A profound loss.

[confusedg]

I said this on someone else's thread but thought I should perhaps post it separtely.

 

I fell in love with my best friend through over a year. He knew it from the start. He always maintained it is not reciprocated. He was my confidante, rock, pillar of support and so much else. He has always been single (he is almost 30), still is single/does not date, and has a range of ideas about why people should not have relationships. He always clarified he does not form emotional attachments, that "he is a man", that he doesn't miss people etc. My pain worsened as our friendship became closer - my pain became his pain, he held me through successes and trials - celebrated my joys and was by me during my sorrows. But he maintained we have different expectations of our relationship. That we are friends.

 

The time came for me to move to a different country. The 2 months before my departure was specially difficult, and I was tearful often. He was steady. A rock.

 

Then, he broke down at the eve of my departure (I still do not know why HE broke down), held me for ages, refused to let me go, wept. I saw a different person. Not the steady, unemotional calm man. Not the stone wall. I held him, consoled him, tried to ease his agony

 

From the next day (I was now in a different country) he snapped all ties with me, he wrote to me saying I so dear to him, yet he feels in complete turmoil and that he feels unable to speak. And then....he went absolutely silent. I went through 2 months of hellish depression, couldnt bear the silence after 2 months, went back to his country, met him, he was so angry, refused to speak to me, refused to accept any form of contact (kept saying - Noo nooo, i cant take any contact), I said - but we are friends, he shouted - i am not sure, I cant have a relationship, he refused to let me hug him goodbye, ran away from me. I said - do you hate me? He shouted - No I dont, I dont wish anything but the best for you, but i DONT want a relationship. And just left.

 

Till my departure he held me up, my best friend, my strength. after these 2 months of silence from him, he refused to even look at me. He was so angry. I dont know what happened - why had he broken down like that before I left, why did he suddenly cut it all off? Our friendship is gone. My best friend is gone.

 

And it is all my fault. I am a terrible terrrible person. I burdened him. Thats why he did this. I will never forgive myself. I will never forgive myself.

[Seraphim]

Well no, you are not a bad person. I suspect he lied to you when he said you were just friends and he felt more but he did not want to express it, for whatever reason. That is his fault.

[Le MX5]

He probably had feelings for you, but didn't want a relationship because it would most likely ruin your friendship. It happens, and he was probably terrified of that.

[confusedg]

He probably had feelings for you, but didn't want a relationship because it would most likely ruin your friendship. It happens, and he was probably terrified of that.

 

The friendship is gone. He will never speak to me again.

[confusedg]

Any musings would be welcome. I know what I did is horrible, but still.

[thejigsup]

He is terrified of getting close to anyone and you are a threat to that. Leave him alone. He has serious issues he has to work out for himself and until he does, he wasn't really a friend. Friends don't run from eath other.

[confusedg]

My guilt will never leave me - it was because of the intensity of my pain, that he broke down. It was because he broke down that he cut me off. I lost my treasured friend, because I loved him. It is so strange.

[annie24]

He was my confidante, rock, pillar of support and so much else. He has always been single (he is almost 30), still is single/does not date, and has a range of ideas about why people should not have relationships. He always clarified he does not form emotional attachments, that "he is a man", that he doesn't miss people etc.

 

Do not blame yourself. he is deeply screwed up. this is not a normal way to live life - i think he's messed up in his head, especially when he realized that his relationship with you (friendship/flirtation/romance) deeply affected him and flew in the face of his theories and ideas about why people should not have relationships. I think he's angry at himself, not exactly you.

 

I think that when he told you he was not going to have a relationship with you, the feelings were not reciprocated, you should have cut off your feelings at that point. easier said than done, i know. it's not like turning off a light switch. but it's to save you pain, and so you CAN find someone who has the heart to give you.

 

this guy has deep issues you can't fix. sorry this happened to you.

[Angel Irulan]

Don't blame yourself for what he felt, thought and experienced in reaction to you leaving. Don't feel guilt at all. This is not you, it's him, don't you see that? He stayed only friends with you, and I don't know if you will ever know why. He might be the same with every other person! I suspect he is. You could not control what happened to him and you bear no responsibility for it!

 

Guilt= Control+Responsibility

 

You do not fit into that equation!

 

Find a way to get over him...talk to family and friends, perhaps?

 

Angel

[Jacob216]

My guilt will never leave me - it was because of the intensity of my pain, that he broke down. It was because he broke down that he cut me off. I lost my treasured friend, because I loved him. It is so strange.

 

This right here... this is one of the greatest things you have probably done in your life this far. You changed his life forever. And judging by the basics of the story, you were the only one who had gotten close enough to him to pull it off. Had you not done this, he could have gone on forever - alone and in denial of his feelings - spiraling headlong into isolation. While you think you destroyed him, you actually broke his routine - and he will probably look back in time and see you as one of the people who saved his life.

 

But for now, you have far too much control over his inner working for him to be able to face you or interact with you. You cracked his inner state - that's a very very hard thing for a walled up person to accept. You break all the rules he's set up when you do that - he's scared to death of the power you seem to have over how he feels - even though it's really a battle he is having with himself (brain vs emotions), he projects it on you (makes it your fault) until he makes sense out of it.

 

He was stuck in this stoic mindset that made him believe that to be a man you have to be able to live with binary emotions - on and off - and that mostly they need to be off. He thought he had everything figured out and that he didn't need anybody. His "modal" self-control was limited to self-indulgence and self-denial. Circumstances be damned.

 

Simon and Garfunkel's song "I Am a Rock" sounds like his personal anthem.

 

My roommate in college was very similar. He was bent on being a Jesuit. Emotions scared the crap out of him. It took someone to crack him, and then it took a LOT of time to rebuild - and then he went the other way and gave in to a lot of emotional pressures - the floodgates were left wide open.

 

He had to learn self-control was not a binary process, but was a matter of degrees, intuition and timely decision-making. How much to let in and let out, and when. Once he learned self-control, he had a great serious relationship, got married, etc. But it took years. YEARS.

 

You have done your part - not even by choice, but by nature. It was beyond your control and therefore beyond placing blame or fault. It had to happen, and you just were the catalyst for it happening.

 

Better you and now - than no one and never.