Hi Rox…Believe me, I have a lot of damage control to do on me as well and it actually feels good knowing that I am, as I say, throwing out the trash too. It has made me a lot more room to grow in ways that I had not expected. One of the concerns that I think that the guy you had been dating was that he may have felt that your adverse reactions were more present than what he had visions for, presumably visions of being with a good looking kind woman like you. They may have been so frequent that he pondered how long this will go on, will it get any better etc. From what he may have experienced was he felt that yes, this will continue and no, it won’t get any better. For the most part he is shell shocked and feels that by continuing his relationship with you he would continue to be subject to these negative reactions too often to warrant him to go on. I’m just speculating.

I am curious. In what ways was he perfect for you? While it may be true that you were “the love of his life and that he would always fight for us”, his threshold of tolerance has/is/was not as great as you hoped it would be. That may be due to experiences he had to grow up with and therefore became part of who he is, but again I don’t know him. I agree 100% with Anita that “For as long as you automatically project your childhood fear (and anger) into romantic relationships, you are unable to see the man for who he is (trustworthy or not, loving or not). This childhood projection is like a big, dark cloud overshadowing the man. So you can’t see who he is.” It makes perfect sense, to me anyway. As long as he has chosen to disengage from your relationship with him, for reasons that are protective to him, I cannot see how you can fix things with him. For that to happen, you need to fix things with you first. I am not so sure that it was only that you messed things up per se. I think it is also an issue of not being compatible in the first place and so how your reactions set the stage for the breakup, to couple that with being incompatible is a toxic situation. I also believe that you should move on with the knowledge that you have learned many things about yourself. I think that going back to him so soon would sabotage your relationship further for many reasons. First and foremost forgive yourself, love yourself even more and recognize that none of us is perfect, and make a conscious effort to weed out the things you have harbored for a long time. Those things have not served you well in any capacity. They have only hurt you. Just as important, wish him well and hope for a happy journey wherever he goes in life. Because this ending was so painful for you I think that you now realize what you must do for you. And I know you will. To answer your last question, no. I would not date her again. It’s that could have/would have/should have thing. I have moved on in my life and the changes I have made and continue to make are incredibly exciting to me. Those memories are still close, although I am not affected by them in any way. I will not compromise myself by thinking things are better with her, even though I have forgiven her. If anything, please know that there are some truly amazing people here for you, myself included.