Will I get over this??

[Guest]

About one year ago my best friend of mine confessed that he was in love with me. I had had similiar feelings for a long time also. However we had never previously acted or said anything about how we felt, so I didn't realise that he felt the same.

 

This is bad, I know.....

 

I had a boyfriend. Although me and my friend did not pysically cheat, I feel like I emotionally cheated. Emails were sent, conversations were had. . After about two months of this happening my boyfriend confronted me. He had basically installed a keylogger on our computer (we live together) and managed to break into my email account. He had found an email that I had sent to my friend.

 

Long discussions, tears etc. followed. We considered breaking up (I even moved out for a few weeks). However, in this time my boyfriend was offered a job overseas. Seeing it as a chance to work on our relationship away from the distractions of my friend, we both moved overseas.

 

Fast forward 6 months and I am still haunted by my friend. We have not talked in over 8 months, I have not seen him, and up until a few weeks ago, I had banned myself from thinking about him (somewhat unsuccessful). The problem is, we were best friends for over 10 years (I have know him since I was 17). We had even lived together as flatmates for over 5 years. Up until all this happened, we would reguarly catch up at least 3 times a week. We would have alot of fun together, and I was able to talk alot to him.

 

I have made the decision to stay with my boyfriend, so I no longer want to be haunted by this. Still, I feel I have lost everything I knew. My friend is a member of my close group of friends, so I have lost all them too. I am very lonely, despite loving my boyfriend very much, we do not have quite the same relationship that I had with my friend......

 

Will I ever get over this???

[filarena]

No offense, but the more interesting question is why are you staying with your bf? Maybe you just left some details out to keep the post short, but I hear a lot that makes it sound like you love your friend, not much about how great your bf is. If you are more in love with this other guy, you may feel like you did the right thing by cutting him off and staying with your man, and that's certainly better than cheating, but I don't know how many men would want to date girls they knew were in love with another man.

[bluechocolate]

Yeah, I think it's telling that not once did you say how you feel about your b/friend. And in fact when you first mention him you use the past tense! I had to read on to discover that you were still together.

 

Anyway, I'm not sure why you've had to lose that entire circle of friends. Surely they don't all move in a pack, talk in a pack, email in a a pack, etc.

 

If you sincerely love your b/friend & want things to work with him then giving up this relationship shouldn't be that traumatic to you. Yes, it is hard to lose old friends but that is a normal part of life at the best of times. The fact is with this particualr 'friend' you were having an affair, an emotional affair, & it had to end. Either that or your relationship. I'm assuming your b/friend installed a key logger & hacked your email because he suspected something, rather than that he is a jealous controlling type?

 

The crux of this is really centered on how you feel about your b/friend. And I suspect that being isolated & away from home is clouding your thinking.

[Guest]

No offense, but the more interesting question is why are you staying with your bf? Maybe you just left some details out to keep the post short, but I hear a lot that makes it sound like you love your friend, not much about how great your bf is. If you are more in love with this other guy, you may feel like you did the right thing by cutting him off and staying with your man, and that's certainly better than cheating, but I don't know how many men would want to date girls they knew were in love with another man.

 

 

I am not in love with my friend. I just miss him and our friendship. One of the main reasons for deciding not to pursue anything with my friend it that it would be 'too strange'. I have know him almost my entire adult life, and for the large percentage of this time he was like a brother to me. We both have many mutral friends (close group from our university days) and a relationship would be far too messy...imagine the problems if we broke up. To admit our feelings for one another was stupid enough, to act on them would be more stupid.

 

I am with my boyfriend for many reasons. The main is that I love him. He is a kind, gentle guy and we are good companions. We never fight. We have been together a long time (4 years) and in this time, we have never really had an arguement. I know I hurt him deeply by my 'emotional' affair, but we are working hard to overcome it. Truthfully, I am not madly, crazily in love with him, and I don't think he is with me either. But we both love each other, care for each other. I know that at the end of the day, love does not get people through life together, but rather a mutral understanding and respect for each other.

 

I know I have not been respectful of him with my behaviour with my friend. But I am trying to forget him. I have not spoken to him, and I have actively banned myself from thinking about him. However, my birthday is coming up, and not only am I in a strange country (New York, I am Australian) but I am missing my friend who shares the same birthday. (we have had combined parties for the past few years).

 

I just want to forget him so that I can move on with my life and be truely faithful to my boyfriend.

 

I sure as hell do not want to be haunted for the rest of my life.

[Guest]

If you sincerely love your b/friend & want things to work with him then giving up this relationship shouldn't be that traumatic to you. Yes, it is hard to lose old friends but that is a normal part of life at the best of times. The fact is with this particualr 'friend' you were having an affair, an emotional affair, & it had to end. Either that or your relationship. I'm assuming your b/friend installed a key logger & hacked your email because he suspected something, rather than that he is a jealous controlling type?

 

Yes, he did suspect something was up. In reality, he is very insecure, so it was a few years into our relationship before he trusted me. Then I went and f**ked it up.

 

I cannot believe that I am going to write this on an online forum. Please I do not want to be judged by right-to-lifers.

 

I did move out from my boyfriend for about a month and a half. We were 'on a break' and about three weeks into it I discovered I was pregnant. I am not a religious person, however for the past month I had been asking 'what should I do'. It seemed that I had the answer there. Me and my boyfriend discussed it, and then decided that I should have an abortion. I told myself, not to think about it, just do it, and it would not affect me. So I went ahead and did it, and truthfully, it didn't affect me.

But to me it was a sign I was meant to stay with my boyfriend, so I have.

 

I just want to be able to forget my friend. That is all I want.

 

No, my group of friends don't all travel in a pack. However, my boyfriend does not like them (even before all this) therefore is not too keen about them visiting. (By themselves, not all in a big group). I write emails, and speak with some. However, we are (or were) all really close and Mark (my friend) does get brought up in conversation. No one else in the group know what went on between us, and because we were such good friends, they think nothing of mentioning him to me. I have heard from numerous people that "mark misses you" etc. etc.

 

It seems the only way I can truely escape him is to cut myself off from my old life.

 

I am a very normal person in real life. I am not normally dramatic or emotional like this. I am just a little confussed/frustrated at the moment.

[filarena]

You wrote:

About one year ago my best friend of mine confessed that he was in love with me. I had had similiar feelings for a long time also.

 

And then :

I am not in love with my friend.

[Guest]

You wrote:

 

And then :

 

 

 

I was confussed. I did love my friend. For so long, it was not romantic, our friendship was purely platonic. Nothing had EVER happened between us, no kiss, no feelings, NOTHING. And we have been blind drunk together on many occassions. In all the years we had known each other.

 

About two years ago, I moved out from our place (we were flatmates for a long time) to live with my boyfriend. I suddenly missed him, and without realising it, I found myself seeing him in a different light.

 

I think I confussed the love I had for a friend as oppossed to romantic.

 

I have made the decision to stay with my boyfriend. So I can not, am not, in love with my friend.

 

I just want to forget. I was going so well, I had almost erased him from my mind. Then my birthday came, and I was speaking to a friend who said something like "Matt is pretty upset you are not having your normal party. He is not the same without you around." I got off the phone and the floodgates opened. I just started crying, and I couldn't stop. My boyfriend is away for a few days for work, so it is pretty lonely here.

 

Am I going to be this pathetic for the rest of my life?

[filarena]

I have made the decision to stay with my boyfriend. So I can not, am not, in love with my friend.

 

I understand it's hard moving away from home and having no friends. I understand you say you love your boyfriend. And maybe you are just lonely. But take a look at what you wrote. You say you can not love your friend because you chose to stay with your boyfriend. In my mind, that is by no means a compelling argument. It sounds like you are rationalizing away feelings you actually do have but wish you didn't. To my way of thinking, the reason someone offers for why something can't be the case is very revealing, because it always implies that if not for that reason, the something in question WOULD be the case. But if you would be in love with your friend if you hadn't chosen to stay with your boyfriend, how does that really mean you don't love your friend? People can in fact be in love with two people at once.

 

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you belong with your boyfriend and these feelings will fade. But I think you seriously need to consider the idea that you ARE in love with your friend, and are simply denying it because it complicates things if that happens to be true.

[Guest]

But if you would be in love with your friend if you hadn't chosen to stay with your boyfriend, how does that really mean you don't love your friend? People can in fact be in love with two people at once.

 

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you belong with your boyfriend and these feelings will fade. But I think you seriously need to consider the idea that you ARE in love with your friend, and are simply denying it because it complicates things if that happens to be true.

 

Ok, after a few beers and my defences are down, I can admit I love my friend. Yes, you can be in love with two people, these last months/years of hell has told me that.

 

But I can't be with two people. I have to chose one, I have chosen to stay with my boyfriend. We have moved overseas together, I cannot pack up, go home and leave him here. I made a commitment to him that I would stay.

 

So I need to forget my friend.

 

Can someone please tell me that I will get over this. I know this sound really dramatic/cliche, but I am really scared that I will still be laying awake when I am 50 thinking of him.

 

I just want to know that all those soppy books, romance movies ARE NOT TRUE!! There is no such thing as soulmates, you chose to be with someone and you CHOSE to love them and only them.

 

Please can someone tell me this....

 

(I am sorry if this sounds really dramatic/cliche or anything. I really am just a normal person, I work as an engineer, I am normally just boring)

[ehead]

Maybe all those sappy Romance novels are true ? How will we ever really know ? I didn't believe in love for the longest time, then found myself falling in love. For a while I even capilalized the word, as in Love, but now I am back to using a lower case. The thing about love is, I guess none of us really know much about it. It is sort of like faith ... misunderstood, vague, capricious, possibly complete hokum, and impossible to explain to a non-believer.

 

I can sympathize. I once had strong feelings for 2 different girls, and could have essentially ended up with either. Instead, I moved across the country alone. Was it a mistake ? I was really lonely and depressed for a long time, but now I'm in love again, for the second time in my life.

 

Would it be possible for you to just have a friendship/platonic relationship with your long time friend ? You know yourself better than anyone else. If so, just explain to your boyfriend you would like to resume a friendship with him. He should understand.

 

One road goes east and the other west. There is no way to know which way brings the greatest happiness.