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For about the last 6 months, I’ve been dating a dear friend of 12 years. I’ve adored him as long as I’ve known him, and upon learning the feeling was mutual, it was very easy for us to transition from a platonic to a romantic relationship. This is the first time I’ve experienced romance with someone who I’d already loved as a friend for so many years, and it has been the most fulfilling and even awe inspiring connection of my life so far.

However, the last seven days have brought sudden agony.

When we first began dating, he had been seeing someone casually and without commitment for about 2 years. As he’s explained it to me, their relationship was non-committal by design, and held the understanding that one of them might meet someone someday and end things between them. They checked in with each other frequently, and he made sure to be ceaselessly honest with her about his headspace with regards to their relationship. He told me that at one point quite a while ago, he came to feel that it might not be a good idea to wait until one of them met somebody, as he felt it’d cause pain regardless of their lack of commitment. He brought it up to her, and she told him she disagreed. She talked him out of breaking things off with her, saying she preferred to enjoy what they had while they had it, and if “Mr./Ms. Right” came along, things would be fine.

So… time passes, and along comes me. After dating me casually for a few months, he realized his feelings for me were already greater than anything he’d felt before, and growing rapidly still. He felt instant honesty was the only option, so the very next time he saw her, he let her know that he’d met that someone they’d talked about, and so things needed to end between them. He wanted to retain their friendship, but all romance must stop. She was upset, of course, but seemed to accept things, understandably a bit tearful.

Over the following months, she proceeded to have fairly regular breakdowns whenever they would meet for a friendly hangout. She told him that she’d had much stronger feelings for him during most of their relationship, and hadn’t admitted it to him because she felt she wasn’t allowed to. She basically convinced him that he was responsible for her hiding her true feelings from him, even though he was nothing but honest with her through everything. Ever since her admission, he has become so guilt-riddled that it’s put him into depression. He seems to have accepted her blame, and can’t stand the guilt of having “done this to” someone he cares about.

He tried to deal with the guilt/depression for about a month, but it became too much. Last week, he told me that he needed to stop seeing me. He said it wasn’t fair to her for him to be seeing someone right after breaking things off with her, so he needed to put us on hiatus. He could not tell me how long this hiatus would need to be, or whether we would see each other at all (on a platonic level) during this period. He did say that he promised her that we would not stay the night with each other, even without sex, and that he would tell her immediately when he decided to start seeing me again.

I can understand most of the situation perfectly, and actually admire his unbelievable gentility and care with her. Still, I can’t help feeling it’s wrong of her to promote him feeling such guilt over something she herself convinced him he should do. He feels horrid, because he waited until he had fallen for someone else before breaking off with her, but he had tried to break off with her before that happened, and she talked him out of it. She told him things would be fine if this very circumstance happened, and now she’s sitting back and letting him feel this huge burden of guilt, because she isn’t fine after all. I’m having big trouble seeing why the fault in this situation has been heaped upon him alone.

Regardless of my difficulty to understand that bit of things, I have accepted his need to take an unknown amount of time away from us, in order to heal whatever he needs to heal here. I am trying my hardest every day to grant him support by my absence, and struggling not to let my own pain show in my voice when he calls to check on me, lest it make things even harder for him. This has been no small task for me. I’m in excruciating pain, and feel as though I could explode all my emotions all over him at any moment, making an even bigger mess of things.

I guess I’m just hoping for a few words of comfort and/or wisdom, to help me get through this period a little more smoothly. I truly feel like a fish out of water… flailing, painfully gasping, and just trying to reach for the peace of the water again.

[April Masini]

I can help you understand what’s going on here, but buckle up for some reality that you’re not going to like hearing — at first:

1. You started dating a man who was already in a 2 year relationship with another woman. You can call it what you like, but from where I sit, he was sleeping with and being emotionally intimate with someone else to whom he felt loyal. He was (and still is) committed to her. So….he was not really available to you when you started dating him. If you had been playing the field at the same time he was, that would have been fine, but you prematurely threw yourself into something that wasn’t really there. He had someone else — no matter how he tried to spin it to you. You let your feelings cloud your sense of reality.

2. When he finally did break up with her for you, he continued staying in touch with her for “friendly hangouts” [b]Eh-eh!![/b] Can you hear my disqualification buzzer going off? The fact that he was honest with you about it just makes you complicit in the drama triangle. This is where you should have told him you felt uncomfortable with his seeing her alone so soon after the break up. And if you didn’t feel uncomfortable, then maybe you really didn’t care about the relationship that much. (Or about your own feelings and intuition.)

3. Then, after these “friendly hangouts” with his ex-girlfriend, he broke up with you! You can try and protect yourself by spinning it otherwise, but [i]her[/i] feelings won out. If you were so important to him, he wouldn’t have broken up with you. You can try and fool yourself by trying to blame the break up on his guilt and depression. Or you can try and fool yourself that he’s a great guy by applauding his honesty and gentility. (Can you hear me gagging?) But from where I sit, this guy manipulated you, he used you, and he played you. And the [i]worst[/i] part of it all is that he’s played himself!! This guy is NOT honest with himself, and therefore he can’t really be honest with any one else.

4. And now here’s where I scold you for blaming the other woman!! This has [i]nothing[/i] to do with her at all. He had a choice to stay with you, and he didn’t. He took the “time-out”. And even the time out is bogus because he’s still calling you and manipulating you! The fact that you’re holding in your feelings when he calls you is proof he’s getting you to do what he wants — and what are you getting in return? Really? Nada. A boyfriend? Nope. A friend? Nope. (If you think he’s friend, then ask yourself why you can’t be honest with him.)

You need to really understand that [i]this[/i] man wants both women! He wants you and he wants her and he wants you both to love him and not be upset with him or at him. And he’s manipulating you into doing just that.

Wake up!!

You deserve someone fabulous in your life who appreciates and respects you as well as craves and needs you. When you understand how great you are, you’ll understand that you shouldn’t be wasting another second of your time with this bozo. Let him figure out his own problems without you. You’ve taken the first step to find happiness by writing me. Now take my advice, and let go of this guy completely. I mean a real time out where you don’t take his calls at all. Get over him. He’s not that big a deal.

Next, get out there. Take dating seriously, and you’ll start to see what is available to you in terms of men. There are really wonderful men out there who want a great woman like yourself. You deserve one of the good guys, so go get one.

My book, Think & Date Like A Man, that you can buy online by clicking on the Dating Advice Books link at the top of this page, will help you a lot. You should get it when you’re ready to move on with your life. It will help you get out there and find Mr. Right. Not Mr. Half A Heart.

[Author]

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