Ex-boyfriend asks for time to think about his feelings towards me

Hi everyone, nice to meet you !

I have a question. I am sorry for the length !

Here is the situation. I met my (now ex-)boyfriend at college, he was in a relationship with a girl for 3 years. Things ended badly between them and we clicked. We dated and we went official very soon after the breakup. 6 months have passed and we have been taking things slowly and I knew that my feelings were developing more quickly than his but was okay with that because I knew he cared about me and had feelings but it could take longer for him due to his recent breakup.

We went on vacations together and I felt compelled to tell him my feelings. And then he freak out.

We went in vacations our separate ways, he went with friends and told me he had to think about us. He broke up with my two days ago telling me that he wasn't in love and he didn't want to hurt me further by not reciprocating the feelings.

I made my peace very quickly with this because you can't make someone love you. I was sad of course, but I knew I had no choice.

We saw each other yesterday to talk a bit more about what we felt and I was totally shocked. He was miserable. I was quiet calm because I knew that it's horrible to have someone begging for something you can't give. But he was totally lost. I've never seen him like that. Apparently he spent his vacations crying and being sick about this situation. He cried once, but I remained very calm. He told me he wanted to be with me, that he liked me, that he was very happy with me but that he hadn't had the chance, before the "I love you" incident, to think about his real feelings. He told me that he wanted to understand if his feelings towards me were very friendly or romantic because he didn't want to be with me selfishly, for the wrong reasons. I respected that. We agreed to stay broken up but to give us a little bit more time (until the end of august) to think this through.

I admit that I am a bit confused. I really would want things to work out between us, but it is painful to stay 10 days in the limbo of the relationship. Anyone has had this experience ? Anyone has had this kind of situation working ?

I do not contact him but somehow I want to, I would want to ask him if it was because he was badly hurt before with his ex, or if it's me, ... I'm a bit lost guys. I am trying to move on as much as I can but the hope won't go away.

I'm sorry to hear this and it seems so unexpected so you must be hurting despite your brave face.

Do not make the mistake I did with my ex and ask for explanations or nag him. Simply message him not saying you respect his need for space and you are there if he needs you or wants to talk. After that put your phone aside, go out and keep busy. Time apart gives him room to think, to see if he misses you and clear his head of anything that's going on right now. Asking guys to talk pushes then further away

Thank you, that's very kind. I'm not very well right know. That's a bit hard !

Yeah you're right. I made the mistake of texting him yesterday asking him if he wanted us to talk about all of that. He politely refused saying that he needed a bit more time and that he might give me an answer before the date we set for the end of august. I'm not sure I must have hope or not at this point. But thank you for your reply, you are right !