A continuous painful cycle...

I keep going through a cycle with a girl. We see and enjoy each other, we progress slightly in our relationship, and then suddenly it flips and she says it's not right and, while she wants me, it's best that we part ways to avoid hurting me because she can't commit to me fully.

The situation is, I have known this girl for about a year. When I first started to speak to her a year ago, it was online/texting but eventually we met a few times. She had a boyfriend of about two years at the time and I found myself very attracted to her both physically and on a personal level. While they were going through a bad patch, we went out a couple of times. Nothing untoward happened, but there was a closeness between us that was more than just friendship. We agreed at the time that we felt attracted to each other but it never went anywhere because she had a boyfriend, and I (begrudgingly) respected that.

Shortly after the last time we saw each other she broke up with him. I was quietly very happy and I waited to see what would happen with us. A few days later, she got back with him. I was crushed for a while, and I made a decision to completely cut her out of my life because it was basically a case of her choosing him over me. Eventually, I got over it.

About 3 months later, I started to think of her and began occasionally talking to her online again, knowing that, although she had chosen someone else over me romantically, I still felt like I wanted to know her even just as a friend. I was really that fond of her as a person. And so we talked casually for a while as friends, not every day but occasionally. That was the case up until about three months ago, when she broke up with the boyfriend again, only this time it was for real. In these last three months I've found myself there for her, which was never my intention but I couldn't help it because I'm so fond of her. Thoughts began to creep in about the time before when we were close and we started talking more suggestively – only this time we’re both single.

And so over the last 3 months we've began seeing each other. At first it was friendly, but then about 2 months after her break up, we kissed for the first time. It was amazing. We found a quiet place and I kissed her and she clutched me and kissed me back. We kissed passionately and I held her for hours. In the days that followed she expressed doubts that it was too soon for us, but I was too happy to care and told her that this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't right. She sort of agreed, but in retrospect she never seemed sure about it all and it always took a lot of talk for us to be able to ever see each other in person again.

This girl that I'd longed for, for the best part of a year was suddenly being intimate with me. We talked more and carried on seeing each other every few days but there was always an initial awkwardness when we met which came from her being unsure that this was all too soon after the end of her relationship.

So now we've been seeing each other for about 3 months and we're repeatedly going through this cycle. We see each other every few days, it starts out awkward at the beginning of the day, and by the end we'll be kissing and holding each other again. In the last few weeks the intimacy has gone a little further; I'll let you make your own mind up as to what that means. Each time in the days that follow the intimacy, she will express doubts again. She will say she wants me, but it's best that we stop seeing each other because it's unfair for her to enter into anything with me while she has these doubts and is still grieving over the previous relationship. But she is never sure and won't end things definitively. I can and do talk her round every time. I feel like she won’t end it because she really doesn’t want to end, she just needs time. She says if this was any other time she’d be with me in a second. I want her so badly, I can't just leave her alone for months and months to get over things, so I convince her that things will get better, and this cycle goes on and on.

Here's the basic cycle: we're intimate and enjoy each other mentally and physically, we part from each other, and within a day or two she goes back to feeling bad; that this is all too soon. I convince her that it isn't and that we will work through it which in turn leads to us being intimate, and so on, it begins again. It's worth noting that we are seriously attracted to each other physically. There is no doubt in either of us about that. I'm wondering how much that attraction is skewing things.

Tonight was the most recent end in this cycle. I asked to see her tomorrow, and she started saying how she feels wrong and would judge someone else for doing what she is doing; that is, being with someone new so soon after a long-term relationship. So what do I do? Do I leave her alone? Bear in mind that this would be a very hard thing for me to do, because I really do believe I'm in love with this girl.

- Maybe she wants to date several people at once but feels like she can't talk to you about it. But she does like you, and she ends up being wishy washy, on again, off again.

- If this inconsistency bothers you then stop seeing her.

She definitely doesn't want to see any one else. She made it clear she doesn't want anything with anyone and wants to be alone for a while. The problem with that is half the time she behaves like that's not the case at all. She'll kiss me and let me hold her for hours, we've been sexually intimate a couple of times and when we talked about it the next day there wasn't a hint of regret. She said she loved it.

Then she will revert back to being depressed, saying it has gone too far between us and that it's unfair that she is the way she is with me because it's basically leading me on when she knows her mood will change about us at any given moment. I basically convince her that she's not leading me on, she's just still confused about things and things will get better over time.

Today I texted her saying that I'm going to stop, but that she should know that I want her to talk to me when she feels like she wants to. I said it isn't the way I want it.

For what it's worth we're both 21.