How long are you going to allow his issues to run the relationship?

It seems you are going around in circles with this.

A relationship is supposed to be making you feel good and happy,sharing the same goals.
Are you happy?

You do appear to be going in circles. I think your more in love with his words, and ignore his actions that keeps you filled with the false hope he will change.

Back away dear, and find something better than an emotionally distant partner to chase down a dead end street.

Fact is he does enough to keep you chasing him, and little more than that.

I don't want him to change in the way of the person that he is, he is a very good friend I have known him and all of his family for a very long time and I like what he stands for- but then when it comes to our relationship it is very different, I have as his friend for many years heard how scared he is, how he feels about what has happened to hom and I feel for him very much, I know its hard to trust again once you have been hurt so badly, he is not a player he is not a bad person, just the opposite, but that fear is what keeps him the way he is!
I hear what you are saying and I take it all in, I will not keep chasing down a dead end street not at all, but I will say this- I am not in love with his words, I am in love with him and after our frindship developed into more and we beame closer I fell in love even deeper with him, I have some of the same issues as him as we have been through similar things, but I have bounced back again after a very long time, I am willking to not let what others have done to me stop me from finding happiness, he just feels that by being in a relationship it will stop him being happy, what he doesn't see is that he is not happy anyway.
We are all complex creatures and we all have our breaking point, the way that he is is not just limited to our relationship, it causes problems for his family aswell- he left home at a very young age to be moulded by an older woman who then controlled his every move for a very long time, being put down and twisted and abused, he is afraid of his family thinking that he is weak, he is afraid to trust, he just hurts.
By reading my own writing I can see just how hurt he really is and I will be there for him as a friend as I always have, but seriously how does one begin to heal from all that. What an awfull world we live in.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my questions, I wouldn't say that I agree with all of what has been said but then you only have my take on all of this, and only what I can fit in a short letter, so thank you again.

I hope you find,eventually,the happiness you deserve and I hope you come back.
Good luck and take care.

Hmmm! It seems that when all else fails, crawl inside yourslf and don't come out works in the end!!
I know not of happy people out there in relationships.
I only know of happy people out of them, and that's really sad.
But hey its easier to deal with that way isn't it, maybe it'll work for me too. Thanks x