In the end, I believe his fear controlled his fate. Many others might read this and say, that girl is fooling herself – he wasn’t into her enough- and that may be the case, but one trait of highly sensitive people- such as me- and trust me, I don’t like being a HSP, is empathy, our intuition is acute. I felt it, I felt he deep deep down needs to be fulfilled in that way, but is unable to address that aspect of himself at this point in his life. That’s why I suspect it’s going to crop up for him one day down the road again.

I just want to jump in here to say that I don’t think you’re fooling yourself. I’m highly sensitive/intuitive, too, and I felt my ex had the same problem. We had a really close bond and connection but then both physical and emotional pain (from personal issues that had nothing to do with me or our relationship) started to weigh him down heavily, and he changed. He went from confident to not so confident, from treating me like a queen to losing his temper over little thingss. Our breakup didn’t make sense to me because I was very understanding of what was making him act that way (he had a LOT going on), but I think he ultimately was afraid that I would get tired of it and leave, so I really think, to spare himself from that, he detached and left me first. Even after we broke up, though, he kept telling me how I was still all he ever thought about and it was too much and he wished he felt like he deserved me but he just doesn’t. So I do think people can get to a point where their fears and insecurities guide them into doing things that their hearts don’t actually want them to do. However, I’ve definitely learned, too, that there isn’t anything we can do about that. It’s a shame, but all we can do is do our best to move forward.