Two and a half years later!!

Here goes girls - help please!

I met a guy in my local pub just over two and a half years ago. I was with a crowd of friends and he came up to me, said hello and cheekily put his number in my mobile. As my friends gradually drifted away, he returned to me and asked me to join his friends. It was a rather drink filled evening and yes, you've guessed it, he ended up coming home with me (I know!!). The next morning we had a brilliant long chat and he revealed some sad events from his past. He asked me for a date and we saw each other 3 or 4 times over the next couple of weeks or so. I, of course, made the mistake of telling him how comfortable I felt with him and he did the ' I'm not looking for a committed relationship yet' thing. He disappeared on me for a couple of months, then we bumped into each other and started a friends with benefits relationship - sometimes sleeping with each other, sometimes not. This carried on for about a year, then we went through a period of just being friends. At various points we have talked about past, present and future relationships that we've had and/or want and we've both acknowledged our fear of failure and the hurt that we've each experienced and how these are obstacles to making the 'right' decisions.

He is a sexy guy with a high sex drive and has slept with many women during the time I've known him (although he increasingly admits that he doesn't really enjoy this so much these days and that it's just vacuous and meaningless). Last Autumn he disappeared on me again (even as a friend) for 7 or 8 months, the only communication being a text message on Christmas Day - he was in NZ with his family at the time where his ex wife (married for 13 years until 2001 - she cheated on him!) and kids live. Finally, in June this year we got back in touch and this started a string of 6 or 7 lovely lunches and evenings out just as friends. It transpired that he had met (and moved in with) a girl during the 'missing' months, but that it hadn't worked out. One evening he invited me out with some friends and to meet his Mum who was visiting from NZ and the next day he called me to say she thought I was wonderful and beautiful! Anyway, we got increasingly close on our meetings and I felt that something was going to develop. Then, the bombshell, he told me he was planning to move to the US(imminently!) as he had no real reason to stay in the UK. Just to explain, he is a bit rootless - half Kiwi, half Italian, very entrepreneurial (and successful at it) and always looking for the next 'thing'. Anyway, that day we ended up in bed and, in the heat of the moment, he said 'I think I could fall in love with you', shocked, I said nothing and a moment later he said 'would you like me to fall in love with you?' to which I responded that I didn't think it was what he really wanted - why was that the best I could come up with???!

Anyway, with just 10 days to go before he was leaving for Italy then the States, we saw each other for another lovely lunch (no sex) and then, to my absolute surprise, he turned up at my house the morning he was leaving. I was in the bath and panic striken at the thought of him seeing me with absolutely no make up on, but he still told me I looked lovely! He invited me out to Italy to stay with his parents, but in fact I couldn't do it right then because I had a work committment in France. That evening he sent a text saying he missed me and that the last few times we'd seen each other had been really special. We texted and spoke regularly during the 2 weeks I was in France and he in Italy and I suggested I came to Italy straight from France and this was the plan until my work was extended which would delay my trip for a week. He said he was getting very itchy feet and bored being in Italy (in the middle of nowhere) and didn't think he could hang on for another week, and so he went to the US!

We have texted and had a couple of lovely long skype conversations over the last month, but the heat has gone! He's on a new and exciting adventure and I feel has to work out (for himself) what he wants from his life. He's a very warm and honest person and doesn't ever seem to have a hidden agenda, but he's also a bit unsettled and searching for happiness and a sense of 'home'. He's back here in the next couple of weeks and I know we will get together but I don't know how to play things? We have never discussed the 'I think I could fall in love with you' thing. He's 40 and I'm 48 and he has always maintained that he wants another family, tho' accepts that now is not the right time as he needs to be settled somewhere - and clearly I am very unlikely to have kids at this stage in my life! My feeling is that were I 15 years younger we may well have got together properly, but then I wouldn't be the person I am now and perhaps wouldn't be able to cope with his need for freedom to explore and grow.

I'm sorry this is so long, and sincerely hope you can share your insights with me, but I do love him and care for him hugely and I know he loves me (he told me on the phone just the other day - tho' whether he is in love with me or not I don't know). I have dated other people and am currently signed up on Match (he knows this) so I am trying to keep my options very open, but I just can't stop thinking about him and about what to do next. We are close and I know our relationship is important to both of us. We have great sexual chemistry but I just don't know if I am holding out hope for something which is never going to happen!

Thank you, in anticipation, for your honest thoughts - please don't just tell me what you think I may want to hear!!