Prior to officially dating him, my boyfriend (30 years old at the time) had not had a serious relationship for almost 9 years. This is a tall, very attractive, well-dressed, successful, independent man and no, he wasn’t a serial dater or man-whore either. What he told me was that he just never liked a girl enough to keep it going longer than a few months. Then I came around. He liked me the moment he saw me and was very persistent in pursuing me. After a few months of flirting and seeing each other on and off, we finally connected and made it official. Prior to dating me, he had moved every year for 3 years straight and in conversation, I picked up on an unusual amount of jobs and cars he had for only being 30 years old. In the 4 years we were together, he moved 3 times the first 2 years. First from a home he had purchased (lived there for 1 year) then to a 1/1 apartment (also 1 year), then to a 2/1 (only lived her for 3-4 months). He also left his high-paying job because it felt like a dead end and tried getting into real estate. He decided to do Uber until real estate picked up and got a 2nd three-year leased vehicle just to do Uber. He didn’t like Uber and was not left with 2 cars. This was less than a year into the relationship and he was feeling very overwhelmed with everything and broke things off with me for a few days before quickly coming to his senses and professing his love for me and apologizing profusely. He got the 2 bedroom apartment just to make an office for real estate…once he realized his social anxiety was not cut for real estate networking he moved out of that apartment and moved back home for a few months before finally moving in to my house. After real estate failed, he tried several health insurance agencies and car insurance agencies…all turning out to be not what he expected causing him to quickly leave each. After a few months of living with me, my career was drastically changing and was going to cause me to move to another county (about 45 mins away) and since he was in the middle of changing careers still, we decided to move sooner rather than later so that he could just get settled in a job in our new county. We worked for yet another car insurance agency for a few months, but it turned out now to be what he expected as well and I supported him in the decision to leave this office. He finally landed a job that seemed very promising. His boss was paying him well and it seemed like an amazing opportunity for him to get his foot in the door with this company and become a franchise owner as well. A few months later, my career took off. I got the opportunity of a lifetime to open my own insurance agency. Before we even got the official announcement, he was planning my surprise party to celebrate. During all this time, he was always incredibly affectionate, attentive and thoughtful. We got along and were compatible. He was always with me, we has social anxiety so he is not a partier or one to go out with his friends more than to a sports bar for a few hours. He would surprise me every year for my birthday, we vacationed together, lived together for 2 years, I was the first girl his family had met since his girlfriend 9 years earlier. He did have a consistent sexual and erectile dysfunction problem pretty much throughout the entire 4 years. There were moments where it was normal, but there were more moments where it was a problem and I could see how much this bothered him to the point of avoidance. He would go to sleep early because he had anxiety or was tired but I think subconsciously avoiding S…performance anxiety. Everything else was great though. Then 3 years into the relationship, the date after his 33rd birthday, a few days after I had thrown him a surprise birthday party at the beach, he tells me in the dark late at night that he has been feeling weird…that he doesn’t want to be in a relationship, that he’s not in love with me and that he wants to move out. I, of course, freak out. I sat there talking out loud in the dark telling him that this makes no sense…he treats me like a princess, he is affectionate, he is caring…he was making a huge mistake and he had to think about what he was doing. I left on a 5 day trip 2 days later and we didn’t speak too much during that time…a few texts a day, 1 call a day. When he picked me up from the airport he said he missed me and hugged and kissed me and acted like everything was fine. We spoke about it a few days later and he said he didn’t know why he felt that way but that he loves me and was sorry. The next year was great. We moved yet again to be near my new business, his dog moved in with us, we fixed up the house and everything was great. Around this time, things started to unravel at his job. His “amazing” boss turned out to be a manipulative liar and none of his promises were coming to fruition and after months of being mistreated, he decided to leave. After leaving this job, he was offered another opportunity to make “a lot of money” working somewhere else and that, again, turned out to be nothing as he expected. His old manipulative, lying boss started texting him again and swindled him into going back to his office. Meanwhile, my business is thriving and I am the center of attention at most get-together’s because everyone was so excited for me. His birthday was a few days later and I had planned a weekend at our favorite hotel but unfortunately it was raining all weekend and I had to cancel the plans. We, instead went to a bar and celebrated. The next day, we were lazy all day watching TV and ordering in food. I made him homemade dessert for his birthday and feast of a dinner. The day of his birthday, I posted a picture on Instagram with a loving caption and he wrote “I love you baby”…then the day after his birthday…AGAIN just like last year, the same exact way he did last year, same day, same scene…he tells me the same exact thing. I slept in the other room and the next morning we did not speak. I left him a note saying “we can get through this” and he texted me saying “I don’t want to get through this I want to go my own way”. We spoke briefly on the phone and he told me he was going to move out “today or tomorrow” and when I got home that afternoon, there was a Uhaul outside and he had taken every single thing he owned out of our home. He took the dog and vanished. The devil himself came out of me that night and I said pretty horrific things to him. He sent me 1 text that night saying he wasn’t in love and didn’t want to waste my time and I did not hear from him for the next 33 days. I also did not reach out to him during this time. He reached out to my best friend asking how I was and told her he was “terrified of how much he hurt” me, but never reached out to me. 33 days after leaving, he sent me a text telling me for the first time the severity of his anxiety…that he couldn’t sleep, he’d cry from the anxiety, felt numb to the world and felt like he would’ve blown up years later if he didn’t leave now. He told me he loves me so much and cares about me 3X in that text but that he was happy being alone and thinks he isn’t meant for a life partner. I replied with a masterpiece of a novel telling him my diagnosis and that I think he is choosing to be alone and not meant for it simply because of how good of a partner he always was and that I felt he was letting his anxiety be a death sentence instead of getting help and/or medication. I am sure he was expecting me to rip him apart, and other than 1 angry paragraph, my novel of a text came off very caring, worried and clinical. There is also an unusual and concerning pattern of buying things he doesn’t need or buying things and never using them as well as picking up hobbies and not sticking to them, which I pointed out as temporary quick fixes.
It has now been about 6 weeks since he left. He hasn’t replied to my text yet…don’t know if he knows how to or will.
Can anyone shed some light on WT this could be? Is this just untreated extreme and paralyzing anxiety and/or depression? Self-worth issues? Bipolar?