Does my ex still want to be with me?

Move on, if their not ready for a relationship, then they are not truly in love with you.

Move on.

Translation:
You are the type of girl that, if I ever wanted to get married someday, I would want to marry.

My advice is to move on. If it is meant to be it will be but to wait for him would be a disservice to yourself.

He won’t:

1. move to be with you when it’s in your best interests.
2. resume the relationship romantically long distance.
3. be in a relationship “right now.”

This is not love. This is all about him. He is saying the love words, but not showing the love actions. He is just keeping you on a string perhaps for potential booty call.

This guy is not even your friend.

You deserve better.

The fact that he says “being in a relationship is not the best thing for him right now”, says hesitation on his part. If he was truly in love with you, there would be no hesitation at all and he would just act upon his feelings. He may have strong feelings for you, but he may also be unsure that you are the one he wants to be with, and doesn’t want to completely let you go. I say let him go, move on, and if you two are meant to be, then it’ll happen someday when you are both ready, and want it.

A long-distance relationship can be very hard to sustain without a huge amount of commitment and determination. The voice on the phone, the pictures, the words, the mementoes are no substitute for the warm presence beside you. Questions of what to do about in-the-meantime local companionship, whether you have to start every new friendship by telling people you’re in a committed relationship, and, if things do get friendly locally, what to tell the distant party and when, can all be very sticky, if not downright heartbreaking to somebody.

My guess is that he wants the relationship part but not the long-distance part. If he is not 100% into it, he is wise to know that it’s not for him. When/if you move back, and if you are both still free, you will probably find him ready to resume.

And by then you may well have moved on. Especially if he is still back in the old hometown and you have been out in the wide world.

I did two long-distance relationships in my youth. One, with the boyfriend back home, lasted more than two college years and then broke up when I went back to get married—by which time the people we’d become were no longer the people the other remembered. The other, the faraway romance, ended with moving in together (closing the distance) followed by a (so far) 31-year marriage.

I like Marina’s answer. Spot on.

As an alternate viewpoint, I don’t think it’s necessarily condemning that he didn’t move, couldn’t it be said that if you were “truly in love” then you wouldn’t have left him? That would be just as ridiculous to me. You have to pursue your life just as he does his.

I’m assuming as a person with high standards and goals for yourself, you want a man who has aspirations of his own, and is most likely pursuing those where he’s at. Long distance relationships are hard, the more practical your way of thinking is, the harder they are to maintain. He’s being honest and communicating his feelings with you, a 6 hour drive just isn’t something he looks for in a relationship right now. If it works out in the future, great, why write off someone you care about?

Of course if he’s back home, jobless, school less, toothless, and playing xbox with the boys, he may not be marriage material, but you failed to mention how many teeth he had…

You deserve better than that. Maybe if you tell him you’re going to start looking around for someone who does want a relationship right now, he might think again about what he’s doing and realize that he’s making the biggest mistake in his life.

”being in a relationship is not the best thing for him right now.”

I have no idea what that means. Is he confused about himself in some way? Does he have shit to deal with? Is he psychologically damanged? Is he poor? Is he playing the field to see what’s out there?

I guess some people kind of don’t know themselves that well when they are young, and they need to find themselves. Maybe he’s gone looking.

It just sounds like a wierd wishy-washy kind of thing that people say when they don’t want to hurt you, but they don’t think they want to be with you. People are wimps, and can’t say no straight out, so that act like a future is possible.

IDK. Maybe it is. More likely you should do what the others have said, and act as if it’s over. Make him come find you if he really wants you.

And Niki? I’m surprised at you. You sound like you are generally much more clear about things than it seems here. What does your intuition say?

Niki, he loves you but he’s willing to risk losing you to someone else by not committing? Sounds like he likes the idea of love, but not reality of love…

Sounds like he’s just not that into you.

Sounds like he wants you as a backup plan.

@phoenyx You’re back! I’ve missed you.

He wants the comfort of a relationship without the commitment of one. He needs to man up, or lose you and he needs to know that.

I second all of Marina’s points. You are way too good to settle for whatever he has left over after he’s done focusing on himself.

For the time being at least, live as if it is over for good. He may well love you, and may well have some kind of reason for the decisions he’s made (though I don’t know what it could be), but you can’t put your life on hold for a ‘maybe’. Live your life as it comes. Give and accept love as it comes.

I think he’s quite clear: he loves you and wants to be with you, but doesn’t want to do the long-distance thing. He’d probably be willing to “see other people” for now and, when the geographical situation changes, get back with you.

Which of course some would say is just another way for him to get some non-commited sex for now and then still have you as a backup whenever you get back. But there is also the danger that he’ll meet “the love of his life” while you’re on a break.

The question of course is what YOU want from him. Do you love him? Would you like to put things on hold with him and see other people for now? Would you be able to go back to him after something like that?

@Jack79, looks like you and I have the exact same take on it. You said it more succinctly. Lurve.