Thanks so much for your well thought out response.

As for my wife, I think she probably would have told me if she had approached her- it’s not really her style. And I suspect my friend would have said something at some point so while it’s a possibility I doubt it. But I will say communication has always been an issue and I think there were “mixed signals” from both sides.

As we got closer there was this constant pattern of hot-cold/push-pull. Our communication pattern tended to go something like this: one week she was sending me full paragraph text messages, responding immediately and the next week she would become what I would call “half-ass aloof.”  We would come to what would be a “natural” end of a great week of communicating and then one more text, or voicemail, would come from her. I would respond and she either wouldn’t respond for several days or she would act like I was the one who reached out to her. I once literally said to her “are you just testing to make sure I am still available?”  She didn’t answer the question but she called me like five minutes later.

But I do also have to be honest in that the more my wife cracked down the more difficult it did become for me to be as responsive as I wanted to be to her so I am sure that confused her as well.  But with that said what was really strange about this 180 with her is that before it started to happen things were getting a lot more consistent with communication and seeing each other. We saw each other several times over June and July and our last conversation in August (which makes me sad) was great.

In terms of her wanting to cross the line  I have considered that but I was pretty expressive in telling her how I felt about her. Not in a romantic way but I am sure it would have been enough to make her feel comfortable in directly expressing something to me if she wanted to do that. But, with that said,  my friend is a bit of enigma because she is an excruciatingly beautiful woman who is also an introvert that clearly has some major intimacy issues when it comes to getting close to people.

Looking back there were times she did, and said, things that after the fact were probably her way of flirting. The one thing she did which really set my wife on the “war path”  is that we belong to same theatre company and last year when were doing some improv exercises for an audience, which my wife was apart of, my friend sat in my lap. This was extremely out of character for her to do this because she is not what I would call “touchy feely” and to do it when my wife was there just blew mind. I really wanted to say to her “you realize you just made it that much more difficult for us to hang out?” And the “funny” thing is that afterwards she knew my wife would probably be pissed and told me to apologize on her behalf. But in terms of me “crossing” any line that would have been a “lose lose.”

For one thing, and not to be “Captain Obvious”, no matter how troubled our respective marriages are we are both married. She still lives with her husband and they our holding themselves out as still being in stable marriage. So regardless of the moral implications this would be throwing gasoline on a couple of small fires and turning them into raging infernos that would devastate all kinds of people.

Secondly, since she was not giving what I would call “clear” signals if I made any type of move she could have said I completely misread things. She would have thought I was a complete scum bag and I would have ended up losing a twenty year friendship with someone I really care about. So yeah, maybe she did want me to cross the line but her behavior was so all over the place.

My take here is that she perhaps didn’t know what the heck she wanted but she liked the emotional support, validation and encouragement she would normally get from a significant other. I also know she probably liked all of the nice things I said to her which gave her quite the ego boost at times. In addition while I am not saying she thinks I am all that I am sure she finds me attractive so getting all of this attention from me probably felt nice. That’s why my initial theory as to what happened, which she did not take very well, was that there may have been another male “friend” that was more available to her, or maybe she even flat out started dating someone, and no longer needed the same level of attention she was getting from me.

I thought her “plan” may have been to try and downgrade our friendship back to it’s prior casual level and maybe at some point she would have let it drop she had something else going on.  But I think when I picked up on something being amiss  it gave her “permission” to ask for a full on  “break”. Maybe she just felt if she kept me at bay long enough by the time we connected again I wouldn’t care what she had going on or maybe it would have run it’s course.

But honestly, I couldn’t care less if she is seeing someone or if she has, or had, feelings for me because I truly just want her friendship back in my life. I just wish there was a way to get her to just communicate with me like an emotionally intelligent adult. I mean we have never had any major arguments and the one misunderstanding we had over a year ago we talked through in like five minutes. I truly feel like she has made whatever is going on with her a much bigger deal than it needs to be because she thinks I am going to have some crazy reaction.