I love him but I'm terrified and I don't know if he or I will ever be ready

My heart hurts thinking about him. I've been in denial about being in love with him for years but I've come to realize that I'm absolutely crazy about him. It's hard to describe how I feel, I've known him for about 5-6 years now but we are both still young in our mid 20's. We are both damaged little birds and I feel a kindredness between us. He's had to live through things that no one should ever have to deal with in there life. My heart aches for him and to a lesser extent I can relate. We sometimes go months without talking to each-other. Sometimes my fault, sometimes his. A few years ago I was date raped (this happened during a time when we weren't talking)... I told him about it and that is when he finally opened up to me and told me the heart braking story of what had happened to him when he was only a young teenager. I had no idea he had been hurt so horribly. This has affected him dramatically and now i can understand why he has so many trust and intimacy issues. My heart has completely broken for him because only a few months ago something equally horrifying happened to him and I was the only one he could bring himself to tell. During the years he and I have known each other, we started out as just friends and then we have ended up sleeping together but have never actually been

Sorry I don't know why it submitted only half the post. Here is the end of it.... We have never actually been "together", He had always told me he didnt want a girlfriend or that if he did, he wanted to be able to sleep with other people as well. I'm not that type of girl and he knows that, I dont want to share someone and I dont want them to be happy to share me. I think I finally realised I was in love with him when he came back from travelling with a girlfriend. I stopped talking to him for over 6 months because I couldnt deal with seeing him post over facebook how excited he was so see/be with her and that hurt me more then I ever thought it would. That relationship has been over now for a while though. He's never acknowledged publicy that he and I are close and I feel like he goes out of his way to avoid seeing me in person even though he tells me he really wants to sleep with me again. I'm worried that I have built this connection we have have up in my head. I know he cares about me because he tells me things hes never been able to tell anyone else and even though we can sometimes goes weeks without talking. If i need him because my depression and anxiety has gotten out of control he will always take the time to talk me through it and I appreciate that more the he could ever know. Relationships terrify me, I've never been able to stay in one for more then a few months. I feel guilty and ashamed being so sexually attracted to him after everything he and I have gone through respectively. No one else makes me feel that way he does but I would give it up to make him happy. I do love him because all I want is him to be happy even if thats not with me. He has no idea how amazing he is. After everything he has been through, he is still trying to make a life he can be proud of, He's smart, funny, can be very thoughtful. I admire his strength to keep moving of even though life has through him some curve balls that no one show ever have to deal with. I don't know what to do, I don't want to pressure him. I don't even know if even really feels the same way about me and just cant admit it. After everything I still love him and it drives me crazy not to tell him but I'm not sure either of us are ready for it.

Well, all you're describing is someone who's worried about the possibility of one day, possibly quite soon, losing her special (as in, confidante), platonic friend and has had it dawn on her (seeing his having come back with a gf) that the only way she could possibly stop him from doing said 'wandering off into the romantic sunset', leaving her without someone to confide in and compare notes with re her past, would be to occupy that seat herself, quick-sharpish (so, no, you have not been in denial for all this time). To wit: "I dont want to share someone " Feeling very sorry for someone, being able to identify with that person's experiential pain and having a fear about how non-secure the relationship might at any point turn out to have always been, is not what a woman should take as a Green light, romantically. That one looks and feels more like this: "Oh my god, he's so HOT!...and so CUTE!... And funny! (Did I tell you how funny he is?) I never stop laughing! We have such FUN together! Such an incredibe kisser - woah! Oh, and I found out HE wants to live in/do X one day as well, how coincidental is THAT?!...' (etcetera), not, 'Aw, the poor wickle bubbie'. Whereas, you're there, trying to shoehorn yourself into girlfriend mentality in your head (and roping in your libido's assistance) as well as wondering how to actually make that wished-for scenario work in *reality*, all just so's you can guarantee longevity and not have to share him with anyone, ever...particularly if the NEXT girlfriend is serious enough to indicate she won't tolerate her man having a constant, female confidante (because that should be her own exclusive right). Even if you DID somehow manage it (although I fail to see how) - ALREADY, the writing is on the wall about what a romantic union with this guy would be like (soul-destroying, if you want to know) because ALREADY he's showing he can confide in someone and feel comfortable showing his vulnerable side only if they're at a safe enough distance not to ever be capable of hurting him, not to mention capable of being kept a complete secret from everyone he knows, and ALREADY basically telling you he's so commitmentphobic he couldn't and wouldn't want to do the normal thing of what it takes to attach (his inference being, 'dangerously close') to one person - which is called LOYALTY. I.e. not remotely mentally or emotionally fit enough to be someone's lover and make her happy rather than inadequate as a woman and romantic-sexual being. I know it's nice and very cathartic to have someone to share your inner demons with, but he's not your personal therapist any more than you're his. Nor boyfriend-to-be. If he were, then either he or you would have realised it long before today and wouldn't STILL be conducting this "friendship" in total secret in virtual reality, rather than the real deal out in the open. Certainly, he'd have snapped you up after having 'sampled' you that one time, not what he did, which was effectively plonk you merrily back onto the open dating market. You'll never be his lover (despite MIGHT always be his ether friend). You KNOW too much. So - in summary, it's not this: "I'm worried that I have built this connection we have have up in my head." It's THIS: "I'm worried that I've wildly exaggerated our merely mutually useful connection in my head". Listen, being unable to take a relationship beyond a few months when you're only in your mid-20s is hardly unusual or a cause for panic. And if you managed to meet and sleep with this guy, earlier on, then you clearly aren't as "terrified" of relationships as it right now serves your mind to think. It's just you trying to convince yourself that 'he's the only man in the world for you' so as to give yourself the requisite motivation and determination to pursue him 'in a shorter skirt' with a view to tying him down, when in an ideal world and given a better choice you'd really rather not (understandably, given the belittling way he's been treating you already, in that vein). But if you REALLY think you're so hobbled that you'll still be single and a 'flutterby' come your 30s then I'd suggest you book yourself a couple of sessions with an *actual* therapeutic counsellor while there's still plenty of time to get those shackles removed. When a man is into a woman romantically, she can't keep him OFF her (and distance be damned)!. Sorry.