Typhlosion

Hi all. Don't normally do things like this, but struggling to know what else to do right now to be honest. Need some impartial advice :/

First things first: I'm 20 and my boyfriend (that's same-sex - sadly relevant to the story) is 17. I've been with him for nearly 3 years now and I still feel deeply in love with him.

About a year ago his parents (who have never approved of us, since it's obviously all my fault he's gay) decided to try and get rid of me by reporting me to the police, claiming I'd had underage sex with him and accusing me of being a paedophile and grooming him. Not a pleasant accusation I know, and while the police eventually cleared me of all accusations I was forbidden from seeing him for that time - we were best friends for about 2 years before we even started going out, and we were used to see each other 4-5 times a week, even just hanging out like mates, so this certainly was very difficult to get used to.

I should also point out here that no, I didn't expect his parents to be over the moon about it. Or even comfortable about it. But I don't think the way they've reacted is in any way appropriate.

His parents responded to the police's refusal to charge me with anything by telling his whole family about us and generally emotionally bullying him, calling him cheap and dirty. I apologise for not going into more detail there, but not only do I not want this thread to be about then, I can't talk about it without getting very bitter about their frankly disgusting abuse of their son's emotions (see ). The basic point is that he had a history of getting bullied throughout school and it was very difficult for him to take. He refused to live with his parents anymore and told me that he needed some time to himself to try and sort his head out - that he didn't want to lose me again so he wanted to keep in contact by texting me, but that for a couple of months he wanted to avoid seeing me. I guess I was a little hurt by this but I agreed to for his sake.

Problem is this was last September. And I've seen him once since.

His parents continued to give him abuse because he continued to text me (and they were of course completely the victims in all this), and while he has refused to see anyone about this, I'm sure he has depression. I know that his behaviour isn't personal, but he's still hurting me. He goes for many days, occasionally even weeks without texting me, and he always claimed that while he loved me and missed me like hell it was too painful for him to see me.

Then last night a lot of things happened. He texted me and said he didn't feel like we knew each other anymore. This hurt to read but I said of course we didn't - he refused to see me. Then he mentioned he didn't really have any desire to see me anymore and didn't really feel like I meant anything to him anymore. That definitely hurt, since I've stuck by him through all of this and for him to say I suddenly meant nothing to him was horrible. I tried not to show any emotion and just accept it, before we started to chat. This was at about midnight and yet it was 4am when we stopped texting; in other words, we started chatting about all sorts and it was almost like nothing had changed. Then he arranged to meet me on Saturday.

Now I'm a little confused; I've had depression myself and I feel like him walking out on me would just send me spiralling back into it. But why is he doing this? How can he say he doesn't really want to stay in touch with me and yet spend the next 4 hours texting me like we used to, and also agree to meeting up with me? I could do with some sort of expert(ish) :P opinion on this, and why he behaved like that. All I could think was that the recent text conversations I've had with him, for the last few months, have involved me wanting to talk about how depressed he was and how it was hurting me. So of course that would put him off me, and as soon as I just spoke to him normally and like a friend is it possible some of that old magic came back?

I wouldn't say I'm putting my life on hold for him - I commute to Uni and enjoy my time there and with my friends, and I'm hardly turning down plenty of cute guys to stay with him and I definitely still love him as much as I ever have. I guess part of me is determined to show his family that they can't just get rid of me either. Lots of confusion around :/

Thanks for your time, sorry it turned out for long lol