I’ll try and keep this short. Told my husband I wanted to separate in the spring. Circumstances mean we’re still sharing the house and co-parenting DD.
Bumped into an old flame/fling from 20ish years ago in very unusual circumstances. Let’s call him Dave. Messaged each other and met for coffee. Had a relationship for a month or so before he got cold feet and called it off. He’s a single parent to a young child who has some learning difficulties and health problems. He doesn’t see his mother and Dave gets 1 day/night off a fortnight when his mum has his son. Because of his son’s needs, Dave works for himself, and for the last 2 years has been building a hobby into a business which is finally gaining some traction. His reason for calling it off was that he couldn’t spend as much time with me as I wanted. We were literally trying to find a couple of hours during school hours each week to see each other. (Not ideal as I work a 9-5 with limited flexibility.). The weekends he has free he needs to devote to his business. I was sort of okay with a more casual thing, but he told me he had fallen for me and was struggling with not being able to see me enough.
The couple of months after were really hard, but I got to a point where I wasn’t thinking about him all the time as I had been.
I went out with friends and got a bit drunk a few weeks ago. Messaged him saying I missed him. He replied, said he missed me too, still loved me, wanted to see me in the week. I moved things around, offered him a time, he said he’d let me know. We had a couple of message chats in the evenings when the kids were in bed. I messaged the night before to see if we were meeting. He didn’t reply, and didn’t even read the message for 2 days and didn’t reply when he did. That weekend was my birthday. No message to wish me a happy birthday. Then this week just gone same thing again. I offered a time on Friday, he said he would confirm the next day. Didn’t hear from him so sent a message 10 mins after he posted something on social media to check if we were meeting (Thursday). No reply. He read the message today and sent no response. So that’s 3 occasions where I think it was reasonable for him to spend 10 seconds sending me a message and he hasn’t.
He’s been single for 4 years. He prioritises his son and is trying to build a future for them with what time he has. I understand all that. And I appreciate that my circumstances aren’t ideal. But still. I’m so drawn to this man, but realistically how can I deal with being messed around? Do I withdraw or give him the benefit of the doubt? Is it doomed?