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How do you fall out of love...

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by imjustagirl, Jul 26, 2009.

  1. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    This.

    You're probably going to want to distance yourself from him (IJAG, you dispatched some similar advice to me once and it made things easier in the long run). It may take months, but your heart will heal.
     
  2. HC

    HC Well-Known Member

    I have no answers for you, only love and sympathy. I really think time is the only healer but you may need to extricate yourself from the friendship until you feel able to be with your friend on an even footing.
     
  3. Sneed

    Sneed Guest

    That is clearer. And it clearly sucks.

    There is the option of distancing yourself from him. That might work, it might not.

    There is the option of just letting things keep going as they are now, as best friends, and keep hurting every time your heart leaps but cracks its head against that "best friends" ceiling. Maybe one day it'll become numb, and you can be friends, with no desire for anything more.

    But maybe not.

    But if you are truly in love with him, then you have to be honest, and not only with him, but yourself. How bad do you want it to be more? And how likely is it that it will become more?

    If you can deal, then deal, and stay close friends. But if you can't--and there's nothing wrong with that--then you need distance. Not forever, but long enough to find resolution with yourself.

    Just my take, for whatever it's worth.
     
  4. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    What Sneed wrote is what I wish I had the words to express at the time I posted what I did.

    The thing I think is most important is that in addition to being honest with your best friend, you have to be honest with yourself.

    I've been in similar situations before. In my case, I had further complications that wreaked even further havoc (being gay and having straight guy friends can present challenges all their own). And I don't know if I had the emotional maturity to be honest with myself facing those situations.

    In every case, however, time has been the only thing that's helped.
     
  5. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    A lot.

    Not at all.

    So yeah. I know. And I agree with all you're saying, and I guess I knew it before any of you posted. I just don't know how I don't talk to him for a while. I mean, I talk to him all the time.To go from that to cold turkey is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done.

    But he's "not a relationship guy" apparently despite how much better he is now than he was before he knew me. And he'd always been honest with me on that. But the heart wants what it wants.
     
  6. andrews_mom

    andrews_mom New Member

    I've also been there. Long story short... it was really difficult to see him "move on" while i was still pining after him, hoping he'd change his mind. So i had to distance myself from him, and just keep busy with work and other friends. Eventually, the friendship was lost. Looking back, if i wanted to keep the friendship, i realize i'd had to have just stopped longing for him and just be his 'friend', as hard as it was. The good news is that we both eventually found our true loves. And no, we don't keep in touch anymore.
     
  7. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    IJAG, I feel for you. I've been there and it absolutely sucks. Mine was in college, senior year. We were pretty much perfect for one another, but neither one of us was in a good place for it to happen.

    There is no right answer. I wish I could say that feelings go away, but there's always a little something there. I say this as a man who moved on many years ago and has been happily married to another woman for 10 of them.

    I can only say what I did. I got some distance from her for a little while. I know it's hard to do, but it's also the best thing you can do for yourself. It didn't work at first, but about a year and a half after I accepted not being with this girl, I met Mrs. OOP. I was finally ready and this amazing woman found her way through all my bullshit. A few years later, my friend was at my wedding. A couple of years after that, I was at hers. we're not close like we were, but we're both happy and we are still friends.

    If I hadn't let the friend go, hadn't gotten some distance and gotten my head right, I'd have fucked it up with Mrs. OOP. So at least in my case, a little distance helped.
     
  8. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Here's my advice, IJAG, having been on both sides of the coin. YMMV.

    -- If you believe that the friendship is as strong as you say it is, you'll walk away, temporarily. Right now, you need room to breathe, to recover from what's happened. You're obviously smashed to bits about this, and you're not gonna feel good talking to this person every night. You'll go to bed angry, disappointed in yourself, feeling like you failed on some level. Why live life like that? It's too short. And it's too short to (un)intentionally be making someone else miserable with you -- that's what you'll do if you harbor resentment at Said Guy over this. Well, most people would; we're only human.

    I am not saying totally disappear from this guy's life. I'm not saying never call him. Talk on occasion. Yet I've heard a line somewhere... something along the lines of "Don't make someone your priority when you're not theirs." It rings true. As long as you feel this way about him, you'll possibly feel cheated, like he's not giving enough on his end. At least I've felt that way when people have not reciprocated my feelings toward them; I'm also a volatile animal.

    -- I had to deal with this somewhat last summer. Kinda-sorta dated a girl for a while, and for a multitude of reasons (drama, distance, etc.) just figured out it wasn't going to work out romantically. I hate disappointing people and letting them down, so it was a hard discussion to have. Yet I felt we were close, even almost best friends. Felt like we really did connect. I wish we'd remained friends, but she made the decision to walk out of my life, and I respect that. I'm not enamored with it, but if ditching me will make her a better person in the long run, I'm OK with it. Why? Because I care about her quite a bit, and I do care about her best interests. It's not just about me.

    ---

    Sorry, some of this was soul-exploring, too, so forgive me if I projected some of my emotions at you. Good luck bouncing back. You will, in due time.
     
  9. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    I hate to give false hope, but my wife and I were friends in college. She was interested in more and I absolutely wasn't. She moved on to another college, and we kept in touch sporadically. A few years later, something just hit me and I told her I had changed my mind if she still wanted to date. She said 'maybe' and let me twist for a month to make sure I was serious.
     
  10. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    Yeah, we've already done the "wait it out and see what happens" thing. He was well aware before this decision that this wasn't a "for now" situation. I have to get past this, for good. I care too much about him, and our friendship, to short-change it by holding on to false hope.
     
  11. Rumpleforeskin

    Rumpleforeskin Active Member

    IJAG,

    The best option, IMO, is to try to distance yourself from him. You're not going to be able to completely forget about him, because if you're this into him and feel this "love," then going cold turkey will be more painful.

    If you can, just offer him support in whatever he chooses.

    That's the mark of a true friend.
     
  12. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    If it's a member of the opposite sex and one of you wants something the other doesn't, you have your answer.

    Nothing creates resentment and hatred faster than someone thinking they're moving closer to a relationship while the other person thinks you're just friends.
     
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