Can anyone help translate how this all happened and advise me?

I am feeling just completely bashed by this situation and wanted to get a strangers perspective.

I met a guy, he was really into me, we got on great. He deleted his online dating profiles right away. Said I was "the girl" after about a week. He asked me to meet his closest friends. He asked me on a trip with him. He has no history of lots of women in his life - his friends told me he is very fussy and I was the first girl he had introduced to them since his divorce three years ago. His female friend told me he didn't shut up about me and told me "you have broken him into tiny little pieces"

So basically...all going great.

Shortly after we started dating though, his parents died very suddenly, neither one was sick, in close succession and they were quite young also. I asked if he wanted time and space or what support he needed. He said he was ok and did not want to stop dating me, and he was just trying to "fix himself" and we got a lot closer over the next few weeks, talking and sharing very deep stuff and despite the circumstances it seemed to being us closer and I really did feel love growing there for sure.

Then he had their funeral, and I never saw him again after that day. He went very strange, almost like he was avoiding me. I asked him if he wanted to end things, he said "no", I was patient but it was just strange. Like he stopped calling completely, did not call once for 40 days, hardly ever messaged me, did not talk about anything "proper", only silly stuff about his day. It got to the point where I was reaching out as gently as I could and he was not replying to my text messages and after 7 weeks of this I just started to lose heart he was ever coming back. I noted he was still meeting friends and working normally, so it was only me he was avoiding.

I sent him a message that just said "I feel like maybe we have been apart so long now that the connection we had has been lost a little and perhaps it has gone a bit far now to find out way back". I was in love with him, but trying to gently end it so I could stop suffering of wondering every day if he would call.

As soon as I sent that message, he phoned me instantly, for the first time in 7 weeks and he said he saw that message and knew it was me saying goodbye and he really didn't want that. He said he wanted me to be part of his life genuinely and was sure about that and then he explained a lot of it to me. He said that he had felt the need to "get on with things" and time had lost meaning and he was not even aware it had been so long since we talked. He told me that he was just trying to get through it, and that somehow "love" and relationships had been compartmentalised. He said that he may not have called, but he thought of me constantly, the way he flt about me never changed and he absolutely did not want to end things. He said he would come and see me then, that day, whenever and however I wanted. He said that he had very few people he loved in his little world and had just lost two of them and he felt some sort of psychological fear of adding me to that list which he felt was why he pushed me away.

We talked anyway for several hours a and part of that conversation was me talking to him about my own fiances brain accident a couple of years ago. I explained to him that when my fiance had that accident and abruptly changed /disappeared on me, I went to a very dark place and that I found people "disappearing" on me quite hard to cope with and asked him if he could not do that to me again. I said if he needed time, I would appreciate just a little contact so I would know I was not waiting for nothing. I waited for two years for my fiance to "get better" and he never did, so this situation was hard for me.

Later that day, he arranged to talk to me again, and somehow we got into a minor argument. I think I was on the defensive and I got upset with him over something minor and it was just because honestly, I had thought I had lost him and he was back and it was all a lot to deal with.

His response was to send me this message:

"I really like you, and everything I said to you this morning I meant and still feel for you, but I am worried that you have been through so much that I will hurt you again. I am not the guy who can be there all the time, and sometimes I say or do things by accident which might hurt you and I am worried that I will be responsible for your pain. I know I could really love you, but I feel like it's better if I walk away now than risk hurting you more than you have already been by my shortcomings. I never meant to cause you to feel sad for a single moment and I am sorry I did that. You will always have my heart and a true friend in me, whether you choose to use it or not. You know where I am if you ever want to have it. I am so genuinely sad and sorry to write this but I feel a relationship can't work at this time as you are not in a place to date me".

I am seriously sat there completely mystified here...

Can anyone please explain to me what is going on. I don't understand. We like each other so much, we want the same things, we are falling in love...and the this? Did I screw up here?

He's been knocked sideways by an unexpected double bereavement. He's in no fit state to meet your needs, and you haven't known each other very long. You are getting upset with him because you're asking for something he just hasn't got to give right now and, as he says, "are not in a place to date me". Alongside that, he's not in a place to date ANYONE.

He has been honest with you. The timing of this is awful, and I really feel for both of you - but the only thing you can do is grieve for what might have been - and get out there again.

(((HUGS)))

Unfortunately he checked out a long time ago but was never clear cut about it. You did nothing wrong, he just couldn't handle it and hoped to just fade himself out. It would be best to block him completely and move forward without trying to figure him out. It sounds like he never had the courage to tell you this before 231;6564112] "I am not the guy who can be there all the time, and sometimes I say or do things by accident which might hurt you and I am worried that I will be responsible for your pain".

First issue, this all happened way too fast. You two didn't even know each other, it was way too soon to declare each other "the one" when you don't even really know the other person. That's a screaming red flag right there. It kind of says maybe he's the type to fall into infatuation fast and out of it just as fast, frantic to rush what should happen naturally over time. And it was the same with you. Real love, true love, doesn't happen all at once like in the movies where two characters look at each and are instantly in love forevermore.

Remember, we don't actually get to see what happened to Cinderella or Snow White's big love matches. We just get an "and they lived happily ever after," which is actually sort of BS because just life itself will guarantee there will be times when life is hard and you are at odds with each other, because hello no one leads a trouble-free existence. Sorry, hard truth there.

And then this guy gets hit with the penultimate life kick in the teeth, losing not one but both parents out of the blue. I'm sorry, but I've lost one parent and I was anticipating it for a good solid three years before it happened. He was elderly, I could comfort myself that it as for the best, because he was miserable in that hospital bed. But still it took me a solid three years before I could not cry and gasp in pain just thinking about him. Losing both parents who are fairly young? I can't even imagine his pain, and I tear up just thinking about it.

This guy? He needs some serous time, like years, to move past this. And I'm sorry, but he barely knew you when this all happened. His feelings of infatuation just were not enough to carry him through all of that to stay with you. You barely knew each other. Full on relationships that have been going for years can die over something like this. And I'm sorry this happened, but you need to withdraw, realize that you didn't really know each other, and he's looking at years to get over what just happened to him. I only hope he gets some sort of grief counseling, because damn, I know people who would never recover from that.

You need to accept this relationship was too new, too fast, he's been hit with something so huge he'll need serious work and therapy to overcome a loss like that.

Let him go, heal and recover, work on developing healthy boundaries and relationships that go at a normal pace. I'm not convinced this one would have lasted even if his parents hadn't died, but now? It's simply too much for any sort of relationship that's brand new and still budding to survive.

And I'm sorry again, it's a crap hand life has dealt both you. My condolences for everyone's loss and his parents.

I ddint want to make my post too long, but please don't misread that I have not been sympathetic to his loss and done all I could. it's haunted me and caused me a lot of pain to see him go through that. But the confusing part was him asking me to wait and then kind of dumping me I guess. I waited a loooong time. Three months from the last date to the day I said "hey, this has been a long time", and I was loyal and supportive and patient and did all I could. I truly, truly cared about this man.

I am feeling just completely bashed by this situation and wanted to get a strangers perspective.

 

I met a guy, he was really into me, we got on great. He deleted his online dating profiles right away. Said I was "the girl" after about a week. He asked me to meet his closest friends. He asked me on a trip with him. He has no history of lots of women in his life - his friends told me he is very fussy and I was the first girl he had introduced to them since his divorce three years ago. His female friend told me he didn't shut up about me and told me "you have broken him into tiny little pieces"

^This right here is the crux of your problem. What burns so hot and fast fizzles out even faster. This is not an indication of things going well, unfortunately. This is a huge red flag to you that you are dealing with a guy who is just in it for a rush and once the high is gone, he will be too, abruptly so. Nobody can know you or call you the one after just one week unless they are insane. No, there is no such thing as love at first sight in reality - lust, I want to rip your clothes off, yes, but true love takes time and actually getting to know each other over a long period of time. Love is more quiet, it's also more enduring but it takes time to really get there.

So when a man rushes headlong like that without actually knowing you, treat that as a huge warning sign that things are not well at all. Beware, be cautions and take all his sweet talk with a giant boulder of salt. He is basically full of it.

His parents passing away like that was tragic, but also not the cause of the demise of your relationship. Your relationship was never off to a proper start to begin with and you, like it or not, have no idea what kind of a man he actually is. You simply got swept up into a whirlwind straight out of the romance novels. The thing is that real life is so not like those novels. You'd do well to toss aside any notions that a stranger can just be so seriously smitten with at first glance. It might flatter your ego to no ends, but it will result in breaking your heart and disappointment.

Oh i know there are kinds of love. The kind that grows over time from shared experience and deep knowledge and also the "in love" (which sorry I do believe can happen in the space of a day when someone just connects to you) but he wasn't madly rushed or over the top or anything. The point I was making is that he was really clear on how much he liked me and wanted to date me, even through the immediate aftermath of his tragedy he never once wavered or showed indecision and was absolutely steadfast in how he felt and what he wanted. So it seemed really strange to me that after all that he just did a 180 degree turn and let me go.

My fiance, mentioned earlier, proposed to me on day 10 after we met and he loved me every day for many years until he had his accident, so I am not a believer that those "red hot" feelings are always a bad sign. I watch for everything else too...what they say and do and the reasons they give.

When this guy gave his reasons for why he liked me, they were different from the ones I usually hear and they showed me that he really saw the real me. I guess I didn't understand why he would break it off over seemingly nothing when he said that was not what he wanted.

I also think the deaths, in a way, pushed the relationship in a funny direction. What would have been picnics and ice cream dates turned into long talks about life, dreams and stuff that matters - the circumstances were funny and I didn't have a lot of control over how that played out/

I'm sorry. This was a difficult read.

I agree with Paris, it did move too quickly.

Besides that he has had an incredible loss, and will probably not be emotionally available for years. I know that when i lost my brother, it took at least two years before I thought I could let anyone in. I wasn't emotionally capable.

You need to move on. This guy has nothing to give.

While quick, red hot feelings are not always a bad sign, sarahjane, they CAN often be problematic. Those feelings in the beginning are infatuation. If circumstances do not permit them to blossom into love over time, then all you have is a bunch of empty promises and a trail of broken hearts.

When it moves at the speed of light and then a big, huge, boulder comes crashing down and blocks the road, it can't do anything but come to a stop. You are both the walking wounded emotionally right now and neither of you should even attempt being in a relationship until you have healed completely and that will take both time and effort.