I Ran From a Proposal, I Came Back to Him and Need Help

TLDR: we were about to get engaged, I got scared and ran away and then came back… Now we are sleeping together and acting like we are together in private but not publicly and he seems to steer away from that label.. confused on best approach.

My story is a love after divorce story – we are both divorced, each with 3 children. There were a lot of wounds and fear that went into the first year of our relationship but the love, passion and connection were like nothing we had experienced before. I discovered he was going to propose after I had asked him to slow things down when some of those wounds raised their heads as really disrespectful arguments. Instead of being brave and telling him I knew and wasn’t ready yet, I ran away.

I took 3.5 months of no contact to really sort out my feelings and myself. I turned inward and recognized a lot of what I brought to the table that contributed to me running away and how much I really loved him.. I consider him my twin flame… It really is like no other love I’ve ever felt. I wrote him a letter explaining how I felt and where I went wrong and apologized and we reconnected in a huge way. This was before I found your resources.. we slept together and spent nearly the entire next week together as if we picked up where we left off.

He claimed that I was the only one, he cut off other dating interests the very next day, he told me I was his missing puzzle piece and even introduced me as his girlfriend to his tennis group and others..

Once the initial week honeymoon reunion was over, though, he pulled back and told me essentially he was all in but his heart had worked on getting over me and that level of feelings weren’t there anymore. He’s all in to try to rekindle things with me but he kind of shyed away from putting a label on it just yet because of how external people had an influence previously. We want to try to focus on ourselves without judgment from others but I also feel really conflicted. I’m giving him girlfriend treatment and he’s giving me boyfriend treatment but I have a sinking feeling about how he phrased that. I know he’s hurt from what I did… I spent months taking a hard look at things.

I guess my question is… Do I keep going as is? Then after a bit, kind of sit with him and tell him listen, I know what I want and it’s a relationship with you. If you’re not willing to stand with me on that after we’ve had some time to feel things out, I can’t continue to sleep with you and act like I’m your girlfriend? I want to take his lead on it since I’m the one returning but I also want to be able to win his heart back wholly.