What happened?

What did you respond when he told you he loved you?

I’ve had people flip on me like this in ways that seemed to make no sense. I finally spoke to one guy about why he did something like this (we were on and off for a couple years so it wasn’t the first time he’d flipped, but it was the last because I finally stopped stupidly staying romantically involved with him!). His explanation was sad but made some amount of twisted sense: he really wanted things to work between us and he wanted to try to force himself to feel a certain way, and he thought acting a little over the top but in the way he “thought he should feel” would make the feelings follow. So, he kind of tried on what it might feel like as he wanted to see what would happen and if it would make it true. Then when he still didn’t immediately feel the ways that reflected his escalation of things (bigger commitment steps in actions and suddenly saying all the things to go with it), he gave up and dumped me without much explanation until this much later conversation in which I asked him what he was thinking doing that to me.

Most importantly, I hadn’t done anything wrong. His behavior actually happened because he had major, major commitment issues on his end and wasn’t emotionally available or mature enough to deal with it in a proper way. His choices had absolutely nothing to do with me, *except* that due to my own insecurity I accepted his flip-flopping for a long while before that very last time when I finally accepted it and cut off the romantic on-off roller coaster part.

In your situation, if he’s obsessed with work it may be something similar in that he has commitment issues, and you’re dodging a bullet as he’d never prioritize his partner anyway. Or he uses work as a cover story for another woman / being married. Either way, someone emotionally healthy doesn’t tell you they love you only to blindside you a week later. It will hurt, but he’s shown you who he is and how he’s willing to treat you (no matter what the reason!), so you’re best off nursing your heartache and taking care of yourself after the breakup but cutting him off and walking away. Eventually opening yourself back up to new potential partners.

His “don’t push me, I’ll come to you” is controlling BS, but you should 100% do what he asks and not talk to him anymore! If he didn’t blindside you and was having a mature conversation in which the reasons he explained were clearly communicated and he asked for some space to resolve them, that would be okay. But the way he did it is the sign of a really crappy partner, so now that he’s shown you who he is, believe him!!

Or maybe he was falling for you but your response/reaction was not what he was expecting and he felt stupid to be the first one to say those three words, he got angry with himself and pushes you away so you can chase him because he now feels less masculine.

Men are so immature let me tell you. Anyhow, whatever the true case may be, he’s ruining it all by himself let him go.