Wow. Where to start on this. I can't give all the detail as would be hugely identifying. I am begging you to read this and offer guidance.
I've been with my DP for about one and a half years. I have loved him for maybe 4 years. We dated on and off before the current relationship.
First time round I messed up. I was messed up and wasn't in the right place for a relationship. Deep seated issues from childhood abuse. I realised how much I loved him after we drifted apart. Spent a year or so working on myself. Felt stronger, better. We got back together. These last 1.5 years have been beset by external troubles. I can't go into them here but they were huge. We struggled through. Moments of beauty amongst the madness. Sustained intimacy. But also desperation. External factors meant we were in effect clinging to shipwreck.
Any relationship would have faltered.
Dp moved to his home town and I was to follow. I secured an excellent job and was due to move next month. We were going to live together.
It would be a fresh start in every sense, and I thought we could repair us. Heal things and build on the intimacy that was there. There is a hell of a lot of love on both sides. We are good for each other in many many ways. There's a joining of the souls but also meetinG of minds on a very practical level. And we could grow so much together, I think. But that joining of the souls had been worn down to very little because of these external problems. I recognised that we would need to recalibrate but hadn't really realised why or how. And I hadn't talked to him about it as a result,
Dp had a very very tough upbringing and has I think blockages from conveying his emotions, from letting love in. He finds it hard to trust I think, trust that I wouldn't hurt him. I think deep down he thinks I am too good for him and will go eventually,
Last week, he told me that it's been so hard he doesn't think I should come. I feel ina way he associates me with the hard stuff he's been through, I helped him through but have been tarnished by it. We talked for hours. Maybe 8 hours. In the early hours of the morning we both agreed that the relationship hadn't been able to grow naturally because of the external factors. It was too pressurised in a way. I felt obliged to love him through the hard times and to just be there. To show him that love was unconditional as he has never been shown. He felt that because I was supporting him through all of this he should stay in the relationship as he owed me. Things were so hard and our relationship clinging to a shipwreck he said it made hi, question his love for me, whether it was enough. I felt like that too at times. Whether I should just throw the towel in we had been so damaged by things,
Really, we both should have just been friends during this difficult period and then allowed a relationship to develop naturally after we had come through it.
I agreed with everything he said. Absolutely.
When I left to drive home the next morning, he was crying. Gentle tears of huge sadness. I felt strong, that perhaps I should now embark on a new life without him, move away, perhaps travel for a year. This is the damaged part of me. The part that gets hurt and wants to run, cut off. Start again. He knows this about me. I told him and he said I shouldn't make a rash decision. He wanted me to come after all but that we should start again. Let our love grow naturally and see where it took us. I felt a new softness between us.
He's been in contact constantly since then, I can tell he is hugely shaken but doesn't know how to move forward. I don't want to raise my emotions or his again, we have done that so much over the past year. I can't take any more heaviness.
I love him, deeply. There are differences between us. Very great ones. But I have never met a man like him. I see him in a way I think that no one else does. I see a man that is on the cusp, coming through these difficulties, of being the best man he could be, and the man I always though he was and man who I thought I could truly match with.
But after the past year, I am so weakened by it all and I don't know if I have the strength to move and live by myself as I would need to if we were to start afresh.
I also have to protect myself. What if I go and he edges away. I have the chance to move on now and perhaps I should take it and not be distracted.
And if I break off, that's it for us. I can't ever turn back. I would have to absolutely move on. I am mid thirties. I want children and can't be haunted by him as it will scupper my chances with someone else.. But I think that I could have spent a lifetime with this man. And I will love him forever. And I just think that when we are both stronger, when we are natural again with each other. I am the woman for him.
But who knows. Maybe I am being too romantic. Maybe there is no joining of the souls. Maybe it's in my head.
But maybe not. Although there must be many people out there who could match me, maybe I won't find that person who is as special to me as he is.
I am so sorry this is so long. And I wish I could provide more detail.
Please help me. Give me guidance.