unrequited love :(

narvikstar

Im nuts about my close male friend and i mean completely 100% nuts about him! We are friends for over 5 years and have amazing chemistry together and care a lot for each other. We had a one night thing over 2 years ago however nothing more came of it ( we were both drunk and lonely i suppose) but now i feel like my love life is on hold for him.
We talk everyday, text, email, msn, phone and we see each other every few months or so.

I dont even know what i'm asking here......I know its unhealthy to be in this sort of relationship with a male friend. But I would honestly spend the rest of my life with this guy. Its not going anywhere though only friendship so why cant i just move away from these feelings i have so strong for him?

Is the best thing to do is distance myself from the contact we have?
But to him we are friends and i dont want to be cold just because i cant seem to deal with my feelings towards him.

ahhhh i'm seriously going mad over this!!!
someone please give me a kick in the head!!!!!

GigaByte

Stay friends with him and stop putting your love life on hold. Watch 500 Days of Summer.




My girlfriend made me watch it

e04bf099

Why are you not going out with him? Who made the decision that it would not be a relationship? There is always someone that pulls a little more and someone that pulls the reins on the thing. I know it can be relatively mutual but you sound like you are a little more interested than him, despite his affection.

I ask bluntly because I have been there and in this situation a person has to ask difficult questions, which may be ordinarilly avoided due to hope and possibilities.

If he is pulling and you are just lonely, then take the decision not to be around him. That is for his own good. If he doesn't wish to be with you let him go. I know I couldn't be around a person I loved, especially if they got together with somebody else.

Good-luck, and be in every way explicit and unambiguous.

minidazzler

Why can't you be with him?


If there is a good valid reason, then my advice, cut contact. It will be HARD, probably harder than anything you have ever done in your life, but after time you will stop wanting him so much.

narvikstar

its on my side that there are feelings more then friendship. We had a talk about a relationship years ago but the excuse given was that he was only coming out of a relationship (that he got really hurt in) and that he would not be good enough for me!
We are unbelievable friends, we tell each other everything and drive each other nuts with flirting. There is sparks and i'm not fooling myself into thinking they are there cause they really are!
I know he just wants friendship from me but i'm a substitude girlfriend at the moment for him. He never lets me buy dinner or cinema when we go out together. He meets my family and I his the whole time.
In all the time i have known him he has never gone out with anyone else.

I go around in circles in my head about him all the time, I cannot imagine my life without him nor do i want a life without him in it....so cutting contact with him is not an option....so basically i have to get over having feelings for him! where the hell do i start?!?!?!?!?!??!

Virgil°

narvikstar wrote: »

...so cutting contact with him is not an option....so basically i have to get over having feelings for him! where the hell do i start?!?!?!?!?!??!

Unfortunately the two scenarios above do not go hand in hand. If you remain around him so much you wont get past this.It isnt a friendship. Sure you might be the best of friends but dont kid yourself ,YOU want more than that.So its not a mutual friendship.
You've two choices:
1.Go for it see how he feels then play it from there.
2.Severely reduce if not cut all contact. This will definately be hard but probably not harder than watching him fall in love with someone else from the sidelines.

e04bf099

Virgil° wrote: »

Unfortunately the two scenarios above do not go hand in hand. If you remain around him so much you wont get past this.It isnt a friendship. Sure you might be the best of friends but dont kid yourself ,YOU want more than that.So its not a mutual friendship.
You've two choices:
1.Go for it see how he feels then play it from there.
2.Severely reduce if not cut all contact. This will definately be hard but probably not harder than watching him fall in love with someone else from the sidelines.

+1

Dub_girl_101

minidazzler wrote: »

then my advice, cut contact. It will be HARD, probably harder than anything you have ever done in your life, but after time you will stop wanting him so much.

Why does every second person give this exact suggestion in posts? I understand the logic behind it but surely that has to be one of the most dramatic moves possible!!

I seem to always stop, think,and picture myself lying in a bed in a nursing home way down the line looking back on my life and all of my fondest memories and last thing I'd wanna do is to look back and think "it's such a pity I cut contact with him/her, maybe I should have given them the benefit of the doubt". Yet everyone seems to just dish out the aul "cut contact forever" thing

I'm sorry maybe i'm looking into it too deeply maybe cuz I'm in that position atm but I really don't want to do something I might regret in the future

Sorry OP I'm not taking over your thread I just can't get my head around the whole cutting contact thing I just don't get how people can do it

minidazzler

Dub_girl_101 wrote: »

Why does every second person give this exact suggestion in posts? I understand the logic behind it but surely that has to be one of the most dramatic moves possible!!

I seem to always stop, think,and picture myself lying in a bed in a nursing home way down the line looking back on my life and all of my fondest memories and last thing I'd wanna do is to look back and think "it's such a pity I cut contact with him/her, maybe I should have given them the benefit of the doubt". Yet everyone seems to just dish out the aul "cut contact forever" thing

I'm sorry maybe i'm looking into it too deeply maybe cuz I'm in that position atm but I really don't want to do something I might regret in the future

Sorry OP I'm not taking over your thread I just can't get my head around the whole cutting contact thing I just don't get how people can do it

Because it is almost impossible to move past things and get over people if you have them in your life all the time.

Dub_girl_101

minidazzler wrote: »

Because it is almost impossible to move past things and get over people if you have them in your life all the time.

But doesn't it seem a massive shame?

themusicman

narvikstar wrote: »

its on my side that there are feelings more then friendship. We had a talk about a relationship years ago but the excuse given was that he was only coming out of a relationship (that he got really hurt in) and that he would not be good enough for me!
We are unbelievable friends, we tell each other everything and drive each other nuts with flirting. There is sparks and i'm not fooling myself into thinking they are there cause they really are!
I know he just wants friendship from me but i'm a substitude girlfriend at the moment for him. He never lets me buy dinner or cinema when we go out together. He meets my family and I his the whole time.
In all the time i have known him he has never gone out with anyone else.

I go around in circles in my head about him all the time, I cannot imagine my life without him nor do i want a life without him in it....so cutting contact with him is not an option....so basically i have to get over having feelings for him! where the hell do i start?!?!?!?!?!??!

You talked about a relationship years ago!
Maybe its time to talk again.......because it is tearing you apart. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
Me and OH danced around the issue for 4 years. The only people who didnt think we were an item were the two of us. We were dating other people but those who knew us always assumed here was something going on..which there wasnt....except in my head.
Eventually she was moving to another part of country and it became now or never because the distance would have changed friendship...took the plunge....still together 17 years on

Go for it...worst that happens is you know where you stand....which is better than things are right now

Good luck and remember in most things in life the anticipation of rejection is worse than the actual rejection so feel the fear and go for it

SarahSassy

Right - a view from an outsider. Whats in this for you? I can see whats in it for him - he has female company, companionship and all the benefits of having a significant other without having to commit anything to the relationship. Whereas you are hanging in there, acting like his girlfriend hoping that he will see how amazing you are... I dont mean to be mean but if he was going to see you in a romantic light then he has had many years to do this. His excuses for not getting into a relationship with you were a cop out...

Bottom line, you are giving him what he wants without you getting what you want. This infatuation is stopping you meeting someone else who will want you as a partner. Start dating other guys and see his reaction but tbh I dont think it will change....

Good luck

sam34

OP, a couple of years ago i was in your position.

i did nothing.

i didnt make my feelings known, neither did i cut contact.

my head was wrecked from it.

i ended up watching from the sidelines while he fell in love with someone - that was a really hard thing to do. i had to pretend to be happy and excited for him (as any friend would be) while inside i was gutted thinking "it should be me".

i then decided that i had to play the cards i was dealt. if i wanted him in my life at all, then i had to suck it up and accept that he had moved on and "we" were never gonna happen.

that took time, patience, courage, and if im honest, another fling or two (whats that saying - the best way to get over one man is to get under another )

the night before they married, i vowed to myself that that was the end of my feelings, and that i would mean every word of it when i congratulated them the next day.

i suppose determination and stubbornness kept me on that path, plus a refusal to keep my life on hold any longer.

now, he remains one of my closest friends and i have a new friend in his wife. genuine friendship.

im glad i didnt have the guts to cut all contact back then, as i woudl now be missing out on these friendships.

it was hard, it was gut-wrenchingly hard.

but it was doable and more importantly, it was worth it.

narvikstar

thanks for the responces guys!

Sometimes i think that breaking all contact could be the only way to get over him (the whole out of sight out of mind thing) but i know that i wont be able to do it. I try the whole time but it is him who will constantly contacts me on a daily basis to talk and check in on each other. I know there is the option to not pick up the phone, or reply to an email or text, but its just soooo hard!!

I do understand that if something was going to happen that it would have happened well by now. I see signs in him all the time that makes me believe that he is scared as hell to let something happen. Maybe we have invested too much in a friendship to risk it for a relationship?!

At the moment I am trying my best to be a good friend and be there for him, he lost his mam and aunt this year, im an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on....i'm there for him whenever needed and that i suppose is why i didnt want to break contact with him because he needed to talk to someone and i seem to be the only person in his life that he talks to about such things. I'm pushing back the feelings all the time so i can be the friend who listens and sometimes that makes me feel like i'm lying to him all the time.

I think i was just down yesterday about him and thats why i came on here to just vent. He came to my house yest, we went for dinner, flirted the whole time, went to my mothers house, acted like boyfriend/girlfriend, got a dvd and spend the eve on the couch together...and talked a lot about life and the like and then he went home. My heart breaks everytime he leaves and my heart breaks again when i realise that probably someday we wont have all this because he will have moved on or i will have moved on and we wont be able to be the way we are with eachother if we have significant others in our lives.

I want it to be him, i have never felt so strongly about someone in my life and i dont believe that i could have what i have with him with someone else.....but maybe thats because i have blinkers on right now!!

thanks for letting me vent and for giving honest opinions

LegacyUser

These stories are all so

I'm another in this situation. Mostly over it now but it has been tough. I have a very close friend whom I see almost every day. He's told me indirectly that he cant be in a relationship right now and I understand his reasons for that. I dont know if he'll ever want to be in one with me anyway so I've dated a lot of other people and I dont think hes particularly holding me back there anymore. Similar situation in that everyone thinks theres something going on with us and even that we're going out, but theres never been anything like that.

I do have a tiny hope that when the thing thats holding him back right now is over, that something might happen between us, but I'm not going to wait for that either. I couldnt cut him out of my life. no way. He's too important to me and the friendship is far better than his not being around at all.

SarahSassy

What do your family and friends think about the situation?

narvikstar

Hey sarahsassy, my parents and family are always slagging me about him because they think that we are going out and just hiding it! i have explained on many occasions that we are just friends and i think my mam is coming around to the idea (even thou she tells me everytime she meets him how much she likes him). He went to my sisters wedding with me so therefore maybe i left myself wide open for slaggin from them! I'm the youngest in my family and both my bro and sis are married so maybe when they see a man coming into the house with me they get all excited! he is the only guy that i have ever brought home i'm 30 soon and he is 36 so maybe they are thinking well its about time she got herself married!

My friends id say at this stage are sick of me going on about him a lot of them believe that we will end up together that he is just scared but maybe they are just saying that as to not hurt my feelings!

you know what even as i type all this i realise how crazy it all is....i bring him home to my parents, i go to his house ( i have stayed there on occasion) we go for dinner (he buys) we go to cinema (he buys) we talk for hours on the phone, we email, we text, we msn, we flirt, we go to concerts together, we go to family events with each other, we even have gone on hols together (albeit with other people), we tell each other everything, we are like we are practically married at this stage just without the commitment and sex part!

maybe i'm just holding out for something that is never going to happen and the sooner i realise that the better!!

Wibbs

I dunno if I found myself in that position I'd just have to say it out straight. "What's going on here? I think we make a helluva good couple, so why arent we one?". If the answer was along the lines of lets try, then yippee!.

If the answer was along the lines of "oh you made a mistake I don't feel like that", then me personally I would scrape them off. For a couple of reasons. First I dont take second best and I wouldn't want to waste any more time moping over someone. Given a choice on my deathbed between wasting years of my life on someone or spending those years looking for something more mutual and emotionally healthy for me, I'll take the latter please and out of sight out of mind is the way to go there(then again I'm cold that way).

Secondly I would question their motives. If they saw me as a substitute partner then what the hell are they playing at. If they couldn't see that this may cause problems, I would consider them missing emotional insight. Both no nos for me. Thats not friendship either, no matter what way they may dress it up.

In the OP's situation as she said she reckons they're practically married as it is. IMHO men more than women will stick in the status quo. They don't have particular time markers in relationships. Hes happy to trundle along. He may have feelings, but they could be of the type not fully formed, beyond "oh god Id miss her so much, if she wasn't in my life". That's another reason to ask him straight out. Shock him up a bit.

SarahSassy

narvikstar wrote: »

maybe i'm just holding out for something that is never going to happen and the sooner i realise that the better!!

Well what you are doing is depriving yourself of a wholesome and healthy full relationship. You are 30 - do you want to meet a life parnter and have kids? If so, then hanging round with this guy and not dating others is not going to make this happen.

Time to talk to him, take the answer on the chin and either move on with him or without. You deserve more than second best.

As Wibbs said you would have to wonder what his motives are. At a quick glance, selfish and I would worry that as soon as he meets someone else you would be dropped.