Dear Brooke:

Reads to me like he is not the right guy for you. You need a man who is .. available to you. He is not available. He is otherwise occupied and he told you that he indeed intends to remain otherwise occupied for years to come.

I think you need a calmer man who has the time and the focus to be with you, to pay attention to you. You wrote last: ” I hate this dynamic of me carrying the emotional weight in this relationship and it is not good for my mental health.”

This is very significant, what you wrote: this is “not good for my mental health”- you’ve been doing lots of work to heal in the last five months. Stay on the healing path. This relationship is taking you off the healing path.

His focus is elsewhere, and you are about to lose focus yourself. Your focus should be on your mental health and nothing and no one should compromise it.

anita