A
male
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Hello, I have been with my girlfriend for 10 years, we have two kids and a whole life together. She loves me with all her heart. Over the past year though I have started to have feelings for someone else. The problem is the girl is my girlfriend's best friend. I have known this girl for ten years also and always thought she was hot, but out of my league. We all went out for drinks after work and after a few beers sparks started flying between us. It turns out she feels the same about me. Don't let me forget to mention that she is married to good man who we all like. Even though I know it is wrong as I already have a great girl, I cant stop thinking about her friend. I finally broke down and told the girl I was was madly in love with her and din't know what to do. I am in a total comfort bubble with my girlfriend but don't really feel the same chemistry I do with her friend. The friend is not in love with her husband as they got married simply because she got pregnant. I know this is an impossible situation. All anyone can talk about is when we are getting married. How can I marry her if this is even possible? I don't want to get married simply because I have to. I am a wreck. I am totally in love with this girl but i have to prentend i'm not. The friend does not want to lose my girlfriend as a friend. It would devastate my whole world if I left her for her friend. I am trying to make my feelings go away but it isn't working. Anybody have any ideas what i should do.
View related questions:
best friend, spark Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, cinc71 +, writes (17 August 2011):
 I understand how you feel. The grass seems greener on the other side doesn't it? The best thing would be to distance yourself before someone gets hurts. It's hard i know it's like a drug, try to get out before it's too late. Good luck.
A
female
reader, YouWish  +, writes (17 August 2011):
 Holy cats! What?!? Where the hell do I even begin??
I'm going to number my thoughts because it keeps me organized and on task here, and I hope it makes things easier to read.
1. 10 years?? Really?? Guess what? In your country (Canada), you're already married to her in a common law marriage with its own rights and legal bindings. The details very in different provinces and territories, but you and your partner fit the bill both in longevity and the fact that you both also have kids in this cohabitation. Leaving won't be as simple as "Adios!". Hopefully she's smart enough to get a lawyer if you bolt on her or if she finds out you're putting the moves on her best friend.
2. Which brings me to the best friend. Any friend worth the title of "best friend" would rather die than betray their best friend. Lust and all that comes and goes, but best friends are so absolutely sacred... I wouldn't steal my best friend's guy even if I were single and he was the only man on the face of the earth! No way, never, no how.
3. You're propositioning a married woman, and according to law, you're in a common law marriage, so that makes you, for all intents and purposes, a married man. How do you know she doesn't want to be with him? Did she say that? So, you'll be hurting a whole mess of people here because of lust. You're not in love. You're in lust, and once you've gotten what you want, you're gone.
4. What do you do?? Find YOUR best friend and tell him to punch you in the balls as hard as he can. Maybe that'll shock you back into reality! If you don't love your girlfriend (common law wife), end the relationship and fricken stop wasting any more of her time! You seriously blew 10 years of her life, she gave her body to you, bore you two kids, and gave you love that frankly you don't deserve.
5. You really made a mess. Right now, your partner's best friend is in agony because she knows that she has to tell her, yet doing so will put her best friend in agony. It'll put your kids in agony. WHY? Your penis? Your mid-life crisis?? Why the hell did you have to run after the married best friend?? It's one thing to end things and then go on your own, but going after a best friend ranks with going after a sister. And if god forbid the best friend actually gives in to you, you'll be shattering a multitude of people.
I hope you can live with that, because there is no way I could live with myself knowing that I was responsible for so much pain, devastation, and ruin, especially to the kids involved, simply because I was horny and mistook it for love.
You can't unscramble an egg. You can't undo the damage. There is no mulligan and no do over. No going back for you now.
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (17 August 2011): "It doesn't mean that because you no longer love someone, you can hurt them. "
hmm, but isn't staying with someone you don't love and lying to their face the whole time that you love them, also hurting them too and compromising one's integrity?
I tend to think that if you don't love someone and don't want to be with them anymore, you should tell them rather than allow them to continue believing a lie.
at least if you come clean and are honest that you don't love your partner, this creates an opportunity to explore what went wrong in the relationship and to repair it and change it for the better IF both people want to try that and both can "man up" enough to face the truth of their relationship and themselves. Isn't this much better than the status quo? Of course that may not happen and the relationship may very well end in bitterness when you come clean, but then that tells you something about the quality or worth of the relationship to begin with, if it cannot withstand the truth and needs lies to keep it going.
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (17 August 2011): first off, you're doing the right thing of not marrying your girlfriend, at least not while you're feeling this way. It's unfortunate that this situation is occurring but it's better that this occur now than after you're married!
But you did the wrong thing of telling the other girl of your feelings for her already. The first person you should be going to is your girlfriend and telling HER that there is a huge problem in the relationship, that you don't have feelings for her anymore and are questioning if you should even get married. whether or not you tell her you're in love with her best friend is a different matter and is a later conversation if you've already done the first one. the most pressing concern is that there is a huge problem in your relationship with your girlfriend if you're seriously feeling this way about someone else and indeed questioning your life decision to be with your girlfriend. You may not love her, but since you have kids and have a contractual agreement of some sort (living together, sharing a life together, it being assumed you will some day get married) you do owe her honesty and respect even if the truth hurts. Even if you don't love her, keeping her in the dark on important matters related to her relationship with you, is not being respectful of her role as your official partner.
And no, you can't just make your feelings go away even though that would be nice if you could. Instead I think your feelings are happening for a reason. The reason could have nothing to do with the other girl, or it may. for example it could be more about your disappointment in your relationship and vulnerability and unmet needs, than about the other girl being "the one" for you. So I think you do need to acknowledge your feelings for her and not just desperately try to deny them, but also your lack of feelings for your girlfriend, and try to sort them out and interpret them. Your feelings may go away by themselves eventually (although if you've known this other girl for 10 years already, some thing tells me this isn't novelty infatuation but something more significant) but for now they're here so what do you do about it?
I think this is a wake up call that you need to examine your relationship with your girlfriend and make some hard decisions. people in satisfying and close relationships don't fall in love with other people. Something has been missing in your relationship. There is no one "right" answer to what you should do, people may say you should stay with your girlfriend and marry her cos you have kids and all that, but ask yourself is this going to be something beneficial to her if you're feeling this way about her and your feelings don't change? it is awful to break up with someone especially when you have a life and kids together, but is it really less awful to stay with them - or even marry them - under false pretenses.
so that first approach is to see where your feelings are and make some hard choices that are in line with them because being a fake in a relationship or marriage is cheating your partner and being dishonest to them.
Another but different approach is to pick one outcome (based on any number of "rational" or other factors) and stick with it no matter how you awful you feel about it. and hope that in time your feelings will change and be more in line with the decision you made, because the decision was made based on sound and rational choices.
...............................
|
