Dear April,
My boyfriend of nearly 3 years and I broke up 2 months ago. We were still in love with one another, but it had become very clear that we wanted different things in life. I wanted to be in a relationship that was working toward a marriage and a future and he felt there were a significant number of personal growth type things that he wanted to do for himself prior to even thinking about marriage. He is 37 and finally confessed that marriage was at least 3 to 5 years away in his mind – if it were to happen at all, it is a BIG maybe/maybe not. In the previous 6 months before our break-up he had started to create a distance between us. We stopped spending the night together, he would only make plans with me one or two days a week and all but stopped saying I love you. After 6 months I finally confronted him about it. He confessed to being freaked out about marriage and over whelmed with guilt for not feeling like he could give me what I wanted. We tried for another month to make things work. But in the end we were never able to close the distance that had been created and I was tired of being miserable. I ended things. It was gentel and honest and we cried together. No yelling, no fighting, just a lot of talking and a final kiss good bye.
I was starting to put my life back together. Figuring out who I was without him. Learning to flirt with men again. Looking at the realtionship as a lovely chapter in my life that had ended.
But last week (one month post break-up) he has started e-mailing. He professes his love for me. Is overly concerned that I might possibly have already moved on and is asking (begging) me to be “just friends”. He doesn’t want to get back together, understands that if marriage is what I want I will have to find it with someone else, but he doesn’t want to lose touch with me and sees no reason why we can’t be friends.
For my part I don’t want to be his friend. I want to be his wife. Being just friends with him is tempting, but I feel like if I go there then I will never get what I really want. He will get all of the emotional intimacy that our realtionship provided and get to call it “friendship” and I will just waste my time waiting for him to want me back.
Am I making a huge mistake not agreeing to friendship? Would a friendship lay the groundwork for the reconciliation that I want and ultimatley the life long commitment that I really need? Help!
