A terminal challenge?

[east coast edward]

Here's a thread that I started a couple of months ago regarding myself, Sandra (a long term close friend - whose name is not really Sandra) and her ex-partner (also a long term, now ex friend of mine)

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t274273/

 

All very sad I'm afraid.

 

Sandra and I are now officially dating,. The dates are becoming quite rare due in part to my work travel pattern, and her commitment to managing a quite intensive business. I'm in love with Sandra, actually on many levels. She isn't in love with me, but does feel an attachment that goes beyond pure friendship, and honestly likes being treated well. There is a wide disparity between our feelings for each other, with me its head on, with her its wait and see - but it could be OK - she certainly sends signals often enough that we may get together. We actually connect well at many levels, including the physical one.

 

We meet up and go on dates, I sometimes visit her and occasionally we make love. We like each others company, and she unwinds with me. She likes my attention, physical and emotional; it is clear from the way that she responds that that a man hasn't been affectionate to her for perhaps a decade.

 

The thing that gets in our way was her residual connection to her ex. Now, its more her massive work commitment (18 hours a day) precluding contact. My work commitment is pretty intense too, I stay away for up to three weeks at a time, often half-way around the world.

 

So, communication is failing. It’s getting to the point where I daren't even ring her for fear of interrupting a meeting or a task.

 

I'm obviously reaching the conclusion that she doesn't want to speak to me. Fair enough, but it doesn't appear to be the case. We talk about stuff, holidays, days out, sex, little practical things like that.

 

Occasionally things get fraught and we exchanging stroppy texts. This usually resolves a day or so later with an e-mail or something.

 

So what's the problem? Well to be brutally honest - I am, I am the problem. Firstly I'm a little aspergic and can overreact to emotionally leveraged events. More so, I'm the big problem for me. My mental health and capacity varies widely due to these driven events, and I can get very depressed. She knows about this, and is supportive. She has a similar disposition. The problem is that what I have hidden from her is the impact that this limbo of a potential relationship has have on my ability to work.. I have Alfred lost two good contracts, and am staring unemployment in the face. The psychology is that waiting, and being told that something will happen, and then it doesn't, is crippling my concentration. Its moved to the point where I might as well give up because I will cease to be any sort of viable partner.

 

Why am I so intense about it? She's only a girl-friend for god's sake? Well, she isn't she's more than that. I'm potentially being offered a family, a loving family that responds to me by wanting me and their mother to be together. And in any case, the vaguest and remotest type of relationship with Sandra has made me whole to the extent that I have never been before. Its almost like I become human, from some other state.

 

I have to do something to save myself. But, I can't just walk away. So as I see it I have these options:

 

The Nuclear Option Force a meeting and cause an argument, a big one. Infract have the type of discussion in which things are said that destroy our friendship for all time. Then we walk away, and there's no way back.

 

I have tried to do this, but because I was cautious and timid about it, she realised and saw the initiative off. She obviously likes the holding pattern.

 

The main downside is that to do this properly, I have to hurt her, and don't want to. She has been cruel and unfair, but hasn't crossed the line to be malevolent. If I said that I loved her, but we must avoid each other to save my sanity, I think we'd be back in our holding pattern after three weeks. Top work, this has to be bloody and heartfelt.

 

The Go Away Option. Well, I'm trying that 6 or 8 time zones are pretty go-away, but somehow my heart remains with her. Find a girl friend, yes tried that: but women's detection capacity is so awesome that although you are declared not married and not partnered (true), there is someone really! Anyway the woman i hitched-up to also had issuers with and ex.

 

Grin and bear it Trying that, and my batteries are flat. I don't have a reserve tank and entertain terminal thoughts.

 

Grow-up and cope with it by focusing on other stuff, like the report that I was supposed to write four weeks ago. A good friend and sometime boss has told me this. Compartmentalise, difficult to do but you must. He's right. Infract he's so right. What Sandra wants is for me to be successful, she doesn't want a wimp. The problem with this option is that despair and depression constrain the ability to concentrate, and it is this that I need in order to deliver on my productive work.

 

Be nice to her, be close and invoke a nice discussion I try this often, its usually forestalled by the feeling that now we're this close why be heavy when we could be making love. She usually initiates this, and I never get to discuss feelings! After that, some work crisis usually causes her to bring the shutters sown.

 

Go for broke and propose hmm, well that's already short-circuited because (see previous thread) I've already declared my position, so it would come as no surprise.

 

Do nothing. I don't know what to do, partly because my mind is not clear enough. Indecision and hazing is going to produce a hybrid remedy anyway. I could just do nothing, but being in limbo is really the worst option.

 

I know that it’s me that's the problem, but she is part of it.

 

Paling in love with a friend is, I'm finding, one of the most difficult and challenging aspects to life. Particularly so where the friend has been with you for critical and life changing moments of your life, and you have been for them at times of their great distress.

Edited May 27, 2011 by east coast edward
Grammar spelling editing and putting in emoticons..

[Seeker Sam]

I read both threads. I felt sad both times. Perhaps sad because I see lots of myself in some of the things you say, the way you blame yourself, try to find ways to do it better, do it right, try, try, try. Its a self-defeating, crushing cycle, and the line I loved from one of tiger's earlier posts (on the other thread) was "being strung along, wasting so much time, having your self esteem go in the gutter because you're never "chosen", its so not worth it" captures the situation perfectly. No wonder you feel depressed. No wonder you have no energy left and can't focus. You have been in a holding pattern that constantly batters your self-worth for sooooo long, I think its time to cut yourself a break.

 

It is always so hard to see when you're close in it. Actually there is a movie you should watch and pay careful attention to. I'm not really a romantic-comedy kind of person, but a friend recommended it and I watched it, its 'he's just not that into you'. Only for you it would be 'she'. I'm not saying she's not a good friend, or that she doesn't care - obviously she does. But everything you've written screams SHE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU. Not in the way you are into her. And you can tell yourself it may come, it may grow, but I doubt it, not while you are where you are anyway, if at all and if ever. Watch the movie and pay attention to the beautiful blonde woman and the sales guy that wimpers after her like a puppy. She likes him, needs him even when her self-worth is low. But she isn't into him. You see how she behaves when she IS into someone and its very very different. I would say the same thing applies to you. Only by experiencing someone being 'in to you' as much as you are in to them, will you realise how much time you've been wasting. In order to maintain your current position you focus on the meagre positives, the 'crumbs' of the current situation and deny the bread-and-butter reality. No more crumbs!!

 

It is a really hard thing to do when your need runs deep, when you long for the comfort of a significant other, and all the attendant joys that can bring (ties to her family, some company, something to look forward to, etc.) but I can't see it happening for you here. The longer you keep yourself in such a painful, clenched position, the longer you put off ever finding that. Ever. You can't say 'yes' to something new (as you've already identified) until you say 'no' to what was. It will be terrible, painful, lonely like you wouldn't believe. But even that will be better than the torturous 'on hold' I promise you. NC is the only way. You've spelt out various scenarios, but there is no need for the dramatic exit; the 'nuclear option' as you've described it - that's really just a way to keep the emotionality of the situation going. Send her a letter, pour your heart into it if you must, and let her go. Let yourself off the hook. And NO CONTACT whatsoever - you might think you can maintain a friendship, but it just keeps you stuck. There are/will be other friends. And eventually a true lover. Post here when NC gets hard.

 

That's my advice anyway. I don't know that you're ready to take it, but I hope for your sake you will be some time soon. It's not that you're weak Edward, its just that you are vulnerable. And no one, I repeat NO ONE, will be able to save you except yourself. You will grow enormously as a result.

[east coast edward]

Thanks Seeker Sam, and yes you're right Tiger was awesome in the other thread.

 

I know that you're right, that's what I should do: send her a letter and let go. I've tried to do it, nut like much of my other attempts at communication it gets forestalled, a date or flirting or something quite nice ends up occupying the space that a serious discussion should have been in.!

 

I have to let go, yes I know I have to. Any logic says so, and there's pretty well no contrary argument. Just being stuck like this is so difficult, the locking so intense I have to concede that I've considered very extreme measures.

 

Why don't I do what is the obvious step, just close it?

 

Well, the problem is basically that I have no one. I have friends, work colleges, close friends, yes, but no relatives. There's only on e friend that I would have gone to for help, who I would have trusted....... and that's her..... My house is full of her stuff, she's decorated rooms, a tree in the front garden is hers - there's just no escaping it.

 

Thanks and regards /