about a friend?

[MillyRad]

I'm new here and I'm really confused about what to do about a friend of mine. I'm 33 and married with two young children. He's about 20 years older than me and has never been married. *Over the last four years we'd become very close and I thought of him like family. Whenever he had a problem (which was fairly frequent ) I made myself available to him, to lend a sympathetic ear or to help with a project, or anything else he needed.*

 

About a year ago, a mutual female friend (who is a little older than me) of ours moved to town from several states away. She seemed really nice and we were excited about the three of us getting to hang out together. Right away, the two of them started to make plans that excluded me. I was, at first, assured by my male friend that it was an oversight and we'd all get together soon. "Soon" turned into about two months. At that point, I thought that my male friend, being a guy, had just been forgetting to notify me of any plans. In a casual online conversation I had with my female friend, I asked about accompanying them on the next photo outing they went on ( we're all avid amateur photographers) and I got absolutely no response. The conversation just ended abruptly. I was hurt and confused, so I asked my male friend if he knew what was going on, if maybe I'd done something wrong. He didn't really have an answer. I decided to let the matter go. I didn't want to seem pushy.*

 

Meanwhile, the casual online friendship between my female friend and I continued, but whenever I saw her in public she was only just barely friendly to me. I asked my male friend, again, if I'd done something wrong and all I got was a vague and somewhat hostile non-answer. Over the next month my female friend started to give me the online silent-treatment. At the time I just figured she was busy, so I continued to be friendly to her.*

 

A month or so later, they both came to one of my performances (I play theremin in a band). I was already nervous when my male friend came backstage. He took me aside and, in a strange, emotional, breakup-like speech, told me that he and our mutual female friend had started dating. I was confused and stunned. I didn't really know what to say. He and I weren't a couple, so I didn't see why he needed to do that, especially since I was about to go on stage. It was weird and I was upset because I thought he didn't want to be friends anymore.*

 

A few weeks later he's talking to me like nothing ever happened. The mutual female friend collects hippos, so I found this awesome vintage valentine with a hippo on it and a vintage hippo pull-toy. I gave them to my male friend to give to her. About a month after that I wrote a friendly email to her asking whether she'd received the goodies and if she liked them. She took a few days to reply and said that my make friend had just given them to her, but she couldn't accept them. I was stunned and heartbroken. A few days later, I saw my male friend and told him what happened. I couldn't help but cry while asking why she would do that and what I did wrong. I could tell he felt bad, but he spent more time trying to justify her actions than he did trying to console me.*

 

Finally I mustered the courage to write her an email and ask her what was wrong and that there has to be some kind of misunderstanding. I asked if we could all get together and talk about it. Her reply said that she didn't want to do that and that she no longer considered me a friend because of my attempts to "insert myself into their relationship."

 

My male friend still wants to be friends, but I don't know what to do. *I don't want to lose another friend, but the more time I have to think about what happened, things just don't seem to add up.*

[freestyle]

I wonder if your female friend (should I say former?) has an issue with the guy she's dating having a female friend---so, she's been icing you out.It's one possibility.........

 

I've seen this happen with friends of both genders (although more often with women) . They get involved in a new romantic relationship---and suddenly treat all of their old friends as if they're disposable. I've had my two closest female friends do that to me in the last two years, so I understand how much it hurts. Especially when it's done passive-aggressively---(not returning communication-declining invites with no explanation-never being available, etc.) The friend on the outside is left beating themselves up, wondering what they've done wrong..........

 

The sad & frustrating part of that is they may find themselves all alone , if the dating relationship doesn't work out, and they've blown off all of their friends.

 

Have you decided whether or not you wish to remain friends with your male friend?

[MillyRad]

Thank you, freestyle, so much for your reply!

 

It's just such a weird situation. I feel like they've been playing games with me. Early on, when I still thought that I was going to be hanging out with them, I would suggest to my male friend some places that would be cool to visit and take photos. The coming weekend, both of their Flickr accounts would have tons of new pictures from the place I had suggested. It's like they wanted to rub my nose in the fact that I wasn't invited. It really hurt. I don't understand why this woman would move to a new city only to be standoffish and cruel to the people she meets.*

 

I've had friendships that faded or ended when I got out of school, quit jobs, etc. , but I've never had anyone aggressively dislike me and then reject me. I feel torn between trying to be a good friend to my male friend and protecting my own emotional health.*

[freestyle]

Thank you, freestyle, so much for your reply!

 

It's just such a weird situation. I feel like they've been playing games with me. Early on, when I still thought that I was going to be hanging out with them, I would suggest to my male friend some places that would be cool to visit and take photos. The coming weekend, both of their Flickr accounts would have tons of new pictures from the place I had suggested. It's like they wanted to rub my nose in the fact that I wasn't invited. It really hurt. I don't understand why this woman would move to a new city only to be standoffish and cruel to the people she meets.*

 

I've had friendships that faded or ended when I got out of school, quit jobs, etc. , but I've never had anyone aggressively dislike me and then reject me. I feel torn between trying to be a good friend to my male friend and protecting my own emotional health.*

 

 

Here's the important question---Do you feel like your male friend has been a good friend to you?

 

Is the dynamic lopsided, or reciprocal?

 

My vote would be for protecting your emotional health first. I think it's really crappy that he would drop a bomb on you, right before you have to perform onstage---what horrible timing....(and very thoughtless)

 

It's very painful to have a friendship fade, but I'm learning myself that the dynamic can change drastically, when a new person is brought into the mix.

 

I'm having to walk away from a friendship of ten years, because one of my close girlfriends has fallen in with an emotionally abusive man. I tried to warn her, because I've known him even longer---just to have it blow up in my face---I got painted as the "bad guy".

 

So, I do understand the pain---it can run very deep with a long-term friendship.

[MillyRad]

I don't know if I want continue the friendship with my male friend. I think that I don't want to, at least not for a while. I feel uncomfortable whenever I have to see him where I work.

 

I think that maybe he and his girlfriend spent quite more time than he admitted to discussing me and what they perceived my motives to be. I think that maybe all of this talking (Is this what people call talking behind someone's back?) caused his girlfriend to take a negative view of me and what she didn't know about me, filled the blanks in herself with the worst possible things instead of getting to know me.

 

I just think I don't trust my friend anymore. He comes to talk to me and my kids and is nice, but because he broke promises, and was dishonest, now I feel like I don't believe him even when he says something encouraging. Like maybe he has some ulterior motive for trying to at least superficially stay friends with me.

 

I wish that none of this mattered to me and I could just move on without feeling so bad.

[MillyRad]

Shortly after ms. Former-friend dumped me, I played at a show at a local venue. It was the first time I'd played anywhere other than the theater where I work. I was really super nervous. I asked my male friend to please not bring his girlfriend; I just wasn't ready for that. I didn't want to worry about both stage fright AND being around someone who had just hurt me so badly. His response was that she really liked the band and that he was bringing her no matter how I felt about it. I felt so betrayed. Technically, I could have told security not to let them in, but I didn't think that would be right. I guess I was trying to take the high road. Girlfriend spent the whole show either glaring or with her nose buried in her iPhone. It's happened a couple of times since then, and I know it's not "wrong" for her to be there, and maybe im being overly sensitive, but it just has a creepy, harassing vibe to it. I don't want to be in the same room as her and know that she doesn't either, and yet, there she is. Confusing.

[whichwayisup]

I do have to ask, why you are letting yourself get too attached and too close to another male, when you are married? What does your husband think of all this?

 

Just seems like too much trouble and drama.. you hurt and jealous that this guy has a girlfriend, when you are married. Be happy that he's found someone he can be with.

 

I read your other post (?) and now reading this, I have to wonder why you are concerned about those two guys whether or not they are interested in you when you say they see you as family. Plus, they know you're married so why would they hit on you? That's respectful of them to not to cross that line. That's real friendship.

 

Detach and focus that energy on your husband.

[MillyRad]

Maybe I did get too attached to him. Because I'm a stay-at-home mom and one of my kids has special needs, I don't have time to do very much socializing and don't have many close friends. I'm working on detaching myself from buddy, but it's still painful to feel betrayed. I had been a little jealous when he suddenly started breaking plans with me to spend time with someone new (who I thought was my friend, too). I'm not upset that he has a girlfriend, just that she is disrespectful to me and my male friend is okay with her behavior.

 

My husband has met my male friend. My husband owns his own business and works long hours, so he's not really available for socializing either. I haven't really said very much about this situation to my husband. I don't want to burden him with my friend problems. I expect that he would say something typically male along the lines of, "Wow, this guy and his ladyfriend seem like complete A-holes. Why would you want to hang out with them?" Not that that's not a valid response, I'd just like more discussion and support than I suspect he has to give, which is why I'm bothering you loveshack folk about it.

 

I don't want to lose one of the few friends I have, but i'm starting to feel like our friendship was pretty one sided and now it's disposable to him now that he has a girlfriend.

 

As for there being two male friends and wondering why they're not interested in me, I think that may be from someone else's post. The closest thing I can compare to is that I feel like a kid whose dad has chosen to date a woman who doesn't like children.

 

Thanks for reading/listening

 

I dont know what this icon means, but it's adorable, so i'm using it.

[spiderowl]

It sounds like your male friend, who was a friend and not a partner, has chosen to date a woman who is very suspicious of his relationship with you. I think perhaps she detected an emotional interdependence there and was uncomfortable with it. She should not have treated you badly though. It is clear she is trying to disentangle him from you and now he has found her, he will invest more in her because it is a sexual relationship not just friends. Maybe he would have liked it to be more with you and that's why he came to depend on you so much, but obviously it couldn't be.

 

As I see it, this is a relationship where there was quite a bit of emotional involvement and the new lady is ensuring this can't continue. It would be best if you don't pursue her as a friend any more. She is not behaving like one. You don't have to have him as a friend any more either; he has been thoughtless and the situation will probably hurt you if you continue to be involved with him. Personally, neither of them seem like good friends to you at the moment, so why bother with them? I can understand your loss though because it did seem like you were emotionally involved with him at a deeper level than maybe you realised.

[whichwayisup]

BillieAnn was the other poster I got you mixed up with. I apologize for that! My mistake..

 

Sounds like you need some women friends..Men friends are great, but always keep it simple.. Light and fun. Once emotions happen (feelings of attachment) it's easy to take things the wrong way and out of context. My H and I have opposite sex friends, we all socialize together and anyone new that comes into my life, my husband meets too.

 

You and your husband need to make time for one another! Make it special.

[Lucky_One]

I'm new here and I'm really confused about what to do about a friend of mine. I'm 33 and married with two young children. He's about 20 years older than me and has never been married. *Over the last four years we'd become very close and I thought of him like family. Whenever he had a problem (which was fairly frequent ) I made myself available to him, to lend a sympathetic ear or to help with a project, or anything else he needed.*

 

About a year ago, a mutual female friend (who is a little older than me) of ours moved to town from several states away. She seemed really nice and we were excited about the three of us getting to hang out together. Right away, the two of them started to make plans that excluded me. I was, at first, assured by my male friend that it was an oversight and we'd all get together soon. "Soon" turned into about two months. At that point, I thought that my male friend, being a guy, had just been forgetting to notify me of any plans. In a casual online conversation I had with my female friend, I asked about accompanying them on the next photo outing they went on ( we're all avid amateur photographers) and I got absolutely no response. The conversation just ended abruptly. I was hurt and confused, so I asked my male friend if he knew what was going on, if maybe I'd done something wrong. He didn't really have an answer. I decided to let the matter go. I didn't want to seem pushy.*

 

Meanwhile, the casual online friendship between my female friend and I continued, but whenever I saw her in public she was only just barely friendly to me. I asked my male friend, again, if I'd done something wrong and all I got was a vague and somewhat hostile non-answer. Over the next month my female friend started to give me the online silent-treatment. At the time I just figured she was busy, so I continued to be friendly to her.*

 

A month or so later, they both came to one of my performances (I play theremin in a band). I was already nervous when my male friend came backstage. He took me aside and, in a strange, emotional, breakup-like speech, told me that he and our mutual female friend had started dating. I was confused and stunned. I didn't really know what to say. He and I weren't a couple, so I didn't see why he needed to do that, especially since I was about to go on stage. It was weird and I was upset because I thought he didn't want to be friends anymore.*

 

A few weeks later he's talking to me like nothing ever happened. The mutual female friend collects hippos, so I found this awesome vintage valentine with a hippo on it and a vintage hippo pull-toy. I gave them to my male friend to give to her. About a month after that I wrote a friendly email to her asking whether she'd received the goodies and if she liked them. She took a few days to reply and said that my make friend had just given them to her, but she couldn't accept them. I was stunned and heartbroken. A few days later, I saw my male friend and told him what happened. I couldn't help but cry while asking why she would do that and what I did wrong. I could tell he felt bad, but he spent more time trying to justify her actions than he did trying to console me.*

 

Finally I mustered the courage to write her an email and ask her what was wrong and that there has to be some kind of misunderstanding. I asked if we could all get together and talk about it. Her reply said that she didn't want to do that and that she no longer considered me a friend because of my attempts to "insert myself into their relationship."

 

My male friend still wants to be friends, but I don't know what to do. *I don't want to lose another friend, but the more time I have to think about what happened, things just don't seem to add up.*

 

After reading your post, I noticed a few things. 1) You did a whole lot more communicating with your male friend than with the female one. You were depending on him to tell you about plans rather than her. You gave him gifts for him to deliver to her. You asked him about the friendship with your female friend, rather than talking to her about it. You really only seem to communicate with her online. (The stuff with him I bolded, and with her, I italicized. Edit ooops forgot that the entire quote would be in italics.) 2) You seemed to be in denial that they were dating. I guessed at the very beginning of your post that they were interested in spending time together as a couple. I can't believe that it would take you over 2 months to figure this out - unless you didn't want to see it or believe it.

 

Your friendship with her seems very, very casual; I don't understand why you call her a "friend" but then say that you don't understand why she would treat "people she just met" so stand-offishly. I don't think the two of you were actual friends, but possibly online acquaintances. In that case, your reaction to her "rejecting" your friendship seems a bit over the top. In fact, sending her gifts via her boyfriend seems a bit over the top, too - if not vaguely creepy.

 

I suspect your H would be willing to talk about an emotional problem you have if you told him how heartbroken you are. I think you are making excuses for not "bothering" him with your "friend problems" because he might be very concerned about how very upset you are about a male friend dating someone. I know you say that your H has "met" your friend, but it would seem that a four year intense friendship such as you describe would have a whole lot of get-togethers that would include your spouse. Isn't your H wondering why you aren't hanging out with your friend anymore?

Edited December 11, 2011 by Lucky_One
changing typeface

[MillyRad]

I'm not that great of a writer. I guess I should have included that there was a history between the girlfriend and I of sending gifts to each other. Her and her other Internet friends did that a lot. I know this because she frequently mentioned and posted pictures of the goodies she had received or others she was about to send to a friend.

 

I'm spoke to my male friend on an almost daily basis and the female friend not as often. I'm also kind of shy, so I guess I felt more comfortable mentioning plans to my buddy than I did to someone I didn't know very well. And when I did start to talk to her about plans, she would just abruptly end the conversation- not even say she had to go, just never replied. I guess this is when I started to think that something was wrong. I didn't want to be pushy, either.

 

I guess I do take a long time to "figure things out" but I think that it's indicative of one of the great qualities I possess: sincerity. I don't think I could handle a world where I spent all of my time trying to figure everyone out and that when they say something to me it can never be taken at face value. Too much drama. That's why I think I really need to distance myself from those "friends." I don't think I can deal with all of the things I guess I'd be expected to figure out.

[MillyRad]

Oh, and I don't have a problem with with my buddy dating. It's a normal thing, I just wish it wasn't someone who has been cruelly manipulating me out of his life for her own comfort.

 

Why, why, why would a woman want to start a relationship with a man and then try to end his friendships?

[The Outlaw]

Wow. I'm sorry. But try giving him a little bit of space and see if he contacts you first. If he doesn't, give it a little while, call/text/email him and just say 'hello' and ask him how he is. And as for your latest post, any woman who does that sees another woman that is friends with her boyfriend/husband may see her as a threat, is jealous or insecure.

[MillyRad]

We've said hi to each other and had a few very casual conversations. Ive been very guarded. I guess that I'm just still afraid that at any moment he could try to put me through the ringer again. When I see that his car is at my workplace my stomach gets tied up in knots and I want to just get back in my car and go home, but I don't.

 

After having had some time to gain perspective and to stop blaming myself for everything that happened, I'm starting to be able see through some of his shenanigans. For example, he recently came backstage (uninvited) before another one of my performances. He wished me luck and then proceeded to have an unnecessarily loud conversation with one of my bandmates (whom he hardly knows) about an outing he was going on the next day with his girlfriend. In the past, something like this would have made me upset and anxious. I don't know if my drama-detector has gotten better, or if this was just a particularly poorly concealed attempt to push my buttons, but I recognized what was happening. It was sort of a proud moment for me to finally be able to say to myself, "Dude, I know what you're doing and I'm not falling for it."

 

I'm starting to think that he's not someone who's worth the effort to be close to, or to even be friends with. And if he decides to move his girlfriend into his house, I'd never be welcome there. If they get married, I'm sure girlfriend would insist that I be conspicuously not-invited to the wedding. I'm just seeing a future where we're growing farther apart instead of closer.

[freestyle]

Wow, Milly, that's really crappy......

 

It's starting to sound like he might be one of those guys who triangulates his relationships intentionally......

 

Who knows what he's told his new gf about you? It's possible that he set up a scenario to make her jealous and insecure about you--(which keeps her jumping through hoops to "be on top")

 

It wouldn't be the first time a man has used a female friend to make a gf jealous---(without the friend's knowledge) I've seen this dynamic happen before, unfortunately........It's very toxic. Shenanigans is the right word for it.

 

And again, right before you're about to perform----that's incredibly insensitive....NOT cool at all.....sheesh.

[MillyRad]

I have a feeling that the triangulation thing might be what's happening. My therapist said, a while back that some guys like to have two women fighting over them. I blew it off at the time, thinking that it was the stuff of soap operas and that I was too non-confrontational and dowdy for there to be any fighting. I can totally see, now, that it's plausible that he worked to keep his girlfriend and I separated so that he could feed us whatever he thought would rile us up the most and neither of us would be able to prove otherwise. I guess it doesn't matter that I'm goofy-looking, someone who's really working for that kind of an ego boost will stretch the truth to be what he needs it to be. And I guess that once they started dating, she didn't feel like she was in the position to question what he was saying to her. I'll never know what he said about me, but I imagine I was the topic of more conversations than would ever be appropriate. I guess the trick for me is to learn to not care what they said.

 

It's also weird to me that my male friend would keep trying preserve our friendship when his girlfriend is so obviously opposed to it. If doing the relationship triangulation thing, then he's only keeping me around to try to include me in drama. I'm resolved to not accidentally fall into it.

 

Thanks for believing me. Some of the stuff I've mentioned that my male friend does seems, on the outside, so innocuous but I know that there's venom behind it. It's made me feel crazy for thinking that he might have "forgotten" something on purpose. Everybody forgets things, right? And when he's accused me of having mean intentions, I start to doubt that I'm a good person. Ugh. At this point, I feel pretty disgusted.

[Dust]

Sounds like this girl was just an internet friend not a real friend. Most women would try to squeeze out a close female friend of the guy they are dating. Most men would rather date a girl then just be friends with one so to the degree he has to he will choose the woman he is dating.

 

I think you're being a little childish about the entire thing. I'm suprised your husband has no problem with you being such close friends with a man and spending alone time.

[NoMagicBullet]

I'm sorry you've gone through this unpleasant drama, MillyRad, but honestly, I saw the same pattern that Lucky One did in your OP: you almost exclusively dealt with the male friend. I think you were having an emotional affair with this guy and are in denial about it.

 

From his more recent behavior, I agree with this:

 

It's starting to sound like he might be one of those guys who triangulates his relationships intentionally......

 

Who knows what he's told his new gf about you? It's possible that he set up a scenario to make her jealous and insecure about you--(which keeps her jumping through hoops to "be on top").

 

It almost sounds like he was definitely invested in an emotional affair with you, and is now trying to make you jealous.

 

And as unpleasant as it might be to hear, Dust is right -- there are lots of people out there who will interfere with other people's relationships, and if you put yourself in your former female friend's shoes, you might get a different perspective on your behavior. Some of this drama may have been avoided if you'd made more of an effort to welcome her from the start without involving the male friend. She was the outsider coming into the relationship with you and your male friend, and then when he's interested in dating her, you're almost exclusively paying attention to him. From her perspective, you may have come across as a false friend out to wreck her new relationship so you can keep him to yourself. And depending on what your male friend told her, it might have made the most sense to her that way.

 

It's not your fault that they weren't upfront with you about dating each other -- that would have helped a lot. But they may have thought that you had picked up on it and were ignoring it. I think the emotional affair aspect played into it -- if your male friend doesn't have feelings for you (and I suspect he does), he may have assumed you have feelings for him. Despite your insistence that you're just friends, you react like there's a lot more than that between you. Anyway, you dealt almost exclusively with him, mostly ignored her, and it seems he's used that to play you off of each other. You seem to have walked into this unaware, but you are partly to blame for the outcome. I think all you can do now is walk away from both of them and refocus on your relationship with your husband and make new friends.

 

I think the female friend deserves the least amount of blame in this. I feel sorry for her, because I don't see the relationship with her and him working out in the long run: she's pretty much the other woman dating the married woman's other man. (Even if you don't see him as the other man, I think he sees himself that way on some level.)

[MillyRad]

I think that what has me the most upset is that The situation has really messed with my mind. I'm quiet, but a naturally trusting and honest person. I'm much more of a listener than a talker, but I'm not afraid to talk about my feelings, if asked. All of this drama has me questioning who to trust and wondering if other people are using me. I'm very non-judgemental, but now I feel like I'm being forced to have to judge and that's horribly uncomfortable for me.

 

I'm doing my best to extricate myself as far as possible from the situation. I feel like there isn't any "right" thing to do anymore. If I keep the friendship with my male friend, I'm going to keep getting barraged with drama in some form or another. Also, it's not fair to his girlfriend for him to keep communicating with me when it's obviously an issue for her. He may not see a problem with it, but I do. I'm NOT going to get tricked into being their "other woman." I have better things to do than stir up drama. I wish they did, too.

[MillyRad]

Years ago, before I met my husband, I dated a guy who used me for some bizarre kind of triangulation-type thing. Unbeknownst to me until just before he dumped me, he was also dating a much older, very wealthy/high-society, married woman. She was giving him A LOT of money. Luckily, one of her homes was in another city, so dude moved to that city to be with her. I have no idea how things turned out between them and I don't care. I had only dated him for about a month or so, so I wasn't very attached to him, but my world just felt like it had been turned upside down because I didn't believe that this type of behavior existed outside of crappy soap operas.

 

Is this something that constitutes a pattern? Maybe there's something about me that encourages people to treat me this way. Alternately, should I consider myself lucky that something like this has only happened twice?

[MillyRad]

The emotional affair thing may hold some weight. When I confided in another mutual friend about how I was being treated, she said she thought that what he was doing was very odd because she thought he had feelings for me. I took that to mean that he wouldn't be treating me badly if he did, in fact, have feelings for me. Is it possible he's passive aggressively trying to punish me for not being able to be with him?

 

My male friend's frequent m.o. is to get upset about something and get into a melodramatic tizzy. It usually ends with door slamming and peeling out in the parking lot. And this is at the place where I work! In public! It's always been upsetting to me when he did that, but he'd stay away for a few days to a few weeks and then come back and act as if nothing had happened. I've always just let it slide because I was glad he was feeling better. I think that's what he's expecting of me. That because time has gone by, all of the ugliness is forgotten. I don't think I can do that this time. I plan on going as no-contact as possible. I don't know if he'll have anything to say about the me being so distant, but I guess I'd better have something ready to say in case he asks. Not sure what that will be, yet. Is saying that I need lots of space too vague? I don't want to be unnecessarily harsh with him. I just want to put this drama behind me and get on with my life.

[NoMagicBullet]

The emotional affair thing may hold some weight. When I confided in another mutual friend about how I was being treated, she said she thought that what he was doing was very odd because she thought he had feelings for me. I took that to mean that he wouldn't be treating me badly if he did, in fact, have feelings for me. Is it possible he's passive aggressively trying to punish me for not being able to be with him?

 

My male friend's frequent m.o. is to get upset about something and get into a melodramatic tizzy. It usually ends with door slamming and peeling out in the parking lot. And this is at the place where I work! In public! It's always been upsetting to me when he did that, but he'd stay away for a few days to a few weeks and then come back and act as if nothing had happened. I've always just let it slide because I was glad he was feeling better. I think that's what he's expecting of me. That because time has gone by, all of the ugliness is forgotten. I don't think I can do that this time. I plan on going as no-contact as possible. I don't know if he'll have anything to say about the me being so distant, but I guess I'd better have something ready to say in case he asks. Not sure what that will be, yet. Is saying that I need lots of space too vague? I don't want to be unnecessarily harsh with him. I just want to put this drama behind me and get on with my life.

 

Just goes to show that wisdom does not necessarily come with age: he's nearly 50 and has less emotional maturity than some 5-year-olds.

 

Thanks for sharing more info, MillyRad. The more you describe his behavior, the more I think he does have feelings for you and that he is, indeed, being passive-aggressive about it and taking it out on you, when it's not your fault.

 

From what you described he sounds like a Drama King (same as a Drama Queen, but male). Since you said you're a good listener, he would be very attracted to you as a source of attention for whatever is going on in his life. Drama Kings & Queens love the drama because they love the attention it gets them.

 

Your plan to go no-contact is a good one, I think, yet I would not be surprised if he tried to drag you back into some sort of drama. See how it goes, but you may have to be harsh, depending on how addicted to drama he is. I wish you the best on getting this unfortunate man and his drama out of your life.