How to fix a broken friendship?

[laxster]

Prior to dating, I was really good friends with my ex. There was sexual tension between us, but I kept that at bay because I'm concerned with building good, strong friendships first. Every relationship I've had where we just jumped into it before being friends has always felt more like a "playdate" to me. So we became really good friends and he eventually earned my trust.

 

Unfortunately, I also have a tendency of flipping out at people whom I really do care for. I have flipped out at my two best friends. In the worst case of my flipping out, my friendship with this person was over -- my friend had thought that I had changed so much that I wasn't the person he thought he had known and that he was "tripped out" by this "new me". He told me he was done with the friendship. Fast forward a few months, and we started hanging out again and saw that we were both going through incredibly stressful times in our lives. For the course of 3-4 months we didn't keep in contact... then one day we just started hanging out again, like nothing was different except that in retrospect, it seems like our conflict ended up bonding us together stronger than we were before we fought.

 

What's difficult this time around is that it happened a boyfriend instead. While the relationship was fun, I truly miss the friendship and connection we shared before we even started dating. I loved the random text messages throughout the day, our deep conversations that would carry on for hours, and the fun times we had PRIOR to dating.

 

It pains me that such a strong bond has been lost over my flippancy during a time of heightened emotions and instability in both of our lives -- my BF told me that he thought he knew who I was but now he's not so sure anymore.

 

We've been broken up for nearly 2 months now and have chatting a bit via e-mail daily the past week, but it has all been incredibly trite.

 

He said if I wanted to work on our friendship, that's fine, but to know I'm starting at ground-zero.

 

I'm mostly upset over the friend I lost in him.

 

It's just not in my nature to give up on a friend, because I let so few people get close to my heart to begin with.

 

I just don't know what to do at this juncture.

[halved]

be honest now, before you became bf and gf, when you were "friends", was it really just "friends" or was there always a sliver of romantic possibility there? Maybe on your end you saw pure friendship (Be honest now), but it may not have been the case on his end.

 

If so, you can NEVER go back. Why? Because it was never really friendship to begin with, there was always a hint of attraction. IMO until proven otherwise i do not believe that people who are attracted to one another can have a genuine friendship...someone always wants something more or longs for more...let's just say it can be messy...i'm sure you know that.

 

Pushing for friendship at this point when someone may or may not still have romantic feelings is really inconsiderate of that person. Give him a chance to recover from the difficulties of your relationship. Some would perceive it as you're playing games with him, not allowing him a chance to move on from you and date other people. LIke you're trying to possess him, but have no responsibility over how you affect his feelings. Let him breathe.