confused..in love with best friend.HELP!

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-02-2004
confused..in love with best friend.HELP!
4
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 1:55pm
Hi...im new to this board and was Just reading some of H2H AWSOME advice to some of these ladies on here and wanted your thoughts on my situation, if you wouldnt mind. And anyone else who has any thoughts on my situation! I have been best fiends with this guy for almost 8 years. I am married ad have 2 children. He is in a logterm relationship for 6 years. We have always been the best of friends. I have always been in love with him to an extent, but have contained myself from doing anything i shouldnt. Its an off/on thing, since our contact is limited and i tend to get over my feelings when we dont talk as often. We regained contact in january 04 ad have talked online anlmost every night/day since then. We have also become intimate ad have met three times in the last 6 months. He lives 2 hours away so thats as often as we cann. Ill tell you, i am so in love with him now it hurts. I didnt want it to be this way and i told myself i wouldnt do this. The worst part is i honestly dont think he feels the same way at all. I mean he loves me as a friend, but no more.And anyone know why they get distant after an intimate meeting together? he closes himself off to me after we meet, doent want to talk as much at all and almost feels like hes avoiding me. After about a week hes fine again and were back to talking every night. We agreed going into this thing that we wouldnt get involved, because we both knew how close we were and knew this was a risk, mostly with changing our friendship and thats something we didnt want to happen. I need to know how to get him out of my head and go back to being friends. I cat stop thinking about the last time we met, jus under a week ago. It consumes my mind, heart, and soul. And it hurts so bad because one part of me just wants him to love me like i love him, but another part of me just wants MY feelings to JUST GO AWAY and go back to being friends. I know you might say ust have NC. but i cant do that, hes my best friend first and foremost. I dont want to ever let that go. I am not looking to get out of my marriage and neither is he looking to get out of his relationship. I dont even want to be with him "like that" I dont think i know at all what i want!! Im very confused and could use some really good advice on how to handle this. I find myself online constantly just waiting for him to come onnline.Is this infatuation or love? Its beggining to hurt my family life and im tired of that. I NEED HELP!! thankyou so much for all your opinions.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 8:00pm
imanange0210

I will make to quick points.

1)when you crossed the line to a affair your real friendship was dead you are now simply using each other to get what ever the payoff is you need from the affair.

2)NC is the only way, excuses will not for not doing it will not help you.

3)when you get caught the decision to say married or not will not be yours it will be your husbands.

4)It is more then likely not love but addiction bothe emotional and bio-chemical, and addictions by nature tend to destroy the addicted persons and thoughs that are close to them.

Tell you decide that you want help no one can really help you at this point you do not seem to want to change.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2004
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 8:20pm
Hi Angel,

I can say I know what you are feeling. Mine also was a best friend/A. Best friends for 10 years before three years of the intimate part began. Worst part, we work side by side every day, so NC is almost impossible.

Anyway, I am married also as is ex OM and we agreed from the beginning of the intimacy that neither of us wished to break up the others relationship. I know him so well that I honestly know I would not want to be married to him, but our attraction for one another was unreal and we really are great friends with lots in common.

What I tried to do to stop the A with him at first was to look at my marriage and see what it was that was missing and work on that in my marriage. This did help some, but it was still hard to let go. I tried twice to stop it by telling OM how guilty I felt and how I knew it was wrong. He would back off for a week or so, then start up again. Finally, in my own situation, my H and I got some health news and it made me really take a hard look at my priorities in life and I realized the A was a very self centered shallow part of my life that I had spent way too much energy and time over during the past years. My advice to you would be to think of your children. I would imagine they are your top priority. I do not have kids, so I can only imagine, but I am sure they would be your most precious part of ife and hopefully you and your H have a stable enough marriage to work on and try to make it better for you and for your family. If your A was discovered, just think of how it would affect your life with your kids. even if they never knew, just the fact that your H might know would reak havock in your world. Would it be worth it? Ask yourself that.

It is not easy, I know that. I have to set my mind and give myself the prioity lecture every day when I walk into my office. But since that last ending in which Ex OM knew I was serious, I have felt loneliness in some ways becuase I do miss him in some ways, but mostly I have felt more like myself that I have in years.

I still don't know if my friendship with the ex can stand this transition and I've accepted that maybe it will not. So far, he has pretty much respected my wishes and it's going fairly well, but it has only been about a month. I have found that keeping myself busy with new activities and making apoint to talk to other people more rather than center my attention on him has helped some. Maybe you can try this also since you said that when you have periods of time away from him, it helps.

I also got the distance treatment after our intimate times together. Especially at first. And I got really tired of Ex OM being in control of the whole situation. I was definitely more emotionally involved than he was and he pulled my strings like I was a puppet. It feels rather good now to not having him doing that, that this time, I am calling the shots in my life.

As I said, my best advice would be to stay busy with other things, stay away from him, and try to remember how destructive this A could be not only to your own life, but to your kids and H.

Good luck to you. I truly mean it. Just know that there are others out here going through the same things and yes, we can succeed.

IP

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2004
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 9:07pm
Hi Free,

I'm printing your posting on this just to keep and read when I need any reinforcement for my own situation. That's called telling it like it is.

IP

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 9:18pm
HI IP

I hope you correct the spelling mistakes.

Rereading it I can see that it came out rather harsh, my EXCUSE is that I have one h*ll of a headache and really should have waited for the meds to kick in before posing to night.

Hope your doing well today, glad to see your realizing what the affair has cost and are working to correct the damage.

Be well

Free