Commitment phobes

I think you need to move on. He's done the same thing to you several times, the reasons aren't really that important, what is important is that you learn not to keep going back and back only for the same thing to happen again.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Caroline_a wrote: »

I think you need to move on. He's done the same thing to you several times, the reasons aren't really that important, what is important is that you learn not to keep going back and back only for the same thing to happen again.

I agree
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got

It's not nice being the fallback date, especially when Tinder is so easy to use as soon as they're not getting their own way.

That's not a commitment phobe, that's somebody who likes being the centre of the universe and enjoys the first stages of dating, rather than wanting to take things deeper/further, plus not being prepared to consider other people's feelings. Notice that he legged it when it was your birthday? And when you were not doing as he wanted? Not his birthday, or when you were agreeing with him?

It does sound as if he wanted to have his cake and eat it up to a certain point, at which stage something happened, even possibly something quite trivial in many peoples' eyes which bought it home to him that if he moved your relationship any further forward something radical in his well ordered single life would have to change.

And rather than have the courage to discuss this honestly and openly he took the coward!s way out because he doesn't have the interpersonal skills to handle difficult communications in a relationship. So he cut off and shut down.

I suppose the first time ought to have been a warning but you were not to know. The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it and being told to move on is all very well but not so easy to do until you're really able to get your head round the reason why. Mysteries are like drying scabs waiting to be scratched again.

Perhaps you just have to try and understand that when he was comparing his single life compared with with his life with you in it, if he had to give them both a score out of ten in terms of which was the one he could best cope with, his single life gave him "Enough". It wasn't perfect and it was lonely at time perhaps but it was the one he could best cope with knowing his inadequcies at being able to adapt his behaviour to co-existing with another person.

If I remember rightly he has already had one failed marriage and that had probably left him permanently scarred emotionally. He has not had sufficient lengthy relationships since then to practice learning any new coping and adapting behaviours and when your relationship starting to get to a point where things were getting a little more serious all his old doubts probably started returning.

He may still be missing your company despite the break up but I suspect he will not risk exposing his inability to cope with the commitment of another serious relationship again. He will dip in and out again perhaps, temporarily enthuse and give false security to somebody else but will be unable to commit because the demands are just to scary in case things go wrong. So , no real answers for you unfortunately apart from bad luck in ending up with somebody who just couldn't,t cope with the demands that a serious relationship makes on individuals.