scrappy

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.

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.

i believe that when this was said to me, it was because my partner has never experienced what really being "in" love is. His concept of "in love" is the honeymoon, and let's face it, the honeymoon always ends......it's a definition discrepancy in my case i think. he said this when, in his eyes, the honeymoon was over. People that are commitment phobic and have a fear of intimacy will never actually know what being "in love" is really all about.