Rosalia,

I hope Michelle reads your answer.  I tried to tell her earlier, many months ago, that this guy was not into her enough to be FULLY committed and it was clear from what she wrote here. But she was (and likely still is) seriously hung up on him and using her psychoanalysis of his “trauma” or his emotional complexity as an excuse – that she would not admit to herself – as an excuse to keep clinging on to him.  You shouldn’t have to act like a guy’s therapist and try to “figure him out” to see if you have reason to keep clinging on.  That’s not how love works.  He’s either not into you or not ready for a relationship. Both are absolute deal killers.  Mature, wise women realize this.

My posts were reported and deleted because I told her the truth of her situation that she refuses to see.  She apparently sees unvarnished truth as an “attack” because it’s obvious from her very, very long essays that she does not want the “bottom line” of the status of this non-relationship with the object of her obsession. She wants to contemplate this situation for months and years and spin it over and over in her mind like clothes in a washing machine.  It’s her own roadblocks that won’t let her move on.  I feel like she has some deep-seated attachment issues of some kind that are causing this dysfunctional pattern she has with this man.   The never-ending micro-analysis of her obsession = a chance, however slim, that they MIGHT end up together when he [insert reason]  comes to his senses, processes his trauma, grows up or whatever psychological revelation she is pinning all her hopes and dreams on.  She can’t handle people telling her it’s never going to happen and that she’s fooling herself.

I see you’re saying that in the ultra-gentle, coddling way that she needs to hear it.  It’s a real shame how much of her life she is wasting on a man who will never commit to her.

~  chickadee