How many of you have a best friend?....
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| Sun, 10-31-2004 - 1:28pm |
I am want to know how many of you guys have a best friend/ a person (no, you cannot consider your affair partner/spouse) who calls you everyday, just to see how you are doing?
I am asking this because when I moved to a new area, I did not know too many people (could not form close friendships immediately), my family/closest friends lived another city and my H was struggling to acknowledge me. In a new city, I did not have THE one person who would check up on me (was in a graduate program, not working a
full-time position) more than two/three times a week. The OM readily jumped, filled that void...was that easy for me to grow dependent on him, crave his daily/numerous greetings via phone/e-mails. A therapist once told me what I "subconciously" wanted was an "everyday" relationship, platonically would have been just fine. I believe she is absolutely correct. Every time I visit my hometown, my family/friends would call me everyday, wondering what I plan on doing later that day....rarely thought about OM as much. After removing OM from my life, I started to make a commitment to make new friends...formed a close friendship with another female in the area...we bother each other a lot with phone calls/e-mails/jokes...the power of OM decreasing...

You are absolutely right...totally agree. My XMM filled a void I had at that moment in my life -- we could talk about anything! I learned in counseling that I would have to find a way to fill that hole -- the one left by thre departure of my "best friend." Sounds like that's exactly what you did :-)
Meg
Meg at Peace:
THAT was exactly what happened...it took a therapist to mention that as a possibility and FLASH! the lightbulb came on...
Once I knew that, it IMMEDIATELY assisted me in going through the process of (not in a literal sense, just imagining it) pulling the OM by the shirt collar and tossing him out the exit door, double-bolted it...
When I and the ex-OM communicated (during the affair) we spoke about "everyday, nothing" things...we rarely got into those "sexual" talks. In reality, the OM depended on me as well, needed my advice, opinions on a lot of things...just at the end, the OM was demanding all of me or nothing, got ugly...
I mentioned to my therapist that the OM would have been perfect if he were a woman (I am straight)...
I'm an oldie around here. I still lurk every once in a while but not very often anymore. My A ended Sept 03 and only just recently have I completely gotten over everything w/the help of therapy. I thought your post was interesting because it was just a few weeks ago that I realized this. When my H moved us to our new city XMM took the place of my sister in terms of someone who I talked to everyday. I do believe if I had realized that sooner I may have gotten over everything easier. I also thought it was interesting when you said you don't think of XOM when you go back home because I didn't think much of my XMM anytime I went back "home" for a visit. I have gone back to calling my sister much more often than I have in the past 6 years (we have always been very close and I let it slip the last few years). When we moved I shut so many people out of my life because I couldn't see them all the time. I am reopening doors that I shut and re-establishing friendships that I let slip.
ALC
I did the same thing...accidentally allowed my friendships to slide, did not contact them as often as I should have. Within the last ten years I have lived in three different cities, was always thousands of miles away from home...was hard (clearly a poor excuse from my end, especially with e-mails, free cell phone minutes during certain times) to "keep in touch". I did not realize how lonely I really was...always made everyone assume I'm "independent" etc..
To be honest, it is difficult to make new friends...as we get older, more responsibilities to fulfill (marriage, children, bills to pay, work, traveling...). I was naive to assume I can become best friends with a male (after all, I did have a close male friend while in college, purely platonic) but in this case, the dynamics were clearly different. When I first met OM, I do not believe I was ABSOLUTELY physically attracted to him...in time, I became attracted to him after growing closer and closer to him. Initially, I thought he was "safe"...that nothing could ever happen, etc..
Anyway, flashforward, after realizing what I was really craving...I also made special efforts to call my "old" friends, contact my sister A LOT MORE (she became receptive, calls me everyday just to say "hi"- sometimes the conversation can be as short as a minute, very content with this). After I made some changes, I started to think about OM less and less...
I can TOTALLY relate! My situation just before the A was that my long-term-partner of 8 years standing (who also was -and incidentally, still is, now, my best friend and confidante) and I had split up recently, and I suddenly found I had no "real" friends left who'd help me deal with the move/new workplace/loss of my partner. I felt completely isolated (well, I near WAS, apart from my parents - and this was really no story to tell in detail to THEM!), and was desperate to "attach" again.
Followed a lot of half-fledged relationships with men that didn't fit at all - and then this guy comes along - and he seems to be everything I need and waited for 1/2 my life! We talk constantly and about everything, deep soul-searching or day-to-day stuff, we tell each other the things we never told anyone else. We seemed to fit perfectly - apart from the fact that he had along-term-partner and a very different plan for his life than I had... HE also had severe problems of his own, finding his way in life at that time.
OF COURSE I tried to have-and-to-hold him - now, in hindsight, it seems to me I really had no other alternative: I was so uprooted and unsettled in life, swimming I didn't-know-where-to... The affair could jump right in; this dire void in me was custom-made for him. It was a bad, bad coincidence that we ever met, and it seems inevitable that we fell in love - or thought we did...
Even though I married in the meantime, and I have a wonderful H, (but he doesn't talk much about feelings and such), I was (and am) still unable to find new friends here in the area, and the old ones have all vanished for good.
(My best friend, former Ex, and I, we don't talk on a day-to-day-basis, he is much too busy for that. He'll always be there for me in times of real need, but he can't fill the place of a close woman-friend for everyday support.)
And I feel that this was a strong contributing factor to my taking so long and it being so hard to let go of the affair(=aforementioned guy). I've had to go through this separation all on my own - and if I hadn't had (wouldn't have) this board, progress would have been even more slow and difficult for me.
I'm so happy for you that you found a new close woman-friend to share things/laugh with etc.! That's a great achievement. And I'm hoping I will find new friends, too.
Thanks for your post, which is putting better light on one of the aspects why some of us fall so hard for an affair.
All the best to you,
M.
I realise now that it was no coincidence that I became involved in an A at the same time as my friendship with my best female friend of ten years fell apart.
XOM was also a friend and slipped easily into the 'best friend' role of calling me everyday, listening to my problems and generally being there.
We become so dependant on close platonic friendships, and when they end they can leave a painful void that desperatley needs to be filled. I think at these times we are at our most vulnerable and when a man comes along, it's all too easy to replace your missing best friend with another man.
Great post!
m x.
"To be honest, it is difficult to make new friends...as we get older, more responsibilities to fulfill (marriage, children, bills to pay, work, traveling...). I was naive to assume I can become best friends with a male (after all, I did have a close male friend while in college, purely platonic) but in this case, the dynamics were clearly different. When I first met OM, I do not believe I was ABSOLUTELY physically attracted to him...in time, I became attracted to him after growing closer and closer to him."
Exactly the same goes for me. I also had a platonic, deep friendship with a man when I was in university. And I started the whole thing with the affair (as I remember very distinctly!) telling myself that we were suited for friends only, but that I would love (read: "need") to keep him as one such...
I KNOW that I wasn't attracted to the OM physically when we first met - I have it in clear writing in my diary. We had our first night together very early in the relationship (he really put the pressure on for that first meeting), and I still remember (also very clearly) what I felt when it was over. There had been no moving earth and I was detaching myself during the encounter, seemingly floating above it all and watching it, distanced and realistically. I was SO glad that we didn't fit in the sexual respect, as I said then "This could have become a terrible and complicated thing HAD we been suited"...
Little did I know that within just some short time more of growing closer, the earth WOULD move when we were together... It was the mutual trust, the time he set aside for me, the things he told me about his life, the way I could relate to him. It was a soul-thing, transferred to the body. Seems like he was on a hunt and knew exactly what to do to shoot his prey... I watched closely, saw all this and yet I took the bullet.
But maybe, I see this wrong and the same thing happened to him that happened to me.
I should have listened to my first instincts, as they clearly told me all I needed to know, but I so desperately needed close contact to someone who understood me...
I bet he could see these mechanisms as well as I could - he was a VERY sensitive man - but if so, question remains, why HE didn't stop it before it was getting out of control.
However, it's been long over, and I think taking a good look at the mechnisms at work and the reasons for the catastrophe that ensued, help us get on with reality and give us experience not to fll for that trap a second time.
All the best for you,
M.