How do you fall out of love...

[imjustagirl]

with your best friend?

Answers welcome. Also know that me starting this thread will likely make everything worse, but it's all I've got right now.

 

[NoOneLikesUs]

Was something done to hurt the friend/lover?

Other than that, I've got nothin'.

 

[imjustagirl]

Nope. Sometimes both people can think they want the same thing, on different timelines, only to eventually discover that all the wanting in the world on one side doesn't change the reality of the other. If that makes sense.

And if it doesn't, sorry. Not really seeing clearly.

 

[Buck]

Lasting romantic love is a myth, like the yeti.
What counts are things like shared goals, affinity and just flat out liking a person.
But for many people, that's not enough. They believe life should imitate art.

 

[sportschick]

Replace him with this little guy

and accept being the Crazy Cat Lady. I'll move in next week. :D

 

[This is my username]

Anecdote time:

Mike and I met first day of college and were inseparable for four years. We hung out every day, met a few times each summer, we ended up with minors in each other's major because we liked taking classes together. I was the second best man in his wedding behind his dad the month after graduation.

Gay, haha, OK, moving on.

He joined the Navy, went through training and ended up stationed in Hawaii with is wife. He sent me an e-mail telling me how great it was and how he couldn't wait for me and my girlfriend (now wife) to come visit for as long as we wanted.

That was the last I heard from him for three years. He didn't reply to e-mails, return phone calls or texts ... just disappeared.

He called me one day, told me he was going to be a dad and how much that excited but scared him. We talked for four hours straight about where we were and how we had gotten there. Said he hated how we had drifted apart, how he's just been so busy and being a decent friend slips his memory. Out of sight, out of mind. It got late and I told him I'd call him in the next few days to talk more. Tell your wife I love her, congrats on the kid.

That was four years ago and he hasn't responded to an e-mail or returned a call since.

Anyway, I guess my point is this: It hurts like hell, then it doesn't any more. That's life working on you and your sense of self-preservation working for you.

I'm sorry for whatever's going on in your life. Whether it's anything like this, I don't know and it's none of my business. But I understand and I'm sorry.

 

[Buck]

I once had girlfriend who told me I drank too much.
I quit drinking for a while, and she told me I was boring when I wasn't drinking.

 

[sportschick]

She sounds like she was confused.

 

[Buck]

We're all confused.
I've had many loves since, and I'm very content.
But she was 'the great love.'
Probably because she was so vexing.

 

[Buck]

I'm not dismissive of romance. I understand, as many do, the pain of romance.
I'm just advocating a rational way by which one can consider romance.

 

[Double J]

Tammy Wynette once said, of her volatile marriage to George Jones, there's no love in the world that can't be killed if you beat it to death long enough. That may actually be the exact quote - I'm too lazy to look it up right now.

Not that anyone here has a relationship like theirs (at least I hope not), but the point is clear......love can die if it's not cherished, not appreciated, not nurtured. I realize it's not a tangible thing, a living, breathing person or animal or plant or anything that we would normally consider to be "alive".....and yet, it can live, and it can die.

Some loves die quickly. Some linger. Some loves die only when the people themselves pass on. Some loves change. In that, I mean that an affectionate love of sorts takes the place of a passionate and/or romantic love that has flickered out or is maybe on low boil instead of the high heat. I have a love like that for my estranged wife. Not just because she is the mother of my children, but because I once loved her - for a very, very long time, I might add - with every ounce of my being. For me, a love like that never truly dies - it just changes.

Some loves, unfortunately, do die. And when they die in the heart of one person but not two.....that's the saddest, most tragic love death of all; for one person to love someone in a way that is no longer reciprocated. Because, as yet another country singer named Steve Wariner once put it, it's only love when you're loved in return.

 

[93Devil]

IJAG, I know Grady isn't hitting for ****, but he will turn it around.


Should this be read that you love this person, but they do not know, and you are afraid that them finding out, or this love, will hurt or end the friendship?

 

[Magic In The Night]

I think you have to decide it's only going to be a friendship, and a great one. Or let it go and find another one to love.

 

[imjustagirl]

OK, let me clarify, because apparently it didn't make sense.

This is my best friend. Someone I trust above all else. Because of random things in our pasts, one of us is more willing to be in a relationship right now. And, since we'd been talking about this developing for the better part of a year, I felt it had finally become time for him to make a choice, whether we were going to actually develop it, or leave it as best friends.

He chose best friends.

So I'm struggling to figure out how to stop being in love with someone whom I talk to every day, for hours on end. How to stop having my heart jump every time I hear his voice. How to shut off my feelings in order to preserve one of the best friendships I've ever had, or will have. The friendship was never in doubt...I just need help getting to the 'just friends' part as soon as possible.

Is that clearer? This isn't some friend I barely know. This isn't some unrequited love. We each care more for each other than we ever have for someone else. Times just aren't right and I don't want to wait another four years for him to decide it's still not right.

 

[kingcreole]

IJAG, I feel your pain. When I was in college, I was great friends with a girl I was madly in love with. We spent so much time together, even after we transferred to schools 20 minutes apart. We'd drink often, talk for hours on the phone, spent as much time as possible. I was mad about her. We nearly hooked up a few times, but it just never happened. Her boyfriends hated me, and my girlfriends hated her. She was a great friend.

After awhile, I made it clear I wanted one chance with her. She wasn't sure if she wanted to ruin a friendship if it didn't work out. We quickly grew apart, and I have long since regretted it. She was a great friend. We've tried to reconnect but it never lasts more than an email or two. I miss her.

I don't know what to tell you IJAG because every relationship is different. It sucks what you're going through. Just hang in there and try not to lose a friend.

 

[RickStain]

with your best friend?

Answers welcome. Also know that me starting this thread will likely make everything worse, but it's all I've got right now.

What always worked for me was forcing myself to imagine the person doing it with someone I really, really hated.

 

[mustangj17]

with your best friend?

Answers welcome. Also know that me starting this thread will likely make everything worse, but it's all I've got right now.

A: When your girlfriend is a *****.

 

[Songbird]

He does not love you (the way you love him).

Reading that is probably going to make you want to punch me in the stomach, but the truth can be harsh.




Maybe you have to pull away as a friend for a while, too. Because his voice making your heart jump every time can't be good for your mental health. He'll always be your best friend. He'll always be there as your best friend. But right now maybe you need total separation. Let another man's voice make your heart jump. Then maybe after six months you can call your best friend and tell him all about how in love you are.

 

[zebracoy]

I could go on for a while, but pretty much, you'll slowly grow immune to it until it doesn't hurt anymore.

But that could take quite a bit of time.

 

[Pulitzer Wannabe]

IJAG, I feel your pain. When I was in college, I was great friends with a girl I was madly in love with. We spent so much time together, even after we transferred to schools 20 minutes apart. We'd drink often, talk for hours on the phone, spent as much time as possible. I was mad about her. We nearly hooked up a few times, but it just never happened. Her boyfriends hated me, and my girlfriends hated her. She was a great friend.

After awhile, I made it clear I wanted one chance with her. She wasn't sure if she wanted to ruin a friendship if it didn't work out. We quickly grew apart, and I have long since regretted it. She was a great friend. We've tried to reconnect but it never lasts more than an email or two. I miss her.

I don't know what to tell you IJAG because every relationship is different. It sucks what you're going through. Just hang in there and try not to lose a friend.

Definitely feel your pain on this one. In college, I was close to a high school friend who went to another school a few hours away - but not so close that we couldn't give it a go if we were both interested. We were constant email pals - long ones, the kind nobody really writes any more. She was my idealized woman - brilliant (she ended up graduating, with ridiculous honors, from one of the top law schools in the country. As in one of the ones EVERYBODY knows is one of the top law schools in the country). Beautiful. Funny. All of that.

Anyway, she visited one time - as a complete out-of-the-blue surprise - when she knew I was devastated over a breakup. We ended up drinking a little too much and making out that night, etc. (no sex, nothing below the belt). Anyway, it was basically the greatest 30 minutes of my life to that point.

And she didn't remember a second of it. Or so she said the next day.

But even so, bringing it up was my chance to say, "You know ... I'm madly in love with you and I always have been." But I never did, and now we're out of touch, other than maybe two emails over the last 10 years.

We're both happily married now, so things worked out. But the regret isn't that we didn't end up together. I'm fine with that. It's that I never had the courage to at least tell her how I felt, and that still hurts, especially since I'm sure she probably figured it out. Perhaps was even waiting for it.

So, IJAG, as much as it hurts now, I think you'll at least be comforted eventually, when the pain fades, by the knowledge that you at least gave it a shot.