Hi Ericah89,

It seems your boyfriend has a conflict within himself. He does not know what he wants, there are few desires that pulls him in different ways, and they are quite balanced and do not make him able to move forward. As I understand, he lived a lot of his life with his family who promoted a peaceful lifestyle which is not oriented toward personal growth but more toward mutual support and availability. On the converse, you showed him something new, how to become a successful person for himself or for you as a couple. By doing so, you challenge his past and what he once was. By agreeing on the future projects, somehow you’ve been killing his past. But his past is always there inside him and it looks like he did not really move on completely. Unfortunately, this is not something he can easily discuss with you. After all the agreements, after all your efforts, after everything you’ve done and believed together, how can he show you his doubts, and start killing your own resolve? He tried his best to fight his past, but it is still there. Maybe he realized that it was too late to be really successful as you both like him to be. He tried to become oblivious of his conflict by getting drunk.

Now he does not want to pollute your beliefs with his own worry, with his own history that still makes him unable to lift up. He tried his best with you, he tried to overcome everything. He wanted to believe into what you showed him, he looked ahead into your eyes, far and far in a world that looked so shining. Now, after long investigations, work and hopes, he found the problems. And I’m sad to say that sometimes, there is no logical solution out of them, but a realization of one’s own feelings that drive a person to want opposite things. And when that happens, that person has to choose, and he chose. He will not stay there, to fight and make you see his contradictions, maybe because he does not want to turn your friendship into bitterness, maybe because he wants to spare you the headaches, maybe because he cannot clearly see with you at his side supporting so fiercely one of the parts of his mind.

There is a part of him, you will not accept easily. That’s because you both tried your best to dismantle it. Investigating it together will cost to you both sorrow and harm. Nobody assures that you will overcome it, and you may find yourself bitter and defeated along the way. Then you’ll realize you lost a great part of your life, energy and time. I understand you feel that now something is missing now, that a lot was for nothing, and that the source of your energies and inspiration has suddenly stopped. However, if you kept drinking from it, after the change, chances are you would get sick. Moreover, now you and he can still celebrate your travel, the challenges you fought happily together, even if it was a failure, it was a good journey, and you tried both your best with sincerity, understanding and mutual acceptance. If you keep going, while he does not trust that there will be success anymore, the journey itself may become bad and sad.
You will need to learn to go without that source of inspiration. This does not mean you should stop talking with him, but you should stop seeing into him those hopes, those quests, those dreams you once wanted to share. Do not make him or his goals, your goals, do not make you or your goals, his goals, make him your companion. Once you do this and really do this, you’ll have a clear mind to see once again who he is, and why he made this choice. Then, maybe you can start anew, or realize that after all he was not meant for you.