Sorry this is long.
I am in a tricky situation. One year in to a relationship with a man who lives abroad but works in my country every other week. He stays at mine. I have never visited him, as he has 3 DC under 10 and a tricky ex (NB - this is me reading between the lines, he is not slagging her off or calling her mad, he's not like that. And they are certainly 100% separated - I know that. ). And I know it's normal to wait at least a year. I'd love to meet these kids. They sound great. He has a lot on his plate - stressful full-on job, sick mother, and he is a very very conscientious and loving father. We fell in love very quickly. I've always had total confidence in that, and though the future looked tricky, it didn't seem impossible that at some stage I would meet his kids and we would start to move our lives together. Always had great communication.
However - at the beginning of this year he had to work away, and his mother had an operation, and work became very very stressful for him. We ended up not seeing each other for weeks, phone calls got shorter and then bam, one day he just texted saying it was over because his children needed him. That was it. I am 45, he's 42. I'm divorced with no kids. The day after this text he called to say he had overreacted because he was so overwhelmed and spread so thin he felt like something had to give. OK - I thought, - he said he loved me and saw a future together, then said he still needed to think. OK, so I backed off and waited for him when I knew he was in the country. We met as usual, he stayed at mine, - we didn't really have a serious talk because I felt like least said soonest mended and wanted to keep things low stress.
He was calling and messaging for a few days after that as usual, then went quiet again. I now have a gut feeling that another dumping text is coming and I can't understand how we have gone from great communication and total straightforward love to this tense situation where I feel like one wrong move is going to make him Buckaroo and finish it again.
He has so much on his plate, but I've always been flexible and low maintenance. He is due here next week. I'd like to talk to him before that but I genuinely don't know if we're together, if it's over and he's ghosting...that seems so unlike the man I know. He's very serious. Work is his vice, I think. And compartmentalising. I think his lives in the two cities are very seperate to him. He said he loved me and sent messages afterwards saying I was beautiful, he loved my voice (from a voice message about a project we did together) that he missed me, that I was sweet to him... etc. If I read them back, I feel OK. He's saying lovely things as he always has. If I think that we haven't spoken in five days, I don't so much. Actually I feel dreadful.
So what am I asking? Has anyone been through this - dealing with someone so stressed they think something has to go and it's you? I think the worst thing I could do is call or message - he has his kids at the weekend. I know he has a lot going on, but I can't seem to not feel desolate. The only course seems to be wait it out and let him have space. It's hard though...