"I don't want to be in ANY relationship", commitme

I was just recently dumped by the person that i saw to be my soulmate, one who i was totally committed to though he has heart failure at age 34 and resulting depression. Our life together was pretty typical for a relationship coming out of the honeymoon stage, but since he has only been in one other serious relationship and did not date for 5 years prior to me, when the reality began to strike that neither of us were perfect and we began to have some communication issues, he totally dropped the ball and told me things such as "i don't want to be in ANY relationship" or "like i said, i feel strongly that i should not be in a romantic relationship and i have to figure out the source of this while not ignoring it and trying to be in a relationship and not being a good partner" or "i just shouldn't be in any relationship... i remember vowing to myself never to get into another one after my last girlfriend and even remember resisting as long as possible getting into this one..."

anyone have any insight on commitment phobia and /or fear of intimacy?

i mean, how do you deal with a situation like this. i want to be there for him, but it feels pointless. i have moved on, but still love him dearly and want to be there for him even though i know i cannot.

i guess if he does not look into himself to find out what the real issue is, then i am just plain SOL.

Oh, i also forgot to mention that being diagnosed with heart failure a year ago was his second large traumatic life experience dealing with illness. When he was 11 he had ewings sarcoma cancer and had chemo and radiation and a lung removed, so this is his second traumatic experience. I met him just two weesk before his second diagnosis, and i feel i was almost a "rebound" relationship with regard to the bad news.

The thing about love is its you who feels it and the other party doesnt...it has happened to me so many times apart from my first love. I was married 4 years and all i ever did was give, give give my all until i couldnt do it no more!! One thing i know is, feelings can be overwhelming but listen to your little voice and watch out if he is not giving you the love back.

I wouldn't automatically assume that it's you that's the problem. I have a pretty long history of avoiding serious relationships myself, and it's always been a defense mechanism I've used to avoid being hurt.

Maybe his last relationship ended so badly that he's completely terrified of revisiting that pain. Maybe with everything that's on his plate in terms of his ill health he just honestly doesn't feel like he can put forth the effort necessary to sustain a relationship.

As long as he's not out trying to pick up other women, I'd take what he's saying at face value and just give him some space.

I just went through this with my ex. He has the exact same problems. I let him go. I told him that even if he is capable of having emotional connections with another person, he doesn't want them. There is nothing we can do to change their minds. You have to just absorb the loss and move on. I'm sorry.

My ex said something like that and seemed way too immature to handle a relationship but now I learned that he is getting married one year after we broke up... to a girl that seems to be on his low maturity level. It's like, I thought you didn't want a relationship but now you want a wife suddenly?