Hi Anita!

A lot has happened in the past few months that I’d like to update you on. Amid all the COVID turmoil, I hope you are being safe and staying healthy. This is partly why I’m here again sharing, because I feel this is vulnerable time for everyone and I don’t want to make any impulsive actions or decisions just because the anxiety/emotions are intense.

So this man finally got back into contact with me through social media. By chance, naturally some events happened in real life which led me to him in person. While in person, we chatted and he invited me to his close friends house for dinner. It was an intimate dinner with his friend, friends wife, and their two children. It all went VERY well and we had fun. He took me home, no physical moves were made, just a hug goodnight.

A week or two goes by, I run into him again naturally. He invited me over for dinner and cooks for me. We have great chemistry. He then makes out with me, and I pull the plug (kindly) and say I need to leave because I have work in the morning. Hes respectful and nice about it all. I did this because even though there is a tremendous amount of sexual attraction, as we discussed, I can NOT have casual sex with this man because my heart doesn’t feel safe/this isnt an exclusive relationship obviously.

A few days later, my friend sees him and looks like hes hooking up with another girl at a bar. This isn’t surprising to me as I knew he was seeing others, though it did disappoint me after such a great couple of dinners.

A few days go by, he sees me but since I’m disappointed, I’m not very enthused. He later texts me asking if “I saw him”. It leads to a phone conversation where I call him because I can’t sense his emotions through text message but he seems upset? I very kindly let him know that it’s fine if he wants to hookup with other girls etc., but that I can’t do physical stuff with him if thats the case, it’s just not my lifestyle but its totally fine for him if thats what he wants to do.

This leads to a conversation about how he is emotionally scarred from a 12 year toxic back n forth relationship, where his ex was very manipulative with his emotions and used his emotions against him. He says he cant ever show his emotions and has a lot of trouble expressing them. He tells me he’s scared of commitment because he doesnt think hed be a good partner, among other fears. He does think we have good chemistry, and says he does feel a connection with me. He says he needs to know a girl for at least a year before committing (I believe this is due to having sex too early in the relationship and leads to an unhealthy thing). And that he thinks that when he meets new girls, if emotions aren’t as “intense” as they were with the toxic ex, than he gets it in his head that the girl is not “the one”. He says that he never shares this stuff with girls, and had very nervous laughter through the conversation. I do believe he’s telling me the truth and that he doesn’t open up often to many people.

Overall the conversation was very good. I told him I need/value transparency and we both stated how we have a lot of respect for eachother and thanked him for sharing all of this. I could relate to all that he said as I have the same issues with not being able to express/show my emotions. I said that I’m fine with being his friend but I can’t do the physical stuff if its not more of a solid thing. Clearly he doesn’t want to commit so I’m leaving it as that… we are friends.

I’d also like to add, after I said this about not being physical he says “ok I get it, if you don’t want it to be romantic..” and my reply was “No, I DO want it to be romantic. I really liked making out and hooking up with you.. I just can’t if your doing that with other girls” and he said ok and he understood and thats when he talked more about his issues.

My issue lies with how sad I’d be if/when he meets someone and knows them for like a month and then decides to marry them. I just feel like thats going to happen and I’ll be left wondering why not me. And I REALLY don’t want to fall into some trap of thinking if I try harder and get him to know me more than he’ll commit (because I KNOW thats not true).

Do you think me setting the boundary of no physical stuff was the right choice? And do you have any advice at how to move on from him? I don’t want to move on from him but I’m afraid I need to because I’m going to be sitting here hoping he’ll change his mind and be “ready” to take the relationship further as time goes on, and I just doubt that will happen…….. And if it did it could be YEARS from now!! So what am I to do?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Anonymous.