Please help before everything is gone...

Hello everyone. I’m new to these forums, and I know that I probably won’t get a reply very quickly. Still, I’d like to try…
Before I talk about my limping relationship, I think I should state a few things about my character.
I have always believed that I spent my life alone. I’ve been battling depression for as long as I can remember. In school, I was always by myself. I never made any serious friends and was always a loner.

My parents got divorced several years back, and I never did recover. Seeing my family shatter really hurt me, since family had always been the most important thing in my life.

I think that that event really sent me down the path of self-hatred. I always feel worthless, ugly, useless…I realize that many people feel this way, but with me this feeling has led me down the road to attempting self-destruction.

When I met my first serious guy (I'll refer to him as "X"), I jumped at the chance to commit. I wanted to leave my mother – who is an overbearing control freak – and move out on my own. We ended up living together, but eventually our relationship went downhill.

I turned to online games to keep my attention away from how much I hated my life and suddenly met someone who I fell in love with (will call him "Y"). It’s a long distance thing – I’m in Georgia and he is in California. Still, we were optimistic because we felt really strongly about each other. We have both been to see each other a few times and our grand plans involved me spending the summer with him.

He is an X-Ray technician in the Air Force and will be in the military for another year. We didn’t mind. We were willing to do anything to make things work. He's incredibly sensitive, loving, and caring. His top priority has always been to make sure that I was happy in our relationship. The only downside is that he has these "low periods" sometimes when he is incredibly depressed and reclusive...

Now come the problems.

When we first met, I was still in my original relationship. When I saw that things were serious, I told "X" that I wanted to try an open relationship. I was and still am terrified about having an uncertain future with this new guy. I’m concerned about being financially stable and stable in general. I don't want to make the same mistake I got burned with in my first relationship. Thus, I remained in an open relationship with "X" for a while. It wasn’t until several months ago that "X" and I decided to move to a larger apartment with two separate rooms. We were ready to just be room mates without any obligations.

I should mention that the entire time I've been with "Y" and even before that, we were sleeping in separate beds and had absolutely zero intimacy. We've been living more like brother and sister.

This entire time, though, "Y" has been saying things like: “I’m just a temporary infatuation” “I don’t think you’re serious about me” “Are you sure you’re not just using me as an exit?”

I didn’t want to hurt "X”s feelings by letting him see me talking to this other guy online or over the phone. Thus, every time "X" came home, I turned off Skype and cut myself away from blatant communication. This was fine for a long time. "Y" never disagreed with what I did. Now, however, I think that’s been seriously bothering him the whole time.

Yesterday, we had a serious talk. I’m coming to see him in just a few days. I brought up the possibility that he wanted to back out. I wonder, had I not brought it up would he have said anything at all. He went on to say that he wasn’t sure about where his life was going and if he could truly make me happy and give me the future that I want. I told him that was nonsense. Even if it’s my personal goal to make a bigger salary, I wasn’t about to push the burden of having to do the same on him.

He continued with the reply of “I think I need to find myself” “I feel incomplete” “I think I need to be alone for a while”…
I agreed to give him space. I proposed that we don’t text or call each other until the day before I was supposed to leave to see him. He agreed and we made a deal.

I was so upset. I realized that I had probably made a lot of wrong turns. Almost immediately, I called "X" and told him everything. I told him that I was going to move back into my mom’s because I was really serious about this guy. After all this, I couldn’t stop myself.

I called "Y" back even though we had made that deal not to. I told him that I’d completely broken everything off with "X" and that I was moving out. He was really shocked. I had to get off the phone due to work reasons, but he kept texting me afterwards – asking me what had happened, what I’d told "X”, etc. and asked me to call him back.

I did. We had one more conversation about what had happened. He seemed really surprised. Then, we said our goodbyes again because the deal was still on. This time, however, he said “see you Saturday” and he didn’t sound as unsure as he did before.
Now, I’m sitting here, still crying my eyes out, completely at a loss.

I want to call him and tell him how I feel. I want to tell him that I think this whole time I’ve been subconciously pushing him away because I was terrified of committing to something when I couldn’t definitely predict the outcome. I want to tell him that I think our problems were caused by all these things and that I believe things will be set right when we see each other again.

I just don’t know what to do…

Am I too late? When I asked, “do you love me?” he replied that “yes” he did. Should I still go see him in a few days? More importantly, should I go through with not sending him a word? If long distance has destroyed our communication already, won’t it do so even more if I don’t talk to him about what’s going on and how I feel?

Someone please help me. I realize this is an incredibly long post…but I really need someone to give me some advice…

Hi, ravenna_snow! Did you tell Y about how you feel now? I think it would be good for both of you to be honest with each other about your feelings and if you want a relationship. Careful not to cling to Y just so that you'd avoid facing your problems.
How is everything?

It's been several days, and I've had no word from him. I was supposed to go see him today, but he didn't contact me so I didn't go. The flight wasn't officially cancelled, so I'm not sure what to think...

I want to call him and talk to him so badly but he did say he needed to be alone for a while, and that it might take some for him to "find himself". I don't know what this means - I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Has he just lost interest in me and was using any excuse he could find to get rid of me? Did he just get cold feet? Has he found someone else and just dumped me because he wanted the chance to be with her?

I don't know any of these things, and I'm wasting away in this silence.

What should I do?

Well you could contact him and ask him. Maybe you could use a bit of therapy to help you figure out why you were/are afraid of commitment, what do you think?

Jasmin -

First of all, I'd like to thank you for your responses. I desperately want to contact him, but I don't want to invade on his "personal space". If I contact him now, I think that he will just shrink away from me even more. Don't you think?

As for my problem with commitment - it's different from his, I believe. He just doesn't know how his future will turn out. He's in the Air Force and still has a year there. Maybe he's unsure about where he is going and what he wants. (Or he could have just found someone else)

For me, it's about my last relationship. I made some mistakes when I rushed to move out on my own, and I don't want to make those mistakes again by rushing into something uncertain, especially since I would have to make huge changes by moving across the country. I would do it - I was ready to sacrifice everything I know here at home to be with him, but...things just went haywire..

Maybe you could find someone who lives closer to you, so you'll know where you stand. That way, you wouldn't be looking for something that might not lead anywhere.