not really sure what he ultimately wants or how he feels towards me?

[toot86]

Okay so my ex and I were in a long distance relationship for six months between Australia and New Zealand. We started our relationship in long distance and spent the first four months leading up to the first big visit (which I made to him) getting to know each other communicating everyday through skype, phone calls, texts and facebook. We were both really into each other during this initial period and often talked about the future and living in the same city together etc, (he initiated these topics most of the time). During the five weeks I spent with him we had a great time and got on very well, everything flowed and was very comfortable and his family and friends loved me. I feel the only issue we had in our time together involved a couple of situations regarding his smoking habits which resulted in arguments in the final week because I didn’t like it. We talked about it just after I came home from the trip and both listened to the other’s point of view. However the arguments were resolved only once I decided to agree with him that I don’t have the right to get upset that he smokes because it doesn’t change who he is as a person and I understood that he’s free to make whatever lifestyle choices he wants. I told him that although I didn’t want to end up as a smoker, I was willing to put the effort in to overlook it because I felt there was too much else I liked about him.

 

However over the following 2-3 weeks he started becoming very distant. I approached him about this behavior in a calm and understanding manner and we had a talk about it and he seemed genuinely confused about where he wanted to go from here. He told me he thought I was an amazing girl and he loved so much about me and apologized repeatedly for being so distant towards saying he didn’t know why he was so confused about things. When I told him that we couldn’t keep going on like this and that I deserved to be with someone that made me feel important to them he said he felt like he couldn’t do the long distance relationship because closing the distance would involve such a serious move and we hadn’t reached a serious stage of our relationship yet, ie, pronunciation of love feelings, etc. He said he liked me a lot but felt like it wasn’t the right time for him to be doing this and gave me the whole ‘its not you its me’ spill. I know that this really means he simply didn’t have the feelings he needed to have to continue a serious relationship with me (which is what long distance requires) and although I don’t know for sure, I feel that our smoking incidents and how I had initially reacted to them may have killed some of the feelings he had for me towards the end of the trip there. (I admit I got a bit teary about it because the arguments happened only when we were having drinks and I wasn’t in full control of my emotional self). Anyway when we had the breakup talk he still didn’t seem sure about what to do and said to me he wanted to ‘cool this off for the meantime’ and suggested we make a trip to meet up closer to xmas when we could both once again afford to go away to ‘see how things are’. He said he wanted to continue having chats and didn’t want to lose our contact or friendship with me. I didn’t say much more but simply agreed with him that it was the best thing to do and stayed calm and friendly throughout it all and we finished up with a friendly skype date. My plan was to cut contact to move on because I had strong feelings for him and knew it would be hard to be friends straight away and I assumed the xmas trip wouldn’t actually ever happen knowing that we were already broken up (even if he never used the term breakup).

So its been three weeks since we broke up but he’s been trying to contact me platonically in a lot of ways and its been difficult moving on. Three days after we had our final skype date, he fb msgd me to ask how my week was starting out and sent me a link to a new bob Marley reggae movie (as we had shared a love of reggae through our relationship). I didn’t reply till a few days later and when I did kept it extremely brief saying I was good, busy, thanked him for the link he sent me and then finished with a ‘we’ll talk soon’. Then I heard from him again the following week when he sent me a brief facebook msg asking about some fun things I’d been up to from my status posts he’d seen and the next day I got a voxer message from him asking what I’d been up to and told me a song of ours was on the radio. I didn’t reply to either of these. And then the day after that he sent me another longer facebook message telling me what had been going on with him, and asked about a few specific things he knew was going on in my life, such as my hobbies work and family, and then he asked me if I wanted to skype on the upcoming weekend if I wasn’t doing anything. I ended up replying to this one because I didn’t want to be rude and because the more he attempted to contact me the more it was making me miss him and the more it worried me that if I keep ignoring him I will lose his friendship and caring. I once again gave him brief answers and told him that I couldn’t skype because I had plans already but that we’d do more soon.

 

That was a week ago and I didn’t hear any more from him so I started missing him heaps and getting worried that I might have made him think I have no interest in him. So yesterday in a moment of weakness and with a plan to be brief about it I texted him telling him that I had just caught up with a friend of his who had since moved to where I was living etc. He responded a couple of hours later, very enthusiastically and said it was awesome that we were hanging out, and suggested me and her should be best buddies and he told me about his day and asked how my weekend had been. I told him about my weekend (again briefly), asked him about his, hoping he would be brief also but he continued to ask questions and obviously wanted the conversation to keep going. I tried to wrap it up by finishing one of my responses with ‘good to talk to you anyhow ’ hoping he’d see that as the end of the conversation, plus it was late in the evening for him. But this morning I woke up to a reply continuing the conversation and him asking more about one of my hobbies.

 

Anyway, I realize that contacting him myself might have been a mistake, since its only been 3 weeks since we broke up. But the fact that he seems to really want to stay in touch is giving me a hard time deciphering whether its his friendship or the relationship I’m actually missing and wanting back and I think that’s what motivated me to contact him yesterday, to see how I’d handle contact as a friend at this stage. Does it seem like he really does still have feelings for me and perhaps was serious about this only being a break rather than a breakup? Our conversations since the breakup have stayed strictly platonic and we haven’t flirted. I don’t know how to shut down the text conversation with him by leaving him wanting more but without being rude. Any suggestions?

[justwhoiam]

Be honest with him. Just tell him that you still have feelings for him and don't feel like dragging anything... you need to stop talking to him, because you already know there's nothing between you two.

 

Don't feel bad about your issues with smoking, you did the right thing. I know I couldn't spend my life with someone who smokes, no matter what. And you were worrying about his health too.