Oh, Hopsy!
I sooooo get where you are.
Remember the book you have recommended on relationships? (the name escapes me, and I am settled all cozily in my bed with my cup of coffee and I dont want to go digging in the shelves for it...) That book came to me just as I was hitting the spot where you are for the first time. It was everything to me. Everything. I weathered the dance with the book in my hand and have continued to use what I learned there as the dance continues. Go get the book--read it again.
Something that the author spoke of was that there is a natural progression to every romantic relationship (I'm convinced that it happens in all relationships). At some point there is a pulling back by one of the partners--a retreat from the intimacy that is developing. The natural tendency of the other partner is to move forward in response--to ask questions, to express concern. The author points out that that behavior heightens the need for space in the initiating partner.
The best gift you can give to him, and to the relationship, is to pull back, too. So he can have the freedom to figure out on his own where he wants to land. Allowing this freedom will be uncomfortable to you, but the results won't be. Because he is going to have the freedom to move toward you--because he wants to, not because he wants to reassure you--and that is going to feel really good to both of you.
Also, just because someone says they don't think they can fall in love again--you don't have to start hammering nails into the coffin. People say a lot of things. Sometimes they say what they wish was true. Sometimes they really mean what they say--at that moment. Sometimes they say what is the opposite of what is true. I listen to what people say, but I pay more attention to what they do.
Okay, another thing: you two havent been together that long. He is actually saying exactly what he SHOULD be saying at this point. If he was planning marriage already, I would be on a plane to come get you! Lots and lots of time--that's what you need, and he is giving it to you with out you having to fight for it. Lots of space to work through your very real relationship issues without also navigating the rapids of commitment. What a gift.
And finally....even if you two develop a long term, committed relationship, he may still be of little use in an emotional melt down. My experience is limited--but what I have had, with husband, sons, and now a sweetheart, is that men don't do well with emotional meltdowns. Esp. meltdowns that involve not being able to fix it. Men are not all the same, so I suspect the extent of their desire to fix it is varied. But I have encountered it over and over again. Some men get angry--at the source of your pain, or at you!--and then you are left to deal with HIS strong emotions, distracting you from your own. Some men pull back--either out of wisdom, or just out of the frustration at the feeling of ineptness they get--and leave you to struggle through your own feelings on your own.
That feels like abandonment because women rush in and cluck and putter and empathize. All that clucking and puttering feels like real love to us. So we grade our man on where he lands on the scale of attention When The Sky Is Falling In. But, I dont think that's fair (and I do it!) I honestly have never in my life met a man who has met my tears with an offer to make me a cup of tea, bring me a tissue, and sit and hold my hand while I pour out my fears and frustrations. I know that's what we say we want, but I just don't think it exists. I think that we have to let our girlfriends do that for us, and let our men do something else. That's just where I have arrived most recently!
So...maybe there are two things going on here. One, is your meltdown over your family and home issues and your gardener's response (or lack of it). The other may be your anxiety over where this relationship is going (or not going). The two things may have converged this weekend, but they may not actually be related at all. And one may not speak to the reality of the other. And neither may be poured in stone for all time.
I have faced this stuff in my relationship,too. Sometimes pretty well and sometimes not. What I have learned to do is to look at stuff like this as a plot tension in our story. (what good story doesnt have a bit of tension in it to make you keep turning the page?) You could look at his unwillingness to spend the night like a discovery: oh, I see. This is going to be a kind of interesting twist in the story--we make mad passionate love, but he always slips out to go back home. This is what "we" look like. There is no right way to have this love affair--this is the way we have it.
So, you are the other part of the story--what do you want to be doing as he slips out to go home? Or when you wake up the next morning, wishing he were waking up beside you--but he's not. If you can picture who you want to be in the story--the strong woman with things in her own life that need doing--you can construct the end of that chapter with you puttering around your own kitchen in the morning, making your tea, listening to music on the stereo, choosing to have the autonomy that results from his emotional distance. Does that make sense?
The same thing with his unwillingness to make a further commitment to you right now: this is the real story of you, as a couple. What will you make of it? If you were to write a story of your romance, with you being okay with the way it is right now, what would it look like? Can you walk that picture out?
I have been able to do that (my issues arent the same as yours--but I still feel inexplicably clutchy at times, considering the fact that I am really not comfortable with binding commitments myself at this point). I keep my emotional feelers out there, looking for places where I might be settling for something that really isnt okay at all. I've hit that place a couple of times, and that's when we have The Talk. So far, we have always resolved things.
All that is to say, Hopsy, that if any of this starts feeling abusive, or sick, or twisted, the story is over. That's the way this one ends--the strong woman walking out the door (or kicking him through it). The entire scenario above is based on both of you being imperfect but good people who are simply bumbling around a new relationship trying to figure out how to do it. I think you will recognize if it ever becomes something darker. I say, let him keep taking his space wherever he needs it, while you guard the space you need to look at everything that is going on from a bit of emotional distance.
I'm walking this road, too, Hopsy, and it's both exciting and exhausting.
Love you
CB
