Unrequited Friend Love - ?

[mystery1234]

I am a straight female and recently, one of my best friends told me that she is gay and in love with me. Since the feelings aren't returned on my part, we had a really, really hard conversation about it when it first happened about a month ago. There were many tears on both sides because we didn't know what to do or how to move on from this. For the first week after that conversation, she seemed to be healing, and said that hearing me say out loud that I'm not attracted to girls was the catalyst for starting to feel better. Since then, there have been some ups and downs - some days it seems to slowly get better. Other days she gets very depressed about it and tells herself (and me) she doesn't think these feelings for me will ever go away. On these bad days, I get depressed too because I feel so terrible about the situation (even though we both recognize no one is truly to blame), and I get major anxiety at the thought of our friendship ending. It's to the point that even on the good days, I feel anxious that a bad one is coming up. I think one of the things that makes it hard is that since we are so close, we tend to tell each other when we're upset about this and it feels like it starts to spiral downward.

 

We both really value this friendship and want to figure out where to go from here in order to keep it in tact. Is there a way to do this without cutting ties completely? Are there things I should/shouldn't do to help her cope? I think part of that will be getting my own anxiety in check.

Edited September 18, 2013 by mystery1234

[kamani]

There is no difference than falling in love with a boy who doesn't love you back.

 

She has feelings for you, I think it's difficult to be friends with someone when you have feelings. This friendship is toxic for her and causes stress on you. I think best thing is to end the friendship at least for sometime.

[Polak]

I, for one, don't think it's necessary to end the friendship (even temporarily) unless you see that she is not changing at all over an extended time period. See if you can find different ways to help her to deal with all this. You know that time heals all wounds, so let time be one of the primary factors in helping her recover. As said earlier though, there is a limit: give yourself a month max, and if there is absolutely no progression to normalcy within that timeframe, tell her it would be best if you two took a small break from each other.