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Dear Anita,
Thank yo so much for replying! Sorry for the late response. And you are right, I do need to be honest with others and myself, especially when it comes to my emotions. Though, I feel like if I am honest, I’ll be creating unneeded drama for myself. I really do not know what to do.
Anyways… What I would say to my boyfriend is… well… it’s hard to put into words. I guess I’d say this: “We’ve been dating for two years, and over those two years you’ve never had a plan really. You’ve dropped out of college. You refuse to think ahead and by doing so, are keeping yourself in a lower paying retail job you hate. You’ve refused to talk about the future with me, or make any plans about moving in together. I’ve tried and you’ve fought back at me, telling me there wasn’t a point to talk about moving in cause both of us didn’t have jobs that’d give us a real salary to live on. I tried to explain to you that’s what getting an education is for, and or trying to get promoted with the company you work for already. Still you refused to even look at how much money we’d need to save, and you disagreed with me saving money wouldn’t do anything as we’d be living off borrowed time of our lives. After two years I can’t take this. I love you. I really do. Even though you don’t want to move ahead, I can’t dedicate my entire being to try to convince your stubborn mindset to move forward. You have to do that yourself. I have an idea of how I want my future to unfold and am saving up money and planning to move out of my parents house once I graduate and move on. You tell me you’ll take some internship your mom is pressuring you to get, but you shouldn’t get it because she wants it. You have to start thinking for yourself and what you want and not waste life away.
I think that maybe in a way me being around isn’t helping. Maybe being around each other isn’t moving each of us forward to where we want to be. And as much as I hate to say it… maybe we just need to take a break and just be friends. Doing that would just help us focus on ourselves. And as much as it would hurt us… in the end I think it is for the best. Me being out of the picture would give you clarity, and help you start to discover yourself. Sitting around playing video games, and binge-watching TV still in your PJs and never going outside on your days off isn’t good. It isn’t good for anyone. I know you’re depressed and lost. I know it. I know it, whether you know it yourself or not. A part of me feels not being in a relationship with you will worsen that, which is why I’ve been avoiding this conversation. However, I also feel it will motivate you, cause maybe somehow I’m enabling you to do just that, not move forward. I love you so much and care about you, but our relationship has become strained a lot, and at times stagnated because you go into those episodes of not talking to me or wanting to be with me, and just avoid everyone, including your friends, by cooping yourself up in your room. In the end, I just want both of us to be happy, and that’s why I want to take a break from each other, or sort out our lives, because I’ve talked to you time and time again about this. Even though things are going good now, you’ll enter into one of those episodes of not talking to anyone, and that can’t happen again. And I just want you to understand this, and I want you to get better. Because if you do get better, you’ll have a future, and maybe, just maybe I’ll be in that future.”
That’s what has been going through my head with telling my boyfriend. I’m not sure if I want to breakup with him and never be in a relationship with him again, but I do certainly think a break of separation between us is definitely needed. And when it comes to my friend, I have no idea what to say or even what to do at that point. I know I want a break from boyfriend, but should I even tell him how I feel, even if I’m not in a relationship anymore? I feel like that would destroy our friendship. And I don’t think it would be a good idea. Then again, I guess I just got to think about this more. But if I had to tell him anything this is what I would say to my friend: “Look, I’m sorry I flipped out at you fro no reason. It’s just I’ve been going through a lot and I’m pretty quick to anger. Again I apologize, I’m definitely working on my temper and trying not to let things, or take things as personally as I used too. But, some of what I’ve been going through, well it somewhat relates to you. The thing is, you know I’ve had a boyfriend, but you don’t we got into a fight cause of his episode of ignoring me, semi-broke up unofficially due to that. The thing is I never really talked about him to you for a lot of reasons. But the main reason is, well for the past eight months or so I’ve seen you as more than just a friend. And the thing is everyone in long-term relationships feels a temporary attraction to someone and then it fades. Well, for me it didn’t fade. And you know, how I ignore our friend group and texting everyone, is because I’ve been trying to ignore you. I know you didn’t notice, but I did that cause I thought if I disappeared and pull away, I’d stop feeling this way, but I didn’t. And I’m only telling you now, because in a sense you deserve to know.
And I’m not telling this so you’ll become my boyfriend and stuff. I’m only telling you this for myself. I need to get this off my chest cause maybe the feelings will go away or more importantly, maybe I won’t feel so conflicted. I don’t know what to do, and it’s subconsciously been kind of stressing me out. The thing is I don’t want to loose you as a friend and I want you to know, that whether or not you feel the same way, I want you to understand what an amazing person you are. I know you’ve had a hard life, but understand i didn’t like you for no reason, there’s lots of reasons. All I want you to, if anything, to take away from this, is that you are so much more than what you think. I know you’ve struggled and stuff, and have been on your own since you were sixteen. But you’re kind, and caring and funny and say the most random things, but that why I feel this way, and it’s why some many people care about you. Because if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you never though anyone ever cared about you, even though you a zillion friends. And it’s true, people do really care and love you. If that weren’t true, then I’d never have felt this way about you for this long, even though I’m in a complicated place in my life. So understand that, and know that, that’s what I want you to at least take away from all of this.”
So that’s what I would say to both of them. I feel a lot better getting all of it out of my head, but I still don’t know what to do. And if I were to tell one or both of them, how I would go about it. Maybe it’s better if I say nothing. I’m not sure. I’m just, just still kind of lost.
-Lira