i’m too young for him. help. (19F/45M)
some backstory/context:
my brother passed away almost 3 years ago now. he was born 20+ years before me and started taking me in on the weekends when i was about 15, because things at home with my mom had gotten bad. he was like a second father to me. when he died i was 17, and his friends became my lifeboat. they were all much older than me, so growing up i had felt pretty indifferent toward them. but this one man, the one mentioned in the title, took me under his wing in a way the others didn’t. he had been close with my brother since college and stayed close after. after his death he made sure i was okay. we grew very very close.
we live in the same city, new york, so it was easy to keep seeing each other. he’d take me out to eat. we’d get frozen yogurt together. we’d hang out and play video games. nothing ever crossed the line because i was seventeen and he was only helping. for the next couple of years we stayed in touch like that. then, around last june, something shifted in me. i started to become attracted to him. he’s successful, 6’6, charming, funny, and, in the least weird way i can say it, he reminds me of my brother. i began flirting with him. he flirted back. at first it was playful, nothing serious. then came the touches here and there, the long looks that left me feeling verryy stirred up inside.
one evening in september we kissed, and we kept kissing. the kissing turned into sex. the sex was good, objectively good, so we kept having it. we had sex regularly until late february this year. by then i was all in. we weren’t only sleeping together. i’d go over and cook him dinner and he’d wash the dishes afterward. we went to movies. we had the kind of fights couples have. we got jealous. he told me he liked me as a girlfriend. we were never officially together, but it felt close enough.
then he grew distant. the distance got so obvious i finally asked him what was happening. he said i was simply too young and that the whole context of our relationship disturbed him. it disturbed him so much that he couldn’t be with me romantically and, he added, he couldn’t even be around me anymore. that broke me. it still breaks me. since then things have been off and on, mostly off on his side. we still have sex sometimes. he doesn’t want a relationship with me, even though i’m completely in love with him. i’ve told him i love him, out loud, even while we’re having sex. all he ever says is “stop” or “shh.”
it’s been months and i still feel exactly the same. my heart is heavy and it still beats for him. i think he really doesn’t like my age, maybe even more than he minds the context of how we met which is so confusing??
i’m not sure what advice i’m looking for, whether to be shaken out of this trance or whether to figure out how to get him to treat me like his girlfriend again. i guess either one will do. and i’m sorry for the long read. no other subreddit would understand that my feelings are bigger than the dumb age gap. i’ve always tended to like older men anyway, so this place has been reassuring to me in general.