When love mean goodbye....

[Phoenix_girl]

i'm sorry for the length...im just really hurting right now. I am terrified of dating, terrified of men, terrified of sex, and terrified of love (both being loved and loving others). Makes for a hard time building a relationship. My fear of love particularly disturbs me. My concept of love was skewed at a very early age, and though I realize that my early experiances were not expressions of love, i still fear it.

So imagine my horror when I realized I had fallen in love with a friend....and then walked away. But let me back up.

 

He and I have been friends for 5.5 years. We work together and have always gotten along. Because i was terrified to talk to him face to face (always hardest with guys I think are attractive) we started emailing, all day every day. we would email about work related stuf at first, and then it bloomed into everyday stuff and the mundane. And it moved to more personal issues and flrting. we were getting pretty close......and then a few months ago it all fell apart. He stopped confiding in me for some reason and seemed to get distant. I didnt know why. I tried to talk to him about it, but he denied anything was wrong. Did i mention I have the very strong ability to tell when he is lying, when he is being less then honest, and what he is feeling without him having to tell me. He's the one that has pointed this out. We continued to email, but it wasnt the same.

He also never went for coffee or anythig wiht me like he did with other woman in the office. at first I didnt care - being alone with a guy wasnt something I was comfortable with and to be honest, I didn't feel good enough. But as my confidence has grown I've realized I am good enough, so i pointed out to him that he seems to keep those who treat him like doo-doo (this one girl that he used to date spreads his personal life around the office like its going out of style) close and those who are kind to him he keeps far far away.

I should point out that in the time we have been friends I have helped him with work (correspondance and returning calls), helped him run the committee he is head off, loaned him money when he had desperate need, offered him advice and tried to boost his self-confidence, and even gave him my old cell phone when i replaced it because he couldnt afford a new one himself.

I will note this this is the same guy who had offered to help me with me fear of sex (physically that is).....there was a misunderstanding about this, so those of you who have read my post about that just disregard that for now.

So anyway, i pointed out about how he treats people who are kind to him with distance and he and I started going for smokes or coffee once in a while, and I appreciated it. But then it stopped. I dont know why. When I'm with him in person, im nervous and I don't know how to talk to him. He is aware of this and doesnt seem bothered by it.

I would ask him once in a while, but he would say no thanks....and sometimes after he told me no, i would see him going with others. And then the horrible betrayal happened. another woman in the office he is friends with started questioning a friend of mine about me, how well she knew me etc and told this friend a bunch of stuff about my guy friend not liking me. she also told my friend some very very personal details about my guy friends personal life, as well as the fact that I was abused as a kid.

My friend came to tell me everything that was said and I was horrified. My guy friend was going through some stuff, really stressful stuff so I sat on what i had learned for about 3 weeks -- until a week ago. I was a nervous wreck, but i talked to him and told him what I had been told. it was all a lie. neither of us knows why this woman did this. He was devasted.....and yet, a week later he is still going for coffee and smokes with her. I asked him if he had talked to her - he said no. i asked him if he was going to - he said he wasnt sure. i asked him if he planned to stay friends with her - he said he didnt know anything right now.

This guy has been through a lot in life. He's been hurt and had other stuff happen and he feels like the world is against him. dont like to cause him drama if i can avoid it and right now he has a lot going on. But he had a right to know what she had said, and i admit that fact that he is still hanging out with her has hurt me deeply. I cant stand seeing them go together knowing how little she thinks of him. I realize maybe he hasnt had the time to think anything through, that maybe because of what he is going through he isnt ready to loose her support...which she provides and then gossips about...but all that is his choice. But yesterday I had decided I had had enough.

I realized just a few weeks ago that I was in love him....ok it was a little before that, but I was in denial until a few weeks ago. I don't know when I fell in love with him, but its probably been more then a year. And it terrifies me. So i've kept it to myself. Not to mention that last time i told someone I loved them, it was my former best frind who was mentally abusing me telling me to admit my feelings already...so i did...and he walked away. i realized I never loved him and swore i would never tell anyone i loved them ever again. but back to my story.

So yesterday I asked my friend to go for a smoke and he said no. 5 seconds later he was walking out the door with the evil woman. i was pissed and hurt. the day before i had asked him (via email) if he wanted me to stop asking him to go for smokes and such as he didnt seem interested. i made it a very light hearted email - i wanted to know because i didnt want to keep bothering him. he didnt respond. so yesterday after this happened i got upset. I sent him an email telling him that i wasnt going to ask him anymore and that it was obvious he doesnt want me around. I think he was pretty pissed when he got it. I had to ask for a database check and while at his desk i asked if he got the email (my email was being funky) and he said he wouldnt dicuss it at work. later on when i was sure he wasnt with her (they had gone to lunch), i sent him a text and said if he wanted to discuss it then texting outside of work hours would be best. he never responded, but i didnt expect him to. I didnt like him being mad at me, but at the same time i knew I was at the end of my rope. I didnt have anything left to give. I also wasnt liking the idea of a possible texting conversation - very hard to get everything accross. So i wrote him a letter.

In the letter i told him i cared about him, that i had tried to be a supportive friend but perhaps i had failed. i told him i didnt know where i stood with him - if he liked me or hated me or if he just wanted me to go away. i reminded him of when he once told me (in june!) that i seemed to have a broad understanding of who he is, and have more confidence in him then he has in himself. I told him he was amazing. that he deserved to be treated better then his "friends" treated him. I told him no matter what he did in his past, he deserved forgiveness from himself, and that he need to start enjoying life. i told him if he wanted to reward those who treat him badly, and punish those who are kind that was his choice but that kind hearted people have limitations and no one likes to be treated like garbage. i told him not to let the wrong being done to him make him blind to the wrong that he is doing to others. i told him that i had hit the wall, and couldnt do this cycle anymore - that i had tried to get him to talk to me, but had failed and that the truth would have been far less painful for both us rather then to repeat this over and over. i told him that i knew he probably did not want to hurt me but that if he wanted to stay frinds then he needed to step up. I apologized for anything i might have done that hurt him and then i dropped the big one. i told him that somewhere in the time i had known him that i had fallen in love with him, and that i had decided to tell him because i wanted him to know the despite of everything he has gone through and done, and because of everything that he is, he is loved. i wanted it to give him hope for his life. and that i knew it would never be reciprocated, and that was why i waited until now to tell him - because i knew i had nothing left to loose. i told him i didnt expect anything from him, and that though he thinks hes a diaster right now, that he is a beautiful one. i ended it by saying i was sorry i couldnt do more for him and sighed it with an xo. i left it in his bag for him to find at the end of the day. i assume he did, but no idea if he has read it - i havent heard from him.

my heart is breaking....this is my first love, and it ended up being goodbye. not how i envisioned it. im nervous for tuesday (we have a holiday on monday) to see how he reacts. i dont want to hurt him, and its killing me to pull my support, but i need to look after myself too. i need to take care of my own self-confidence and the cycle we were in was eating it away. its not like i want to spend all of his breaks with him, or even every day. just once in a while. to be considered, you know?

What do you guys think? did i do the right thing?

With my past, all i want to do is please others. its very hard for me to do anything for myself, especially when i know that it will hurt the other party. and now i find myself playing the "whats going to happen" game...tryiing to speculate on what might happen - will he ignore me, will he step up, will he embrace me and express his own love (my belief is that he does have feelings for me beyond friendship)....he needed a wake up call, and ive tried to gently give it to him, but i couldnt do it anymore, i couldnt let everything be on his terms anymore. i deserve better. and if he wants to be friends with people who spread his personal life through the office, thats his choice, his life will become the office soap opera. i am terrified that that woman would do it again, question more of my friends, if i stayed around unless he stood up to her. her motivations are unclear, but it had soemthing to do with him (he thinks shes jealous, but wouldnt tell me what he thinks shes jealous of...which makes me wonder).

My past makes me terrified of men and keeping them at a distance is usually what i prefer....but this guy, i wanted him close. i craved it. I have never experianced that since ive been abused. i wanted to be near him physically and emotionally, and thats unsettling for me. and now i may never know why......though to be honest, i always felt that he and i, if we got together, could help each other heal from the wounds we have endured. he is the one person who knows everything about my past.....its hard to say goodbye to that.

[eggsandcheese]

That was hard to read. I think you are really in pain, and I sympathize, but even as a reader I feel a little like I'm struggling to breathe. What I mean is that you have a lot of needs for healing, and I think the average person may not be able to handle it. I think your dream of 'healing each other' is too much. He has his own issues, and I hate to say this to you, but he is not interested in you. As a friend or more. I think if he was, he wouldn't be avoiding you. You are clinging to something you can't have for some reason, and I have a feeling if he'd come back to you, you might 'punish' him for what he has done to you. Sort of like getting him back so that he can recognize and help relieve your pain. You are probably a wonderful person but I think you need to talk to a counselor. I think he's acting a bit like a jerk, and the weird thing is the more he avoids you the more you seem to want him. That's not healthy. By the way, you can't fix his problems just like he can't fix yours. Take care of yourself and avoid these two people like they were the plague.

[Phoenix_girl]

yes....there is a lot that needs healing. i have kept a lot buried for a very very long time so i wouldnt have to feel that pain and only recently started letting it to the surface to be dealt with. Yes I need counselling, sadly that costs money that I do not have. I do not expect anyone to "fix" my problems for me. I never said we would heal each other - i said we would HELP each other. I would not want him to heal my issues, especially when he has his own. BUt that doesnt mean being there for each other in a way that neither of us has currently wouldn't help. But even i do not know if thats possible - we are both very broken.

I didn't put all the details of our friendship here. He has been interested in being friends with me, and we have been. it's just been recently that things have been odd. He's been back and forth - sometimes being a friend, and other times not. Do i sometimes cling - yes. He knows that, we have talked about it and i even stayed away from him for several weeks while i worked on that. But that doesnt give him the right to be disrespectful and dishonest with me. I would never punish him for what he has done. If he were to come back, if he were to step up, i might be cautious in my approach because I dont want to repeat the cycle.....or I may not be receptive at all. Who knows. But I'm not playing the what if game anymore. I've done that enough. I just want to move forward. He has decisions he needs to make, and I cannot make them for him. Its not the fact that hes avoiding me more that makes me want him more.....it doesnt make me want him more, it just makes me more confused. Like i said hes back and forth and I just....i can't do it anymore. I love him enough to walk away, as much as it kills me. i have to take care of myself and so does he.