Desperately need insight! We've been together for 4 months out of which I was overseas for 2 months. I just got back a couple of weeks back. He kept in touch, waited and initiated the catch up once I got back. We spent a lovely evening together. We made plans to attend a housewarming the following Saturday and he told me he was moving to another city for a couple of weeks for work. He asked me if he could stay at my place for a few days before he left and I said yes. He told me on his emails and when we met that he missed me. Even before I left I said 'I will kind of miss you' to make light of what could have been a heavy topic. 'Kind of?' he asked and said 'I will surely miss you'. When we saw each other for the last time before I left he asked me again 'will you miss me?'. I've met his friends and flatmates and seen his place. He did this all by himself – I didn't even have to ask him. His friends and flatmates love me…and my friends adore him. Since the morning after that evening after I got back…I have not heard from him. It's been 2 weeks now.

Now he's been struggling for work for these 4 months and is completely broke. He is also worried about his visa. He is pretty frustrated with all of this.

I texted him once on the Sunday after we met, then on Monday and then on Tuesday. They weren't heavy texts. Just saying hi and wondering how he was. I rang him on Wednesday in case he didn't have credit. He didn't pick up. Am not fussed since we normally don't call each other. I texted him on Saturday to check about the housewarming. Nothing. I finally emailed him last Tuesday to let him know that I am not angry but concerned and that I care. I told him I am here if he needed to talk. Since quite a few people were telling me to visit his place, I finally did that last Friday. His flatmate told me he had left for the other city on Tuesday and he was physically fine. She said she was surprised too that he hadn't contacted me and will try and get through to him.

My friends think he's sorting himself out and will come back to me. He had told me he'll be back from the other city in a 'couple of weeks'. So it's not long to go before he's back here. We have only had 1 small tiff so far. When he left on Sunday morning he said 'see you soon'. He even forgot the t-shirt I had gotten for him…his beer's still in the fridge and he forgot the DVD he wanted to borrow from me. He rushed out because he was running late to meet a friend to return some money he told me.

Additionally he used to go silent every Sunday and Monday. When I asked him about this he told me there was nothing sinister – he'd just be sleeping in and sometimes meeting friends. So I was getting used to that trend. But this is too long :( More than 2 weeks now - I cannot understand. I have not contacted him for a week now but I do so miss him :(

Can he be detached after I was away for the 2 months? If so then why bother with organising the catch up & making future plans? Even my flatmate said he looked 'super keen'.

Can he be depressed? My ex had lost his job and spiralled into depression and broken up with me. This is why am wondering whether he's in a bad place and needs time to sort things out. Maybe feeling a bit emasculated too.

Is this his way of breaking up? Or am I assuming the worst?

Lastly, he is a Cancerian. I have noticed lots of articles about how they disappear and reappear. I am an Aries. He is 29 and I am 33. He has told my friends that he finds me intriguing and beautiful. He loves my cooking….could hardly keep his hands off me the last time we met and finds me 'weird'. When we last met we were laughing so hard that we nearly fell of the couch – so it was a lovely evening we spent. I have tried to help him with his job by providing him contacts to call. I have certainly been very caring and sweet to him. He's made a lot of effort too since it's always him coming over to my place and it's a 45 min journey on public transport. I really care for him and miss him. Except for once he has always been on time and I've never had to reschedule plans. My friends believe he genuinely likes me.

Thanks in advance and sorry about the long post!

It is hard to put a lot of faith in guesswork. It would be far better for him to have been polite and respectful enough to take 30 seconds out of his day, and send an email, saying that he will not be available, due to personal reasons. Whatever they may be.

To leave you hanging like that, is very disrespectful, no matter how nice a guy he is, or what you were comfortable enough to believe about him, or his character.

I would put him in the jerk category.

Unless he soon contacts you with a damn good reason for his rude behaviour, I would consider the relationship over. If he convinces you that he had a family emergency he had to tend to, or he got run over by a bus, or abducted by aliens, proceed with caution, and talk to him. Set some personal standards with clear expectations on what you will, and will not accept.

If you call him, you expect a call back. If you email him, you expect an email in response. If he makes plans to attend any social event, you expect him to show up, or properly call you and cancel.

In other words, he has to communicate. If you have more guessing than fact, you don't have much.

I would not contact him, as you've decided to do. And consider that the relationship was only four months long, with a two month absence, didn't really bode well from the get-go.

I am sorry that you are left wondering what the h-e-double hockey sticks happened, but more importantly, consider what didn't.

Thanks for your words... and I agree with you on all of this. It takes a couple of seconds to text back... to let me know either that he doesn't want us to see each other or that he needs time to sort out things. It's been exactly 3 weeks since we last saw each other... so sad... I miss him a lot. I have quite a few really tough things happening to me at the moment... nothing good happening and so his absence is making everything rather hard to cope with. As you say I have nothing else really that I can do... which is a weird way is a good thing... at least I won't regret not having tried. There's a thin line between stalking and caring. I managed to do my utmost without hounding him. He should appreciate it. As much as it's been tough for me I have refrained from acting terribly needy. I haven't contacted him or any of his friends or flatmates for over a week. I have been preoccupied with the other crisis' in my life but he has remained on my mind. And now I feel very frustrated with my plight - feel like an under attack from all directions... every week I think it's going to improve the following week... but no... new things appear to make my life tougher. I have never had such a difficult period in my whole life :(

It's really tough when you think you have a friend/boyfriend/husband etc. in your life that shares a bond equally enough with you, that when times get tough, they are there for you, and you for them.

That bond, happens over a period, because it is usually comittment to the relationship over many challenges and adjustments together, that make it strong. If the goal is to keep a relationship growing and strong, life and life's challenges, shared, makes life easier to cope with. I think we all reach for that level of comittment in a relationship.

The relationship you had with this particular man, seems that perhaps your expectations and needs, were not shared by him. He could have sent out all the right signals, and in his defence, may have thought that he could help you, while at the same time believe in a longe term relationship, but realized that it wasn't going to work. I do think that the way he ended the relationship, without being direct and honest, only added to whatever problems have been going on for you.

Time to move on, without hanging hopes on what might be, or could be. All you can do is deal with what is in front of you.

All the best of luck.

Thanks Jake! I guess your wishes have paid off. As much as the other crisis in my life just took a turn for the better y'day and I can relax. Yes there's a bit of way to go still but at least I am getting some kind of control back. And I also received an email from him y'day. The following is what he said in the email:

Really sorry I've not been in contact. It was ****ty of me I know. There were circumstances behind it though. I had to leave quicker than I thought. I'll explain it to you at a later date. In XXX city at the moment. Not sure when I'll be back in town yet.Hope your good anyway. I'll talk to you soon

Nothing conclusive but I am relieved in a way. I knew all through that this had nothing to do with us or me but as human beings we of course assume the worst. A few of my friends have called this email lame and unacceptable. But if I have guessed correctly and he has been in a dark place, this communication would have taken a lot of effort and should be appreciated. Of course if he'd sent me this a couple of weeks back, it would have been better and I wouldn't have been kept guessing. A conversation regarding standards will happen - but it has to happen face-to-face. This is a start for sure. At least he's come out of hiding.

Further, I had been texting with his flatmate the day before he sent me this email and she told me she hadn't heard from him either. So he had vanished on the whole lot of us. Which pretty much makes me wonder if I am right about him being slightly depressed at this stage and prone to running away.

What do you think?