I met a woman about three months ago online. We met, clicked, and spent the better part of a month and a half together nearly every other day. She is the first woman I have ever dated that I feel really understands me and she showed me everything I could want to see. I opened up for her, I let go, which is very hard for me to do. She let go too. We got along famously, never once fought and the sex for both of us was the best it had ever been.

Then she dropped a bomb on me that I don’t even know if I will ever recover from. She told me that she didn’t want to be in a relationship. That her last boyfriend, whom she was engaged to after 10 days, hurt her in ways she can’t even tell me about. My world fell apart. No relationship??? She took out the personal ad. She contacted me. She showed me everything I could possibly want. I did the only thing I could, I told her I cared deeply for her and that I was going to stay until she told me to go away or couldn’t live without me.

She said she still wanted me in her life and that she enjoyed being with me. She was really distant after that until one night before I left town for a week she asked to see me. I left for a week and we continued to talk. She genuinely missed me and she couldn’t wait for my return, she told me many times. We spent most of the week of my return together, but then she gradually got more and more distant. We haven’t been together sexually for weeks and when I try she says she’s too tired, or some other excuse. She does have a busy life as a veterinary surgeon, but she used to make time for me, now I am like a ghost. She still calls at least every other day, but I haven’t seen her for a week now. I have given her plenty of space; I am not being needy or pushy, but I am in agony, pure agony.

I don’t know what to do. I know her personality type and once she makes up her mind almost nothing will change it. For that reason I fear pushing her will result only in disaster; however I am not living right now and daily life feels like torture. I feel like I should let her go and make it clear to her that if she wants me to be a part of her life she needs to prove it to me. I know enough about her to know that she usually wants what she can’t have. Please help.