He's Not Ready for Love

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Visitor's Question:
I have been dating this guy since Oct. It is a long distance relationship, we live a state apart.

We are monogomous and refer to each other as "boyfriends" I want to say I love him, he is not ready. He has been emotionally closed down because of the death of his mother and other circunstances. It may take some time for his recovery and trust to get to a point when he can express it. With his lack of disclosure I am fearful that if I keep investing myself emotionally with him that he will change his mind and decide not to be with me. There is alot of chemestry and I love being with him. I want to wait but I don't want to get hurt. He is 47, I am 44. I am done fooling around and dating. I want a partner for life.

On another note. What is the next step after boyfriend? Lover? Partner?




Our Suggestion:
First, every single one of us has a different definition of when something is "love". To you it's OK to say you love him even though you live apart. For some people, it cannot be "love" until you move in together, give formal vows in front of friends and family, and make that lifelong commitment. So there's nothing wrong with him saying that he's not at that stage yet. It's only been six months, which while it's a good length of time, it's still rather fast to be in a "till death do us part" frame of mind. Especially if you only see each other occasionally.

I would work on finding ways to get closer to him, to show that you are in this for the long haul and to give you both time to really get to know each other in your *normal* day to day lives, not just as 'weekend/vacation time' fun friends. At some point one of you will have to move (or both of you) to have this work as a together-relationship. Would you be ready to do that? It might be time to start giving that a thought.

As to names, every single couple has different names for what they are. With so many people living together and choosing not to marry, the names differ from couple to couple. I have some common ones here -

http://www.romanceclass.com/miscr/LoveSCat/65759


--Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com




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