I’ll give some backstory on this whole situation…I’m not expecting much to come from it but I thought it would be interesting to see a strangers point of view on this.

I’ve known this man since middle school. We never really hung out (wasn’t my kind of crowd) but we were friends. We then graduated high school and lost contact with each other. During the next seven years, I got into a serious relationship. I moved in with him after a month of dating, right before I turned 19. The next few years eventually led to marriage and a child, and in the end divorce. During this time I was conditioned that everything wrong was my fault. He was emotionally and mentally abusive. When I finally took a stand he accused me of cheating (which wasn’t the case) and kicked me out. So I took my daughter and left.

About a month later this friend from high school contacts me and wants to take me out to dinner to catch up. He asked for all the details about the divorce and even told me that he had to consider my daughter before he even asked me out because we were a package deal. From there on everything was going great! We started talking about the future together, the three of us, we did so many fun and memorable things. We have a lot of the same interests but also enough to keep us as individuals.

I rented my own place with my daughter and he lived with his aunt (he had just moved back from being across the country for school). My daughter goes to her dad’s almost every weekend. Every weekend I would drive down to his aunt’s place to spend time with him. The only time he came up to my place was when I had my daughter (who every time I kept her for the weekend, he would always come up to spend time with us). We even had our independence and went out and saw our own friends separately. Things were going great! Or so I thought…

For about the last year we were looking at housing listings to get ideas on what we wanted to buy (we weren’t planning on buying for another 2 years…) and what we could afford comfortably. Which is all well and good. Over this time I thought things were going well until last month he asked me to come to his place on my way home from work to talk. Which he never did. I had that gut feeling that something was wrong. Of course, I was right because he broke up with me. The only reasonings he gave me was he didn’t think we were “compatible” for the long term and he was never around. I had to tell him to get out of my car because I was so upset and I needed to go and pick up my kid from daycare so there was really no actual talking. I did manage to ask him how long he had been feeling like this and all he said was “for a while.”

….that while was the past 9 months.

I never once thought there was something wrong but apparently, there was. But he never once told me anything. He told me last year at one point to never shut him out and I feel that is exactly what he did to me which is not fair.

He came to my work this past Friday to drop something off for me and as he was leaving I said that I hoped we could talk about this soon (during the time of the break up to the Friday we never spoke. I even stopped liking or commenting on his Facebook posts because I was afraid he would take it as me being pushy) and he said “yeah, sure.” About 15 minutes after he left my best friend messaged me saying he called asking why I wanted to talk so badly. Well….she blew up.

He said “how can you love someone you only see once a week for a year? It’s a fantasy. And I can count on my two hands the number of times I’ve seen her kid. That’s not right. 100% on me. I cannot commit to it at this time. It’s better it happened now than later. If she couldn’t see that then she was blind.” And apparently, that is just the tip of the iceberg as he said. My friend chewed him out saying that he was a coward and didn’t have the courage to talk to me about this sooner instead of stringing me and my daughter along for the past 9 months. And my daughter loves him so much. She talks about him all the time and cherishes the times he spends with her.

1. My daughter goes to her dads basically every weekend so of course, the bf doesn’t see her. But every time she stays with me for the weekend he does come and see her. Plus we weren’t living together.

2. For us only seeing each other once a week…well that’s job-related. In the summer he works 6 days a week so we only saw each other on Saturday. During the first few months of the year, I work 6 days a week because of tax season. But we always seemed to make it work and I thought we were happy. When he switched to his current position I was there when he did. We talked about what the job entitled and I told him that I was fine with it and that we’d make it all work out. If I honestly didn’t like that idea, I wouldn’t have let this go on. I have my kid to think about. Also during the past two years, I’ve extended the invitation for him to come over and have dinner with us, each time being rejected because of him having to work early the next day. Fine. I completely understand that. But if you aren’t happy with how often we are seeing each other, why not make more of an effort instead of using it as an excuse?

Basically this break up blindsided me and I want some answers but he’s not willing to talk right now. So, of course, I’m giving him his space to breath and think. If there were so many issues why wait for 9 months to say anything? Why not say something and try to work it out? Am I stupid for wishing/hoping that things work out? Am I stupid for wanting to wait and be patient with him and see how this works out (but not let this stop me from living my life because I can’t do that)? Because I do still really love the man and I feel that this whole thing could have been dealt with if he had only talked to me about it first. I feel like everything he told my friend were all excuses. Cold-feet and commitment issues? Afraid to be vulnerable and to be loved? I don’t know. Yes, I’m hurt and upset that he waited so long and did this very poorly (he even said that himself to my friend), but I have no hate towards him.

During the last month I have done a whole lot of self-reflecting and realized that I haven’t been true to myself so I started working on it and I have been making some major improvements. He told my friend that I was the one that needed to reflect for the next while and when he’s ready then he will talk. She told him to follow his own advice and told him that I was already well on my way.

I just don’t understand this situation. Obviously, he needs to mature up a bit (we are both 28) and we both need to take some time to self-reflect. But am I wasting my time?