I always try to understand people but now I found it hard. Is he an avoidan.t? Can you help me understand?

I'll try to not get into too many details.

Almost 5 months ago I connected with someone I only saw when he came at my place of work from time to time. We don't live in the same country.

One day he texted me to meet for a drink and it seemed harmless so I said why not. After that he said he felt like he needed to text me, it ended up being almost every day, we met for a day or two three times in these 5 months, not so much in the last two months.

At the beginning he opened up a little, we agreed to see if this is only friendship or something more. After a while, the conversation started to shrink and I wanted to talk about it and he said he is afraid if we were to see each other more, he'll catch feelings and that he is afraid he'll have to choose where to live and stuff like that and that he is terrified of not seeing his kids on a daily basis (they are between 7 and 10 years old). I tried explaining that is long in the future and that it would probably have to be me to move.

After that, somehow everything started to fall apart. The conversations started to lessen and sometimes I would end up complaining because it wasn't like before and I know part of me put pressure on him but there wasn't any pressure, I just wanted to understand. At the beginning he said he is afraid I'll stop talking to him but now all of the sudden he is fine with us not texting for 3-7 days.

After our last deep talk he said he is afraid I'll get more emotionally attached and that he simply can't do it and that he doesn't want to hurt me, that maybe it is more about sex for him. Our conversations are now only surface levels. I sent him two videos about avoidants and he said he is not sure, do I think he is like them and unfortunately I went into overexplaining and he ended up saying he is not, that he doesn't have a problem with expressing emotions and feelings. I tried explaining that it's contradictory since at the begining he said he is afraid he'll catch feelings and that I'm not the first one to tell him he is emotionally unavailable but he just ignored it.

Recently he asked me on a trip with him because he had to go somewhere for bussines but I couldn't make it and after that he just disappeared for 5 days and I ended up texting him how was it and he just replied like everything is normal.

I'm trying to understand him but I can't. I've also been hurt in the past but when you have a great connection with someone, you give it a try. I was holding on to a hope he will open up like at the beginning but I'm starting to realize I can't keep fighting for someone who won't do the same for me. I am anxious but I also know what is normal and realistic and what isn't and I'm trying to understand why he even started something if he knew he can't do it. When we are in person, everything is great, there are no fights.

It hurts because I always stay for too long and I don't give up on people easily (relationship, friendship, work ect.) but I feel this time I have to choose myself. I am sad because I would stay with him through good and bad and I was fine with this being only friendship but when things started to get serious he just shut down and decided to not even give us a chance. Also, I think he keeps overworking so he doesn't have to think about emotional aspects in his life, he is really inteligent when it comes to work but with emotional inteliggence, unfortunately, I don't think so. And to think that the second day he said he things he's emotionally inteligent.

I want to add that at the beginning he said he is separated and I thought they talked it through and that he will get divorced in a couple of months. With everything, I realized he won't do it, not for at least until kids are grown up and that there wasn't actually any talk. He keeps saying they don't sleep in the same bed, there are no kisses ect. and that they probably stay in the marriage for the kids. I do believe him but honestly I don't understand the wife as well. He is handsome, successful and rich (yes it's useful but I really don't care about the money) and how can you not want to sleep with your husband... (he opened up about some problems but I won't get into that).

If I knew they didn't actually talked it through, I would never get into this situation and I do believe for some reason I was a little manipulated thinking they were.

This is so sad and I just want to understand. I'm not in love but I truly care about him and I hope eventually he'll find his happiness even if that is not me and I hope he'll have the courage to talk about the problems with the wife, to actually work it through or to get divorced...