Tis a weird thing... I thought we had problems (from the first time we were together) but they were things I kind of 'flagged' and I was open to whether they would persist as problems that we needed to work on, or whether they would sort themselves out. I tried not to idealize because I didn't want to set him up to be inevitably disappointing. I've since discovered that he idealized me / our relationship during that time and that from his perspective there weren't any problems or flagged issues from then at all.

He is very much interested in the nature of the self. More in particular, how the self is relational / environment dependent. Something he is really very interested in is the situationist literature in psychology. The thought is that that literature shows us that the reasons that people give for their behaviour aren't the causally important influences on their behaviour.

And when I listen to him trying to provide reasons for his conclusions: I concurr. The reasons that he provides aren't causally important with respect to his conclusions. For a time... I challenged his reasons. His reasons really were so obviously problematic. I thought that if his conclusion was based on those reasons then it was well worth questioning those reasons. It took me some time to see that the main reason why he is so impressed with the self being relational and with reasons cited being causally irrelevant is because: He is a particularly salient example of that. His cited reasons are more causally irrelevant than most peoples are. His self is context dependent more than most peoples is.

I love him. I'm not sure why. An expression of my pathology, perhaps. I could see that we had a number of things that we needed to work on in order to have a healthy happy relationship. I was prepared to work on those things. He wasn't. He wasn't. I thought maybe he had intimacy issues in general... That if he could see that then he would work on having a relationship with me. I find him disappointing in the sense that he isn't as psychologically aware as I'd hoped he would be. It doesn't matter why he doesn't want to have a relationship with me (I've realized). I just need to accept that he doesn't.

I need to be happy that I've realized that he is a person who runs when the going gets tough. I'm glad I know that now instead of finding that out the hard way (e.g., once I've had his children or whatever). I deserve better... Only... That doesn't seem so very charitable. We just want different things in a relationship. I think that last one is more charitable. I need to move on. It is hard to withdraw caring in a healthy way... So hard... So hard.