It's not every day that you shatter someone's heart into a million pieces. The one they lovingly handed you and begged you not to break.

We said a lot to each other. We said everything. Some of it was raw, some graceful, some fumbled, but all of it came pouring out and in the end, maybe it makes sense that the words that hurt most were the inelegant, "I guess I'll talk to you later." Because that means nothing's for sure any more.

Since Doug came back in August and asked for a second chance -- poured out his soul and promised me he'd love me better this time around -- we've been wading carefully through territory that's at once comfortably familiar and eerily different. With him, it was so easy to slip back into the hugs and the cuddles and the chats and the surges of affection and adoration that came like breathing. He's the very picture of the life I want to live. He's love, he's loyalty, he's fidelity, he's family, he's funny, he's a journey, he's foreign places and he's home.

And yet, he's not for me. Not now. And I had to tell him.

I feel a little sick. Mad that I've made him hurt. Achy that he's crying tears I can't dry. Horrified that I wrenched him.

Going through the breakup the first time was painful, but inevitable and mutual, and we both knew that even though it hurt, it was necessary. We knew we weren't walking away from each other leaving one of us in a crumpled, hurt heap. Sure, we sobbed, but we still knew it was for the best. It had to happen because neither of us had anything left to give.

This time, he had it all to give and I couldn't take it. He wanted to give me the world. He wanted to give me himself. He'd gotten over the girl I was and fallen in love with the woman I've become, or at least am trying to be. He saw me in different shades and he loved them all, and the only thing he asked of me was that I keep hope alive for him. And even though I tried -- and, God, I tried -- I couldn't do what he needed. That one little thing started killing me inside.

The real heartbreaker, what's truly gutting me, is that I can picture the two of us married and happy for the rest of our lives. We'd be brilliant companions. Since he's come back into my life, our friendship has deepened and it's reminded me of all the reasons we belong together. We just work. It's natural. It's great. His eyes warm me up. When we stand together, I slot perfectly under the arm that wraps around me, and against his waist. Puzzle pieces made to fit.

But there's something missing for me. There's a spark that's not there, and if I'm honest with myself, I know it died out long before we broke up almost two years ago. It's the thing that's keeping me from losing myself in him. The cruel reality is that we've done the hart part: The foundation is all there, the trust, the compatibility, the belief in the fairy tale. All the good things that some couples live a lifetime without finding, we've got in our corner, yet the chemistry that two random people can easily have is impossible for me to feel here, with this amazing person who deserves everything he wants in life, and what he wants is me. The one thing I don't think I can give him. Not now.

It's so hard for me to resist the urge to blame myself. To get angry at myself. Because if I could just figure out why I can't respond the way I want to, why my stupid body won't feel passion for him, why the FUCK I can't feel for the perfect guy what I could feel for other people… I turn bitter. I turn inward and I flog myself for it, and it becomes harder and harder to stop myself and remind myself that there's no one to blame here. This is such a nebulous thing, such an unfair intangible, but it's reality. It's something I've tried to fix, tried to ignore, tried to push aside, but at the end of the day the spark is the thing that keeps all of it alive, and without it, he's left being my dear best friend whom I will love -- platonically -- until I die. This doesn't have to be my fault. He's not making it my fault; I'm the one beating myself up, and if he and I keep up the long-distance non-relationship we have going now, I'm just going to self-flagellate until I bleed.

He's known about this. I've been honest. "I can't ask you to ignore the way you feel, or don't feel," he said sadly. "All I can do is express the way I feel. I had hoped that would make a difference, but it hasn't."

That a declaration of love can end up being painful feels so unfair. It's a beautiful, incredible thing, and for him to pour out his feelings took all the courage in the world. It's brutal that for me, it was either the wrong time or the wrong guy. It may be a while before I know which, but in this moment I don't. Not now.

So I ended it. I had a future in my hands, and I couldn't tell if it was mine, so I let it go. I told him, gently, lovingly, with all the tears I could cry, that I loved him. Because I do. He is a million things to me, each of them precious. I adore him so much it defies description. But he's known all along what the issue was, and finally I had to admit that it wasn't something I thought could fix. Not now. Not this way. Not with me here and him there. And it's a long way to go before the geography changes again.

We agreed to relax and be friends and see where our lives go in the next half-year. Maybe when he moves to LA, if that plan proceeds the way he dreams it will, we will both be in a place to pick up the thread again and see if living in the same city -- something we haven't done since college -- is the thing that helps this click. If living like a normal dating couple is the magic remedy for all this ache. But because I can't promise that's the difference, because I can't guarantee it's the answer or that I'll even still be free to pursue it when he gets here, we had to stop where we are.

He wanted to hang on but I couldn't give him enough rope, not to get us there. The status quo wasn't working and it was really unhealthy for both of us, a blow he was prepared to embrace for himself but which I couldn't let either of us take. It's tearing him apart to an extent I don't think he's even realized, because he's so focused on the potential reward that he won't allow himself to see how painful it's been trying to get to it.

"My hopes are my hopes," he said. "And if I am willing to harbor them, I am willing to take the risks associated with them. But I love you too much to have you tear yourself up about all this."

That's how I feel for him -- I care about him way too much to let him agonize up there in Wisconsin, wondering if he's said or done any of the right or wrong things. Somewhere this turned into a contest with himself. It got more complicated than just two people trying to figure out what they want.

Ultimately, this decision had to be a selfish one. I had to make it for me. I had to put myself first. Knowing he's sitting there right now fighting heartbreak, knowing he's feeling lost and lonely and adrift, is gutting me and carving me up, but I can't let that change my mind because I know that we're not going to get back together this way. We can't. It's not working. The trappings of a long-distance affair -- the phone calls, worrying about tone of voice, about the last thing that was said, planning visits and their inherent pressures -- just aren't making this anything but a confusing, sad journey. It should be about rediscovering joy, but it isn't. Not now.

I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if we'll ever be together again. This was right for me today, next month, next year. But whether he'll move to Los Angeles and jog something in me that hasn't been twigged yet, I'm not sure. Part of me doesn’t believe in absolutes, and as such, I hope this doesn't have to end this way. But another part of me knows that for every end there's a beginning, and I hope this was the right path to choose. I hope losing him a second time wasn't a fresh start wasted.

"It's funny how the last time you sleep with someone, you never realize it's the last time," he said. "I wonder how things would differ if you had that knowledge."

I wonder the same thing. What would have been different? Would I have been different, felt different? Would we have wept? Would it have been a goodbye? Would it, of all cruel ironies, have lit the missing flame?

Are we finished? Have we reached "never again"? Because I feel like something irreversible just got set in motion and I'm so scared I did the wrong thing. Even though deep down I think it's right, I can't help worrying that I just let forever slip through my fingers.

"I want to be in love with you," I said, tearing up. "I feel like not being in love with you will probably end up being the biggest regret of my life. But I haven't been able to change it yet. And I don't know if you moving out here will do that. I don't know that it won't do that, either. For now I guess the answer is that I can't give you hope that in the next seven months I will wake up and have it change.

"I love you so much," he said. "All I want is for you to be happy. I just wish that could be with me."

"I wish it could be too. And I find it so unbelievably painful and hard to say that I don't know if it can be, but I don't. I want it to be. What is wrong with me?" I ranted.

"If it can't be with me, I have to accept that," he replied.

"But how do I know?"

"For now, you do," he said.

Someone got here by searching for: want to fuck in md Reading: Calming messages from my friends. If not for them, I'd be a bigger wreck right now. Missing: Him. Already. Because this is one thing I can't help him through.