Going from FWB to a real relationship: any success stories?

[marthamydear]

Has anyone successfully transitioned from FWB into a real relationship? If so, what were the circumstances? What were the rules of your FWB set-up prior to that? How long were you in the FWB arrangement before becoming "official"? How did you decide to make it a real relationship?

[NightLily]

If you are asking this question because you are hoping your FWB situation will become something more I would give up hope now personally.

 

I have never had it work out. But, I have only been in one situation like that and we aren't friends. He was just a compulsive liar/sociopath (I don't use those terms lightly) who was leading me on.

[lavenderdove]

There are successful cases of friends making the transition to boyfriend/girlfriend, but when someone proposes a FWB situation, it usually means they have evaluated as potential for BF/GF, but decide they aren't interested in anything other than sex. So you have a better chance of going from friends to BF/GF than from FWB to BF/GF because the person has already decided they aren't willing to take it to the next level and will only want sex.

 

Women sometimes think if they have sex with a guy that he'll start having emotions for them, but lots of guys can separate love and sex and it doesn't mean to them what it does to the woman. They don't fall in love with hookers, and lots of times look on FWB situations like you're a free hooker. They may like you well enough, but if they really wanted you, they'd date you rather than just taking sex and leaving the rest.

 

Also, ask yourself, if both of you are free to date, then why aren't you dating? why are you settling for just FWB? Usually it is a case where one person hopes to date, but the other has already decided there's not enough there for them to consider dating or taking it to another level.

 

So if you're hoping for love out of a FWB situation, it rarely happens. Not impossible, but not common either. Your best bet is to tell the person you don't want FWB anymore and cut that off, and if they realize they care enough for you to acutally make it official, they will.

[Anna.]

Well, we got pregnant and got together, but we weren't technically FWBs. I mean we didn't talk about it, but I guess that's kinda what we were. We were friends, we had chemistry, and we hooked up when we saw each other which was every 6 months to year or so. We had been close friends when we were younger and had no romantic relationship then.

 

Weird, I know. Anyway, it's two years later and we are breaking up. We are better friends and parents than partners. He's my best friend even through this break up, which is making it harder and less concrete. And there is still the possibility of reconciliation on both our parts.

 

But my point is that it was really hard to transfer from friends to bf/gf. In a way, we were closer, b/c we were really real with each other, more so than I might have been with someone who started off as a romantic interest. Thre was no impressing each other, we knew all about the other one, warts and all.

 

But the passion always lacked even though we loved each other.

 

Hmm....I'm not helping much am I?

 

Bottom line: it's really, really complicated to go from friends or FWBs to partners, b/c the instant head over heels feelings aren't there, atleast on one persons part or you'd already be dating.

[Umlunguusa]

Yeah--my best friend just yesterday became girlfriend to her FWB of 2 years...just 6 days after she admitted she had feelings for me! haha, oh well, that one was my fault