”Steve, 3 months ago I moved a friendship on to the next level and now it’s ended pretty badly. We were fooling around anyway and I really liked the guy, so I took a risk and told him how I felt. This was met by total silence for a couple of days before eventually receiving an email from him saying that he’d love for us to get together. Not hearing from him after I asked him out rang alarm bells, but we launched into a girlfriend/boyfriend thing that seemed to be going fine until just after Christmas.

I think that he’s not over his marriage split and is scared of getting involved again. I don’t know all the emotional baggage he’s carrying around with him, but if I did I could perhaps understand why he’s shutting me out. I don’t know where I stand and don’t know if I’ve handled it right. It feels like I’ve hit a major brick wall.“

- Liz N in London

A tricky and frustrating situation for you Liz. Figuring out the reasons that a relationship didn’t work out can be harder than getting Amy Winehouse out of the pub, but it certainly sounds like he’s got some issues left over from his marriage and divorce. Chances are he’s confused by what’s happening for him and a lot of men find it much easier and simpler to withdraw from the things that confuse them or are a source of pain.

But let’s make this about you. This is about how you’re feeling about the situation, and it looks like what’s happened is making you ask all kinds of questions and has hit your confidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if what’s happening may be rippling out and causing you to pause and question other areas of your life too.

I can definitely understand your need to get some kind of answer, resolution or closure on this, and there may even be room to move the relationship forwards so that it’s good for both of you, but so far what you’ve been doing hasn’t allowed either of those things to happen. It may well be that at some point in the future you will get to speak with him and that you’ll get some kind of answer, but it’s also possible that you won’t get to speak with him and that even if you did you wouldn’t get the kind of closure you’re looking for. Bear in mind that you might not be able to get an explanation that makes sense to you and you might never understand it.

So that leaves you, and your job is to make sure you’re okay whatever happens. It sounds like you know your role in this and that you’re not dodging your responsibility in what’s happened, so what’s the real reason for wanting to get an explanation?

Be really careful that you don’t focus wholly on getting that explanation simply so you can feel better, accept things and move on. The impact that speculating or searching for that explanation has on your self-confidence can be pretty significant.

If doing what you’re doing will only cause more disappointment, frustration and even anger then you’re only going to do more damage to your sense of who you are. If that’s the case you owe it to yourself to make a different choice; one that serves you better. Considering that it’s possible that you might never get practical closure you need to look at how you get emotional closure, for your own sake. And by emotional closure I’m talking about acceptance and – get ready for the ‘f’ word – forgiveness.