Should I break off this long distance relationship before it begins?

I’m a 31 yr old young woman who has been writing to, phoning, webcamming (nothing indecent) with a 36 yr old man living 1600 miles away in another state for about a year now.

He is very sensitive and gentle natured, non judgmental, and loves animals and children, which originally attracted me to him
He talks very seriously about us all the time, and says he wants our relationship to be “forever”.

One problem is, although at first he seemed ok with the idea, now he doesn’t especially like the idea of moving here, he says he doesn’t know what he’s going to do once he gets here if he does come. (I wonder if he’s worried about having to work, or just worried he won’t be able to find a job in this economy). He has all his money in the stock market right now, and has been selling off stocks, very slowly, trying not to lose any money.

Also, he seems very overly sensitive at times, and gets upset because of really small things, like if I call when he’s in the middle of eating, etc. Over time this has really started to annoy me. It should be easy for him to keep his cool, and ask if I can call him back because he’s in the middle of something.

He has not had a regular job in just over a year, and seems averse to the topic of finding one. He likes the idea of working a manual labor job in a place like Alaska or Maine (which is where he is orginally from), but he wants me to move to one of those states with him and live with him. I won’t move because I haven’t met him in person, and I have my concerns about what living with him would be like, and I like the idea of being near my family and friends who live here. I also have high standards and I’m not looking for someone to sleep with before marriage, so I don’t think that would be the best situation for me since that is my goal (to wait for marriage), tho he has agreed that we can wait for physical intimacy.

The thing is, he’s been talking about moving here, and/or coming to visit me for a year now, but has never made it. seems like something always comes up. His grandfather passed away, the stock market crashed twice. He’s worried about his grandmother who is alone now. And now he has just received a letter from the IRS saying that he owes a lot of money to them, and he thinks he may not have done his taxes correctly and needs to have that fixed. What I’m trying to say is, something ALWAYS comes up.

In the meantime, he sometimes treats me as if I should be whatever he wants me to be, whenver he wants it. He talks to me in this “little boy” voice, whining and wimpering about things, pouting about stuff, and overall immature talking like a little child would, tho I know he can talk like an adult. . For some reason I feel as if he’s looking for a MOTHER and not a potential wife. ??? Maybe it’s just my feelings. He does say he has problems with his mother, and tries to avoid her at all costs tho he lives in her home right now.

I just don’t know if or when this guy is going to get it together. But I’m afraid of breaking it off, because A) I really enjoy talking with him because he’s so gentle natured, and B) i feel if I break it off it will crush him emotionally as he has no other friends where he’s living right now. He has lived all over the world since he was 18, traveling and working odd jobs. A “clean-cut hippie” kind of guy. He hasn’t had relationships that kept going for long because he kept feeling a need to explore more of the world, but now he wants to settle down.

Should I keep telling him I’ll be his “honey bear” and let him believe that if he came I’d be open to dating and seeing if things would work…..or should I just cut the ties with him completely….or should I just tell him I need more space, or what?

Half the time I really, really enjoy talking with him, and the other half the time he just gets on my nerves, but…I like him too much to let him go entirely, I think. :( I think I’m experiencing a lot of stress having a long distance relationship with everything in “limbo” like this for over a YEAR and I feel like my life is passing me by. I could be dating other people, or at least be single and not have to feel frustrated by this.