I was just dating someone who has left me in enormous pain and a lot of confusion, and he had put his behavior down to fear of intimacy, fear of getting close to someone - and I wanted to ask if anyone here believes this is a "real thing".

I always believed if you like and care for a woman, you treat her nicely, and would do nothing to risk losing her- and that if you do anything less it means you care little for her.

This experience has caused me a lot of anxiety and now leaves me feeling brutally used and I want to know if anyone has words to offer. Has anyone ever experienced a person like this before?

• I have known him a long time, he wanted to date me for over a year.
• He appears to be a very nice person, has not dated anyone else in the year I have known him
• He pursued me, but moreover was a good friend to me over the year and I felt a lot of trust towards him before even out first date
• When we finally got together he was so happy, could not spend enough time with me, we were happy and it felt great
• Suddenly he started to not call every day, every 3 days instead
• Then he changed his work shift so he was working every weekend
• Then he got busier, always a reason we could only see each other once a week
• He started to act emotionally distant
• He went from asking me to meet his friends to panicking about meeting mine.

All of this provoked anger, anxiety and hurt in me but if I tried to leave or walk away he would be sincerely upset and sad and would ask me to please stay. He told me he liked me much more than he expected to and had to "shut down" to protect himself from falling in love.

He then cheated on me, in a way that I won't describe, but which was quite senseless and seemd illogical.

I could never understand why he would work so hard to get me, be so happy he had me, and then utterly and blatantly sabotage us within the space of three months.

It's left my head in a spin.

Any experiences of this sort of thing?