Thanks Peace and Vhannon for your feedback – you have no idea how better I feel after reading your responses.

Peace – I was not romantically involved with him. Even in our heydays, we never went overboard contacting each other – it was usually an email a day, one long call a week, or a drinking session where we would rip out all our co-workers. It was never a case of obsessive text/email/call. The obsession is only current (when I am unable to reach out to him) and it is 100% in the mind. I suspect it is a case of wanting what you do not have, as you rightly pointed out. If he were responding to my 1 email in a month, maybe I would not even be thinking about him actively right now.

Vhannon – very helpful insights.. I think both of you are right that he may be having problems with his wife (though we never discussed this). And now I realise it is also possible that due to the situation with his wife, he may have had feelings for me that he might be trying to suppress/avoid acknowledging. That would explain his pulling away. The controlling and attention-to-detail personality of mine (which works great at work, but not in personal life) wants to put more effort and make him see things the exact same way I am seeing them.. but I also see now that his change is not my responsibility. Maybe I just need to learn to take no action. I genuinely care about him, and want to know what is happening in his life. When he found a new job and moved to a different city, he never told me about it and it hurt like crazy. Either way, it is sad to have someone so special let go – it seems like a tragedy as I have very few friends I am regularly in touch with. Something to work on, I guess.