I am a guy who people would call a serial monogamist. I go from one relationship right into another. For the last year and a half I have been single. Then I finally met the right person. We started the right way, as friends. As we began doing things together, we spent more time together and became even closer. Finally I told her that I love her. At first she balked, but eventually she came around and told me that she loves me too. Only to end things a week later.

The problem is twofold. First, she comes from a culture that very much frowns upon relationships and marriage to people outside that culture. I'm not from that culture. Second, she's been in America for five years and has not really dated someone in that entire time. Before that she had only one boyfriend. In the country she came from, women are very subservient to men. The thing she likes the most about the U.S. is that women have the ability to define their own lives here.

I think she has not had a relationship since she's been here because she thinks it means giving up the independence that she moved here to attain. Also I think she has some deep-seated problems with intimacy. It is always after our most intimate moments that she goes running for the hills. I have no idea where her fear of intimacy originates. I don't know what to do. I love her very much and I know she loves me. She's told me we can't see each other anymore because she can't date someone who's not from her culture, but I think that reason is really just a smoke screen. I think her real reason is that she's afraid of making the commitment. What can I do?