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Are my feelings justified?

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Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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  • September 3, 2022 at 4:52 pm #406594
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Myself and a girl that I work with have become pretty close friends over the past year.  We have known each other for about 7 years and about 3 years ago she expressed interest in me but nothing came of it because I wasn’t ready for a relationship although we maintained contact mostly through email.  About a year ago we started working together and she clearly still had interest and we did get closer and she did ask me to dinner and we went and have went to dinner, breakfast, hiking. bike riding and a few other things.  I have helped her do things at her house as far as yard work.  Nothing physical between us has ever happened.  We keep getting closer and have had a few issues that we have talked about and worked through mostly misunderstandings.  It’s kind of a weird relationship where we have discussed if we would date other people and we each have stated that neither one of us is looking for anyone else.  People at our workplace have said the rumor is we are dating.  She always tells me she doesn’t do things as far as going out with people other than her 2 grown daughters.

    At work recently an older guy that we both work with that I know she has been out to bars with but not just those 2 together more of a group thing started telling me about her being out with them about 2 weeks and she was drinking a getting drunk and some guys were buying shots for her and he said when he left she was buying shots for them.  Now she was standing there when he started telling me this stuff and she visually became agitated and walked off and then shortly texted the guy and he goes “I’m in trouble” and I said was that her he said “yes” and then he said don’t tell her what I told you.

    I’m a very private person she and I have discussed this and I have opened up to her about things in my life that I have never told anyone even family.  To be honest rightly or wrongly I felt very foolish standing there with her texting him trying to get him to shut up.  Hurt and foolish is exactly what I felt and my first instinct was to tell her that I no longer want to do things with her outside of work.  I feel like the best thing would be for her to just do what she wants with whom she wants and I will do the same then there is no more situations like this. I really don’t want to come to work and feel like she and anyone is trying to hide something from me like I said we have grown closer but being a very private person I tend to put my feelings into one person and I think she is a more into the social scene so things like this tend to bother me more than others it seems.  Am I wrong to feel like this?

     

    September 3, 2022 at 7:49 pm #406601
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear W:

    I will read and reply to you in about 10 hours from now.

    anita

    September 3, 2022 at 8:15 pm #406602
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear W:

    Back earlier than intended. I don’t think that you are wrong feeling the way you do, whatever it is that you feel anytime. Seems to me that what happened is that she knows that you are a private person, and because she wants you to like her and approve of her,  she pretended- when interacting with you- to be more private than she is. Does this make sense to you?

    anita

    September 4, 2022 at 12:55 am #406604
    Helcat
    Participant

    Hi W

    As I see it, you aren’t dating you’re just friends.It sounds like you may have feelings that you haven’t discussed with your coworker.

    As you are both just friends, she is free to see whoever she chooses whenever she chooses. She can’t wait around after you who hasn’t made a move forever. She has made her feelings known to you, you have repeatedly rejected her and set a boundary of friendship.

    I would suggest actually dating her since you have developed some feelings for her. If you stop messing around with her feelings and show some commitment, she could be a great partner.

    September 4, 2022 at 6:14 am #406607
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I would completely agree with your statement and I think you are right.  Part of the issue is we have both discussed this in great detail.  Just about 2 nights ago we went to a park and talked for a while and one of the things I told her was that I was fearing that our relationship was preventing her from finding the right person or at least making her not look at other opportunities.  I was very clear I didn’t want to be the reason she didn’t find what she needed.  Her reply is always the same that our friendship is the most important thing in her life (other than her children) and she says she cherishes every moment we spend together and I believe that to be true.  I guess that moment at work just kind of caught me off guard and I feel like I need to make a decision to either let this keep going and see what the result is and prepare for some more disappointments or pull back from it and let my feelings subside and not let us get closer.

    September 4, 2022 at 8:02 am #406609
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear W:

    “I would completely agree with your statement”- I am not clear about what statement you are referring to. Would you like to clarify it to me?

    anita

    September 4, 2022 at 8:07 am #406610
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Yes I was replying to the statement Helcat had made.  I tried to “quote” it but that didn’t work I’m not sure how to use it.

    September 4, 2022 at 8:17 am #406613
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear W:

    To quote a member, Select, then Copy ( press control & C) and Paste (press control and P).  If you receive replies from more than one member, and you want to reply to the content of what one of the members wrote to you, you can address your post to the particular member.

    anita

    September 4, 2022 at 8:55 am #406619
    Soulglazer
    Participant

    You can never be wrong when it comes to feelings, you just feel the way you do, regardless what is the cause.

    When it comes to what ‘happened’, you will never know , since you weren’t there, who can you trust on telling the thruth and does it really matter?

    The fact you both work together doesn’t make things easier.

    2 things i can say for sure abt a relationship are: trust and accepting eachother the way you are , these are very (if not most) important.

    The fact you felt hurt and foolish says a lot about your feelings about her, now find out how she really feels about you, wich you best do to look at actions / behaviour, not words.

    September 4, 2022 at 12:17 pm #406629
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear W,

    I think your feelings (of being hurt and foolish) show that you aren’t clear what exactly you want from this woman. On one hand, you rejected her advances multiple times: first time 3 years ago, and then again 1 year ago, when you two started working together. You said you weren’t ready for a relationship. In spite of that, you spend a lot of time together and your colleagues suspect you two are dating. But in fact, nothing physical ever happened.

    We keep getting closer… It’s kind of a weird relationship where we have discussed if we would date other people and we each have stated that neither one of us is looking for anyone else.

    It seems to me that she is as close to you as you let her. She would like to get even closer, but it is you who is hesitating, aren’t you? She said she doesn’t want to date anyone else, that your friendship is the most important thing in her life, besides her children, and that she cherishes every moment you spend together. All this tells me that she is very much into you, and is probably waiting for you to change your mind, i.e. to finally accept her as a romantic partner. Until then, she seems satisfied with being your friend and spending a lot of time together.

    But as Helcat said, since you aren’t dating, she has the freedom to go out and do what she pleases. Maybe that evening when she got drunk, she was actually drowning her sorrow in alcohol, because you don’t want to be with her?? OK, I am saying this half-jokingly, but who knows…. specially since later she was embarrassed about it and didn’t want you to find out.

    Anyway, she got out with some male colleagues and it upset you very much. You feel “hurt and foolish”. In what way do you believe she hurt you? I think it would be important to get to the bottom of this, to clarify what you really feel for her.

     

    September 4, 2022 at 6:56 pm #406635
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Tee, thank you for your comment I think you got it just right I was worried my explanation of this situation would not be clear enough.  Yes the only thing holding it back is me if I said lets be together she would do it.  I think this problem exists only from my point of view.  My last relationship was about 17 years ago about 20 years ago a very important relationship that meant a lot to me ended.  During these years I had become very comfortable being single I do some traveling once a year I ride bikes a lot and just various things. She has told me many times she is partly attracted to me because of things I do like traveling and being an independent type person plus she says “you’ve got it going on”.  I don’t put myself out there socially,  no Facebook or anything like that I do not have a network of friends but that is by choice.  She has really kept on me for a long time and she just told me how many times over the years people have made comments to her about liking me. I think from her point of view she feels like she has found somebody that can be just hers but with her network of friends I don’t feel like she would just be mine and I feel like this situation showed that. I guess in the back of my mind I had a slight hope that it could be the case.  In my life I don’t want to feel loss anymore I’ve always been content to just do what I do.  People have asked me do I get lonely and my answer has always been no but I think I have realized the loneliest times in my life are when I am in a relationship that’s when I feel lonely I seem to do better on my own.  That is why I am on here that is why I asked the question.  I’ve enjoyed our time together a lot and it has meant so much to me, ultimately do I think I am the right guy for her? I doubt it, but it is nice having a friend and I guess I just need to deal with things like this until I could decide to take it further.

    September 5, 2022 at 1:25 am #406637
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear W,

    You are very welcome. You’ve said some very important things, which suggest that you have been hurt in relationships, and you are afraid not to be hurt again:

    The loneliest times in my life are when I am in a relationship

    My last relationship was about 17 years ago about 20 years ago a very important relationship that meant a lot to me ended.

    In my life I don’t want to feel loss anymore

    Since you feel most lonely while in a relationship, no wonder you’re hesitating to enter one.

    Very often, our romantic relationships are the mirror of the relationship we had as children with our parents or care-takers. We might feel very similar emotions, e.g. that of feeling lonely, that we felt while growing up. If you felt lonely while growing up, it is very likely that you would feel similarly as an adult – because the wound of feeling lonely and not being given enough care and attention is still in you.

    You would like your partner to be “just yours” (I don’t feel like she would just be mine). This is how we feel as children: we want our mother (or care-taker) to be just ours. If she isn’t present, or she is present but absent-minded, or giving attention to someone or something else – we feel angry and hurt.

    The fact that your girlfriend has a social life outside of spending time with you, made you very upset. I am not saying you should be happy if she is someone who goes to bars frequently and gets drunk often (does she?). But it seems that a bigger problem here is your fear of having to “share” her with other people – that she is spending time and giving attention to people other than you. Which would be a reaction to a childhood wound.

    Does this sound like a plausible explanation to you?

     

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