gf was. The difference is you’re there after only 9 months or so whereas we’d been together some 6 years. By 1-2 years in a serious relationship, you should either be married or at least making some movement in that direction. What I’m seeing from what little you’ve told us are HUGE red flags.

Think about it a bit. Single father, lots of pressures, can’t make a LDR a priority, AND YET his comings/goings are all over social media? Wait...he has a social life but absolutely no time to respond maybe once a day to messages? He doesn’t have 10 minutes to ask you about your day just before bedtime?

NOT.

GOOD.

You can try pursuing him if you know the situation and think you can really make this work. But I have a strong feeling this is just wasting your precious time.

If you really are as attractive as you say you are (send pics, haha), you’ll have little trouble finding someone. You should spend your time enjoying life and finding something real, not wasting time with a LDR that’s only going to test your patience and end up leaving you disappointed.