I’ve been dating a man for a year now who comes with a lot of baggage. Troubled childhood coupled with a divorce two years ago that ended with the loss of his business, home, and essentially his life as he knew it. As he says “the bottom just fell out”. He spent a lot of time alone the first year and recently has started picking up the pieces of his life. He has a new home and his new business is moving forward. He is a wonderful man. He is kind, honest, genuine, patient…he lets me be myself and accepts me for who I am. We have a strong connection and an understanding where each other has been that most people wouldn’t understand.The difficulty is the amount he is willing to share. He has told me recently that after things fell apart for him he wants to create a life for himself on his own. After what happened to him, he doesn’t want to build a life with me or anyone at this point in time. He wants me to be part of his life and he mine but he will only go to a certain point. He won’t look too far into the future because as he says he doesn’t know what his future is. It can be hard for me at times because I feel like I am mainly the vunerable one. I let him know how I feel about him. I know that he cares deeply about me and has said it on occasion but isn’t very expressive emotionally. Lately the more time we spend together, and the more we enjoy eachs others company, the closer I feel to him.

I’ve never been someone who has a timeline as to when things should happen. I know that I do enjoy the time we spend together but I also wonder if he will ever get to a point where he can truly open up and be vunerable with me. I don’t feel like I’ve been wasting my time because I am with a wonderful man and regardless of what happens and I won’t regret our time together.

I also know that I don’t want to spend my life always being the vunerable one. I wan’t a balance. And I wonder if he will ever be able to let me in in that way.

It’s hard to sum up the situation in a few paragraphs, but if anyone has some insight, I’d like to hear.