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writes: I’m taking a break from my closest friend because I fell in love with her. Taking a break was my idea and she wants to help me through this anyway she can and didn't suggest anything like a break to me. She sees me as a brother so I know that there is no chance of us being together as lovers. We both care about each other deeply as friends but I wanted more than just friendship. By the way, this is a long distance friendship and we’re both aged 20.It’s been over 5 weeks since we last spoke and I am really missing her. She won’t contact me as it’s me that said I needed a break and she knows I need space. (Of course I would love it if she rang me though). I know she’s waiting for me to contact her again but I still have feelings for her that go beyond just friendship. If I contact her now will I have to restart this break thing all over again? It’s like a drug, you go cold turkey and after a while you think; “hmm, I’ve been off this for a while now, what’s the harm in just a one off?”I’m not holding onto any hope of us ending up together, although sometimes my mind wonders off and starts to indulge the question; “what if?” I quickly try to shrug it off when I catch myself thinking like that. If I do speak to her I won’t talk about my feelings towards her or anything like that, it would just be to catch up and just to let her know that I’m doing ok.So, what should I do? Should I contact her or wait it out a while longer until I found someone else to focus my feelings on?Thanks for reading :) -------------------------------------------------------More Detial into the situation below, be warned though, I've wrote a noval =O :I’ve known her for nearly 2 years, over which time we have become very close friends, the closest of friends. When we first met I was still ‘courting’ at college and she was in a long distance relationship with a guy that she never met in person.I live in the UK, she lives in Sweden so we’ve never had a chance to meet up either. The physical distance between us hasn’t stopped us developing an amazing friendship, I’m closer to her then all my other friends that live close by.I really liked her from the start, but she was in a relationship when we met. I would never interfere in another relationship, so I couldn’t flirt with her or show her I was trying it on with her. She’s too smart not to see something like that ;) So all I could do was be there for her as a friend. As a year past by our friendship became stronger and so did my feelings of love for her. When I was talking to another friend of mine, somewhere along the line the topic of loves that could have been came up. When he asked me if I’ve ever had a situation like that all I could think about was her. I didn’t realise it until then that I had very strong feelings of love for her.Something happened a couple of weeks later after that conversation with that other friend of mine which completely changed me. She came online and was talking to me about how she had enough of her boyfriend as he broke too many promises. We talked for hours and she was asking me for advice and just wanted someone to talk to. Then it came to the gut wrencher moment. She told me that she was in love with someone else, I was just in a time freeze waiting for her to say it was me that she loved but of course, that's not the way things work.She was in love with someone at her college academy that was also in her group of new friends; she asked me what she should do. Try to get back with her old boyfriend, pursue her feelings for this new guy or just concentrate on her studies? What I said next killed me but I love her so much that I want to see her happy, no matter what the cost is to me, so I told her to follow her feelings and her feelings were strong for this guy, so she pursued him. I talked to her everyday seeing if everything was going ok and about a week later she told me they had kissed. I’ve never been hit so hard in all my life when she said that, I just broke down.Even though I want to be there for her as a friend I couldn't keep my feelings secret from her any longer, so I told her everything. I logged off shortly after as I couldn't bear to see how she would reply, plus it was a pretty big bombshell for her so I wanted to give her space. I received a message from her a few hours later saying that she really was sorry for hurting me and that she does love me but as a very close friend.After that I had to get away for a while, so I went camping around the nearby forests by myself for a short while to clear my head, it helped a little but not much to be honest, the fact that this was in January and was extremely cold didn't help.I tried my hardest to channel my love for her into our friendship. When I returned we spoke everyday for hours for over a week until she had to go on holiday with her family (told me about months ago before all this). When she came back, she wasn't the same towards me, something was different. I try to say hello but she always just comes back to me with a short reply, it's was always me that had to start the conversation.She started to become distant from me, but that was mainly due to her being very busy. I am a strong person and was in complete control of my emotions until this all started to happen. I found myself randomly falling to my knees crying my eyes out over her. My being was completely shattered, my body was following. It was harder to breathe after every breath; the knife in my heart was piercing through closer and closer with each beat until it felt like it would eventually stop beating.I had to take some time out, just for a week. When she did eventually get online I told her that it was getting pretty bad for me and that I needed a break for a while. She was so understanding and both of us apologised again and again to each other, she was apologising for unintentionally hurting me and I was apologising for putting her in this situation. Really, no one was to blame, it’s was just that my love for her was taking over. When I came back after the week I thought I could handle it, so I began talking to her again. However, my feelings for her were still strong after another 3 weeks of returning. I couldn’t take it anymore so I thought I would have to say goodbye to her as the pain was just too intense. I started working on a way to say goodbye to her. It took me some time to get it all together and I put all my time, effort, love and soul into it. I made her a DVD which contained two videos that really showed my feelings for her as well as a message from me and 2 piano pieces that I played for her. (I’m a novice pianist). Made her a mixed CD, I even made a cover for both the DVD and CD cases. The film ‘5cm per second’, which really brought across how I felt about her. There were so many scenes in that film which I could relate too. A mood ring which I intended to give my first love when I was in primary school. However her parents moved away unexpectedly and she had to go with them, so I never had a chance to give it to her and I haven’t seen or heard from her since. I’ve been holding onto it for over a decade. Ironically, she even has the same name as her.A goodbye letter which I hand wrote. When I wrote that letter, my feelings for her were at their highest, was a few pages long. I also enclosed another letter to her explaining all this and about what I sent her.Last but certainly not least, I wrote her a book. It was 60 pages and as we both really like anime I done it in the style of an anime comic book but with less imagery. It was all hand drawn by myself and pretty much showed everything I was feeling about her from the day I met her up till the day I would send this goodbye gift to her.I packaged all this into a beautiful hand carved wooden box. It had a floral pattern on the top with a gold inlay leaves and stems intertwining; the inside was padded with red velvet.I told her about what I was going to have to do but we talked it out and decided that neither of us really wanted to say goodbye, so I said I’ll have to just take a break for a while until I get over my feelings for her. I was still going to send that goodbye ‘gift’ to her but I was now sending it to say goodbye to these Romantic feelings I hold. It would not be meant as saying goodbye to our friendship or to her. She was completely understanding about everything and just wanted to help me through this.So that was pretty much the last time we talked. She sent a reply a week or so after I sent the gift to her. She thanked me for everything I made for her and she said that she loves me as a brother and her closest friend and was sorry that she didn’t return my feelings. She understood that I need time away now but she made it clear that although nothing could happen between us she still really wanted out friendship to continue and to contact her again when the time is right. She even said she would be happy to hear from me again at any point in time. Now I just try to do what I can to keep myself occupied. The pain slowly fades but I still love her, I know I always will. I just need to turn that into love for our friendship and find someone else to focus my romantic love on. I never really opened up to anyone before; she was the first person I showed my true self too.If you read everything I wrote here you deserve a medal!
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a break, fell in love, flirt, her ex, long distance, on holiday Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (22 April 2011): This is verified as being by the original poster of the question@CindyCares, yeah I guess I pretty much knew what I had to do here. I've never really felt anything before for someone I never met before in person. So this whole long distance love was a first for me, I knew it would always be complicated. It just sucks that this ever had to happen between her and me. Whatever happens though, I'll always care for her and love her as a friend. @Anonymous, Yup, it's a bad situation to be in. Like you, I understand that in time I will get through this, it's just that getting through it is a b**** of a task at times. Hang in there! My best wishes to you. So yeah, I've decided not to contact her yet. Only when I have found someone else whom I love and that loves me in return will I'll contact her again. Just got to ride it out for now...Now I just got to deal with another issue. Another one of my close girl-friends is falling in love with me but I don't feel that way about her, I love her but not in that way. Guess I've been on both sides of the coin. Esh...Thanks for your help all. Take care!
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reader, anonymous, writes (21 April 2011): Im sorry man, i can relate to a degree. I just ended a romantic relationship with a woman I am in love with who told me she really loves the time she spends with me but doesnt think she will ever fall in love with me after 9 months together. It was probably one of the most mature adult relationships i have experienced and I am 44 years old. I trully do love her and I want her to find love too. I know she wants to talk to me but she wont because she knows we are at a stage where there needs to be a commitment or we will just be prolonging the inevitable. That being a breakup because she is not in love with me. I had to let her go, and I absolutely cannot call her 1st. If there is any chance of her falling in love with me, she has to realize this on her own hopefully from realizing that she is losing me! I am not even thinking of a time when I will talk to her again, because regardless of my hope of being with her, I have to assume we never will be. Once I have grieved the loss of her and meet someone new and love again, we can be friends again. Love Stinks my friend, but I can assure you this: You will be ok, she will be ok and everything will be ok!
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reader, thomas1214  +, writes (20 April 2011):
well sorry mate. ive never really been a big believer in long distance relationships. because 1 you dont know what is going on once she get off the computer 2 once again the distance, i have to be able to touch hug or whatever if im in a relationship with someone. but ya as cindy said just keep on keeping yourself busy
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reader, CindyCares  +, writes (20 April 2011):
 Basically you gave yourself good advice, keep following it :
keep yourself as busy as possible, give yourself time to let your pain fade away ,until you are ready to focus your romantic feelings on someone else ( possibly, someone who does not live thousands of miles away ! ) Then, and only then, you'll be ready to resume your friendship .( And much probably... you'll find that it's not so important to you any more ).
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reader, anonymous, writes (20 April 2011): This is verified as being by the original poster of the question I know what I wrote here is ridiculously long but without knowing all the details how can I get sound advice on this? The writing above the line break is the ‘short version’ of my question.@Tonywoodo, She is not my ex and we’ve never dated. This situation is different as it's unrequited love on my side for my closest friend.@thomas1214, Like I said, long distance lol. The last boyfriend she had lives in the US which is even further and they were together for 2 years. But yeah, the distance really complicates matters.
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reader, Tonywoodo  +, writes (19 April 2011):
Okay I havnt read any of that, but you should never try to contact your ex if they were feeling the same they would of contacted you by now, and if you do and she's just not interested in you you'll feel even worse but you never know she might actually want tO speak to you to
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reader, thomas1214 +, writes (19 April 2011):
well i dont deserve a medal because i didnt read everything.. sorry but i did read to the part where you said she lives in sweden and you in the uk... that is a great distance away.
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