Jealousy between crush and best friend

[sylo]

My issue concerns a love interest, Kristen and my "best" friend, Kevin. Kristen rejected a relationship with me but i was ok with that. As i was accepting it, kevin confessed to me his feelings for her. This is quite a long story so i thank anyone who reads this.

 

Kristen:

 

I've known kristen for several years since high school. She had a boyfriend at the time so i respect their boundaries and i never really got close to her. Shes cute, bubbly, funny, naive, and rather intelligent. She's beautiful to me inside and out. She's slightly eccentric, we have similar interests, and we similar personalities and that's where we connect.

 

We lost touch after high school and had our own share of drama and relationships problems during college. We reconnected again after a social event. After getting together, we realized we had a lot more in common. We hung out even more and became quite close. I liked her immediately but soon after, feelings started to develop. I broke up with my ex at the time and so did she. She wanted to enjoy single life after being abused and cheated on by her exes. She was always in a relationship and never had the chance to enjoy being single. During a conflicting event, I had to confess my feelings for her. She found it flattering but denied a relationship, (which I expected). She never really rejected me and proclaimed the importance and seriousness of relationships. She's confused about her life and i respect her reason to back off. I agreed that my friendship with her was much more important. There was a time she had similar feelings for me too but as a self defense-mechanism, she had to withdraw for both our sakes. I tried to space out and distance myself from our activities. It helped a lot, my feelings were suppressed but always remained.

 

Facts about Kristen:

 

She wants to be single. She's unsure of her life and career. She's unsure about her orientation, yes her orientation. She may be bi-sexual because she finds women hot and at the same time more gentle and less prone to violence and abuse from guys. She had total distrust for guys and rejected many. In terms of contact, I was the first guy she maintained a friendship. We made a promise, (we're not keen on making promises), to always be there in each other's lives. Promises to us are serious committments that i would fully dedicate my life to. She was a special person in my life and i would never let her disappear.

 

Kevin:

 

Ive known him for almost 2 years. He's actually the cousin of my cousin, no relation. We went to a concert together and became quite close as bros since then. He always had bad luck with women and proclaimed the importance of brotherhood. He knew about my situation with Kristen. He provided me advise, support, and always had my back. We were closer as family than friends, we spoke daily, talked about anything, did everything together.

 

Facts about Kevin:

 

He's always had bad luck with women, they turn him down. He fails to realize he hurts himself after pursuing girls, they're not the problem, he was. He's impatient, selfish, and sometimes a dick. However he means well but lacks experience with relationships and for that alone, he's immmature.

 

 

Dilemma:

 

One day I invited Kristen to a social drinking event with Kevin and other friends. Towards the end, Kevin asked for her number as a concern for her safety. She was drunk and wasted. However, I was there the whole time and sober. He offered to walk her home which I rejected because it was my job as her friend to do that. In terms of distance, I live right between them a few avenues a way. Ever since then, they've been texting without my knowledge. I felt it was fine at first because I trusted him but i always had my suspicions. Along the way, they started to bond even more to the point i started to become jealous.

 

Kevin confessed to me one night that he developed feelings for Kristen. I was overwhelmed and infuriated. I wrote him a letter telling him how inappropriate it was for him to do so and felt nothing but utter betrayal. Soon afterwards, i forgave him believing that it was a guy's natural instinct to be so intrigued by a girl. The three of us are similar in personality. A week later, after getting drinks with him, he mentioned that he cares for her and wanted to ask her out at a later time. It was insulting for me to hear him say this and for that i became even more enraged. I spaced out from them both. I wrote him another degrading letter and criticized his actions past and present, his relations to girls, his friends, his hypocrisy to brotherhood, and ignorance of my feelings.

 

I couldn't tolerate being in the same room with a bro who had the same feelings for kristen. I don't want the feeling of jealousy, competition, or threat against a friend over a girl i truly care about. If i feel unsafe at all about anything, isn't it a friend's job to maintain that trust? I felt that he violated it. I met with him a week later. He still wanted to maintain contact with Kristen, having the same feelings for her and maintaining a friendship with both her and me. I couldn't allow that and i was forced to make a difficult decision to end my friendship with Kevin.

 

When i first heard of kevin's feelings for kristen, she became quite concerned about me not knowing why i was upset. I was vulnerable at the time and i was forced to tell her. I felt like a snitch but since she was involved, she had the right to know. She became just as upset, withdrawn, and guilt-driven. I told her things were going to be ok but they werent. I was spacing out my feelings for kristen after rejection and now i had to deal with betrayal. When i was trying to space out, that competitive drive to get her back kicked in. Kristen and i had several arguements about her feelings for me and the situation with kevin. It went pretty bad but always ended with support. It was bittersweet.

 

Drama was something kristen endured for awhile and i didn't want to involve her. I felt it was unfair for her after everything's shes been through but i still managed to include her. The situation just keeps getting worse after confronting her about loyalty and respect. I trusted her judgment but i get easily confused when two sets of information collide. For that, im incapable of composing a rational thought, bending truths, defending others when im not at fault. I feel that i already lost kevin as as friend becuase he didnt match up to my moral standards. I feel that im losing kristen as a friend, more so, a potential friend to spend my life with. Kevin and kristen built a friendship and its too late for neither to let go. They care for each other as friends and i did not approve of this.

 

The entire dilemma could have been prevented if kevin knew his limits, respected my boundaries. I agreed that he supported me but i also feel that he found loopholes to connect with kristen, not even understanding how its ruining my trust. At times, i took note of how secretive he was, i was curious about his interest in kristen but i let it go having trusting him as a friend. I wasnt aware of some of his activities with her until either kristen told me and after taking glimpses of his actions. Its hard dealing with rejection and betrayal especially when it was a few weeks apart. I feel disrespected. I can't trust kevin as a friend anymore and i feel my friendship with kristen is now deteriorating.

 

At this point, i just dont know what to do.

Edited April 13, 2013 by sylo
Rephrasing

[christy_sands]

My sympathies. Actually, I am female and I went through a very similar situation last year. I was basically in the same position you are in. I had a male co-worker/friend I had developed a close friendship with over about 3 years, and had feelings for since we met, but he was involved in an on-off relationship for a while, and then when I did express interest after he became single, he told me that he still needed time, etc, so I accepted that we would remain just friends, but (I have to admit) did maintain hope that something might happen, which was only exacerbated by the fact that I felt that the friendship we had was sometimes more like a non-sexual romantic relationship than a platonic friendship.

 

Anyway, it was against this backdrop that a disastrous situation began to unfold when the two of us become friends with another female co-worker, and they started to hit it off better than we did. This female friend (who knew I had feelings for my male friend) became increasingly close to him to the point that he developed a crush on her.

 

Just the fact alone of the signs of increasing closeness between them (posts on facebook, etc) made me feel jealous and suspicious, but the cherry on the cake came one night when I was innocently chatting to my male friend on facebook and he suddenly blurted out that that she'd been over to his house the previous week to watch a day DVD (which everyone knows is code for trying to cross the platonic line) though "nothing had happened" but that he "really liked her" and had asked her out a few days ago, but she said no. To put it bluntly, I felt absolutely devasatated by this revelation, and felt not only rejected (again), but also a sense that they had both betrayed me in some way.

 

I absolutely lost it with him, told him that this was heartbreaking and completely humilating for me, and basically he got mad at me in return and affirmed that he had no interest in me that way, had "never liked me that way" and "was not attracted to me", which is I found extremely hurtful, and still have not forgiven him for (even as a friend) for denting my confidence in that way.

 

He also found the falling out between us very upsetting, and quickly threw himself into a relationship with a girl with whom he is still with, and it is almost like he blacked the whole thing out, and became a different person after that.

 

The thing I find hard is that, he still seems to wants to maintain a friendship with me (and I with him, though I feel conflicted about it), and we try so hard to be friendly and have fun and act like we used to be when we see other at work, but there is resentent on both sides that hangs over our relationship like a dark cloud.

 

I really believe that it takes an incredibly mature, secure, probably almost emotionally-detached person to remain friends with someone you love after they've a) rejected you and then b) betrayed you with a friend. (Although in your case, it seems at least like your crush didn't necessarily reciprocate your other friend's feelings, which at least spares your self-esteem a little)

 

As for what you should do, I'm not sure. I discovered in my case that events had transpired which had alterered all of us for good. I sometimes go through what-ifs in my mind... what if my female friend had never been in the picture (it was me who decided to make it a threesome and invite her to dinner one evening). But none of that really helps. You just have to decide if you like your friend/s enough to want to keep them (and most likely your female friend as just a friend-- because if your experience is anything like mine, people don't like you telling them who they can like/love, and my jealousy, if anything, only caused my male friend to become even more distant from me and closer to someone else) in your life, but accept that having them there may cause you some ongoing pain because of the wounds of the rejection/betrayal.

Edited April 14, 2013 by christy_sands

[ForeverHopeful1]

It sounds like you were both lied to to save your feelings and it friggin sucks when you find out the truth. It isnt necessarily the case, but you both sound like you feel you were lied to. They didnt want to hurt your feelings and tell you it would NEVER happen, but they just werent attracted to you.

 

It would have hurt no matter what or when they told you, however, finding out they just werent attracted to you and it had nothing to do with other relationships, work, being single for a little longer, getting their bearings straight, etc... whatever excuses are given these days.

 

Although they were never yours as significant others (which is why you have no control over who they date, nor a reason to be jealous or upset about it either,) as "friends," they should have told you the truth and let you know they never had any intentions of dating you, so you didnt hold out the hope for nothing, only to feel kicked in the gut later.

 

At one time, someone can feel a certain way and then a few months down the road, situations may change, and that person may change with that. If you were a friend, you would also accept that and want them to be happy, even if its not with you. Unfortunately, thats the truth of it. No one said anyone lied, but feelings do change and situations change and I dont think friends go out of their way to hurt anyone, but it does happen sometimes. I hope you are able to move forward from this.

 

xoxoxox Chin up, back straight, heart open!