You feel you have personal issues that you recognize you need to work on like self confidence and it is always good to try to improve the way we approach life and personal relationships. This should be something you do for yourself. It shouldn't be something you do as a way to better yourself so that you will be acceptable to him. I don't know if he made you feel that you were lacking self confidence or you came to that conclusion yourself. We all go through issues like this. You wouldn't be the first person who cared so much about someone that you were constantly self assessing and afraid of loosing them. A lot of very loving people with big hearts get hurt and it is hard to rebound and have confidence in yourself after that. I have to tell you that there is someone out there who can look past that insecurity and see into your soul and let you know how beautiful you are. That person will instill such confidence in you that you will see yourself through their eyes. They will love you for yourself. It won't be difficult to arrange his schedule to see you. Your self confidence issues won't be "just too hard to deal with". I think you shared genuine feeling with your friend, but if it has all become to hard, as you put it, he does not have the same feelings about the relationship as you do. It is possible in his effort to return the relationship to a not so demanding one that he has told you reasons that have made you feel responsible for it failing. It wasn't you.....It just was not the right chemistry for a truly fullfilling relationship on both sides. It is hard to see that he would never be able to make you totally happy because you love him. But love is not the be all and end all of a relationship. When you truly find that someone that will accept you for who you are and love you flaws and all and still want to make you happy and will go to the ends of the earth to see that you are, you will know what I mean. I am sure that your friend cares for you as a friend or he would not be talking with you. Don't fall into the trap of thinking if you were only better or more confident or less fault finding of yourself that somehow things would return to the way they were. The truth is, you are just fine. If he was the one and only true love of your life, things would already be the way they were. Concentrate on accepting yourself and your confidence will take care of itself. Concentrate on finding someone who will also accept you as you are and your heart will be taken care of also. The subject line of your post was "I want him back". If you really think about it what you probably want most is the adoration you felt when love was new. That feeling was total acceptance. Have faith, you will know it again.
