Answers?

I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of days obsessing over my flaws, wondering whether things would have turned out differently if I had done x, y or z.

Rationally I have come to realise that the crux of it is this: he simply couldn't commit. It explains why he couldn't even try to work things out, why he couldn't think of reasons to continue even after so many wonderful times over the last few years. For every reason he could find to end things, I could counter it with 10 other reasons why we should continue. Every negative for him seemed to clinch the decision he had already - consciously or not - made; I couldn't see that there was anything we couldn't work through if we really wanted it. I guess it's the "if we really wanted it" where we differed. It was like we were flipsides of the same coin but couldn't ever quite see each other, or see one another's point of view - or to stretch the metaphor, the coin could never land on both sides at once.

It would also explain why everything he has said and written is so confusing - why there's a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of this reason here, a bit of another (seemingly unrelated) reason there. I don't think he understands it himself. I guess all of this was stuff that I've been coming to for a few days - ever since I got that last email from him 3 days ago and realised that asking him for answers was futile because he wouldn't be able to give them to me but would attempt to nonetheless, in the process confusing and hurting me further.

Going along this line of thought then, the logical conclusion must be that there is nothing I could have done to change anything. As my friends and family have pointed out, the flaws I have and the niggly things between us couldn't have been dealbreakers in themselves. They came later, as justifications for something he knew he felt but couldn't quite explain.

My friend B thinks he has no idea about all of this now, and won't allow himself to work through it to this point for some time. I find myself wondering if he will ever reach it at all. My mind - or heart or whatever - is in a constant push-pull situation at the moment. Part of me, the part that is just so deeply hurt, wonders constantly about what he's doing, how he's feeling, whether he's sleeping, whether he has dreams about me (as I do about him), whether he ever has moments where he wonders just what he has done, whether he is as constantly and relentlessly followed by it wherever he goes and whatever he does. The part of me that can see things more clearly and rationally sees that there really was no alternative - not even for me. That part of me can see that in the end this never would have been enough and that I could never have been happy knowing all the while that he was unsure.

What I am grieving is the future that we used to have. That future died when he discovered that he couldn't commit to me or to our relationship. There could be no future together now that this has happened - not one I can see at the moment, anyway - in which I could ever be as happy, secure or fulfilled as in the future that used to exist.