pietro5266

I'm really good at giving advice to everyone else, but not very good at "sharing" myself. So, as hard as this is, as part of my "therapy", here goes... There's so much I still don't understand about why you lost faith in "us", why your heart changed so suddenly. You told me I was nicer to you than any guy you'd ever met, even your ex-husband. You told me you saw long-term potential for us. You wanted our kids to meet. You seduced me -- mind, body, and soul. You were kind and attentive and compassionate and excited to be with me. And then you shut-down, and shut me out. You said you were confused, didn't know what you wanted. Slowly, over time, we became less physical, saw less of each other, communicated mostly by phone and email. I should have gotten-out then, should have seen the obvious signs that things were not right and not going to improve. But I didn't; I was already too fully invested in you and your life. I didn't want to leave, I wanted to help make things better. You kept me on an emotional leash for over a month, without being definitive regarding your feelings about "us", yet still communicating every day, usually multiple times. Until, finally, you announced to me one night when I called that you'd just come home from a date. You minimized it by saying it was "just dinner", and that you might never even see the guy again. You told me you were still thinking about things. I suggested that we communicate less often, in order to loosen the emotional connection. But in a few days, we were talking daily again. Which was, again, equally my fault. Two weeks later, you had dinner with the same guy, even after you told me you wouldn't, and would discuss things with me over dinner, first. You then canceled dinner with me and told me that you thought about it and decided that you should be able to date whoever you want, because that's what you wanted to do. I said, fine, let me take you out on a date -- a real date. And then, you finally said it -- that you and the new guy, the guy "you might never see again", had agreed to go exclusive, and that you wanted to focus on him now, and that you were very happy about this. So it only took you two weeks to replace, discard, and abandon me, after the intense emotional bond we had. We've been nearly NC for almost two weeks now. I sent you one email, to which you sent a short and perfunctory response. I tried to engage you in an email conversation but you responded no further. I guess this is the clearest indication of where I now stand in your life and in your thoughts, even though you expressed a strong desire to remain friends. I know many on this site have been highly skeptical of the whole "stay friends" thing, and now I know why. It certainly didn't have to be like this, but you've chosen to make it so. You've chosen to take what was an amazing connection between us and toss it out as if it were yesterday's trash. I know you're now having a wonderful time with new guy. You haven't had your kids for nearly five weeks now, so you're getting to enjoy tons of time with him -- time you and I never had together. It will be interesting to see how things go when you finally have your kids back -- full-time now. Will new guy be so keen to stick-around when things are tough, when you're dealing with your kids' school issues until late at night and weekend school projects? Will he even understand? And if he doesn't, where will you be then? You've alienated so many of your other friends. And you've shown me that you are not very good friend material, after all. You certainly haven't expressed any interest or concern as to how I'm doing right now, even though I'm the one who was left alone. Perhaps it's foolish of me to expect more from you, but then I'm only going by what I've done in past situations. A little empathy goes a long way. Regardless of how I feel, I do wish good things for you, and hope that you are happy in your new relationship. My intuition tells me, though, that I'll be hearing from you at some point within the next 6-8 months, when you again need emotional support for something that new guy has no interest, or is no longer around, to provide. If so, I can only say that I'm likely to reciprocate in kind to the level of friendship and support you've provided me during that time. And, right now, it's not looking too good.