Dumped by guy friend of 15 years! Now what? Please read and give advice!

[LolaMay4559]

Everyone always told me "date your best friend." Well, I tried it and it was a mistake! We had always meshed well and people told us back in high school we should date. We are 29 now, and both wound up single. We have always kind of kept in touch, and then a couple of months ago we started hanging out on the weekends and spending more time together. Over time we started going on dates and everything. He cooked elaborate meals for me. The sex was good and we would lay there and cuddle for hours. He told me that before he got into his long relationship he had wanted to date me for years, and that I was one of his closest friends. We got along well, and had a lot to talk about.

 

Last week he started talking about how he had a promised a female friend of that he would do something special for her birthday, but he didn't want her to get the wrong idea. I asked him what it was, but he said he didn't want to talk about it. That bothered me but I let it go. Then he told me he couldn't hang out over the weekend because he had promised a friend he would go out with her for her girlfriend's birthday. (Obviously they are not interested in each other, so that isn't the issue but it did bother me that he didn't invite me or at least squeeze me in sometime during the weekend.)

 

So someone posted something on his facebook wall about how sweet whatever he had done for the single female friend's birthday was. It shows up in my news feed and these feelings of resentment bubble up and I get jealous and accuse him of hiding his true motives. We argue that day, then after that, 0 communication for a few days. I finally text him and he responds, but it's vague, and when I mention hanging out again he never answers. So finally today, I ask him what the deal is, and tell him I would rather be told straight up what is going on than wonder. He says too much drama (the jealousy, questioning his motives), and that he had been torn about what to do because he really enjoys my company.

 

I mean obviously he just isn't that into me and I totally read him wrong. He had a 10 year relationship that ended badly a year ago, where he was left two weeks before his wedding (they had postponed it several times). He still talks about her some (she left him for someone else and is still with that person) and I'm sure there are unresolved feelings there. I know they had a lot of jealousy issues and serious fights. So, I can take it that he doesn't want that again either. He has only had short month-long (or less) flings since.

 

So even though I kind of knew in my gut it was coming, I still feel pretty crushed. I told him that I was hurt that we had been friends for 15 years and he didn't care enough to tell me that he was going to disappear like that, and I wasn't sure that I could be friends with him anymore. I didn't tell him this, but I had started to fall for him, and I just don't think that I can be platonic with him for my own sake. He said he understood and hoped that I would reconsider the friendship because 15 years is a long time to forget. I told him that I understood everything and he has to do what makes him happy.

 

So I tried the whole dating your friend thing and now I wish I hadn't, because I think it cost me a friendship. Has anyone else dealt with this?

[Kendahke]

He says "15 years is a long time to forget", but he certainly employed forgetfulness when it came to his convenience.

[missmarple]

I'm sorry but that's always a risk you take when you start dating a friend. Personally, I wouldn't keep him as a friend either. He didn't treat you as a person who'd known you for 15 years. At the very least, he should have been honest with you and not just disappear.

[morrowrd]

The friendship has nothing to do with his behavior. When you two started to make your relationship intimate, and he made his proclamations about "wanting to date you for a long time" - and thus, your friendship evolved into a romance, which in most cases translates into the two involved being loyal and accountable to each other. A romance between friends is really the best case scenario, after all, when getting into a romantic relationship, the hope is that the two become friends and lovers.

 

My girlfriend is my best friend, but that friendship evolved into that because prior to it, it was a romance between two people getting to know each other, which happens to a lot of others. Especially those meeting online.

 

Back to you; you had a head start here, so don't second guess yourself. Your boyfriend is in the wrong, at least based on how I live my own life. It's my job to maintain boundaries with others when I am "with" someone. Taking someone out for their birthday, one on one, who is a female.....this would have to have been a relationship I had been honest with all along, with my girlfriend. Say for instance that she had been friends for "awhile" - and would probably have some sort of history talking about this individual with my girlfriend, so she knows about why we're friends, and the history of the friendship. The "birthday present" would most likely not even cause a blip on the radar screen, rather she would probably say, "wish her happy birthday from me too."

 

The moral of the story, if food looks good, but smells bad, it's probably bad. If this smells bad to you (meaning, the above scenario regarding keeping you in the loop with this "friendship" didn't happen), don't feel the least bit guilty about confronting him. He is wrong and he knows it. He's just mad he didn't get to push you around, used the whole friendship thing as an excuse to make you feel like a jealous controlling . Dismiss it, you were in the right.

[lavenderdove]

Yes... been there and done that.

 

I think what this boils down to is selfishness on his part... he is not really processing that and thinking about his choices, he is seeking whatever stimulation/attention he feels he needs and using women to do it. so his 'regular' partner (his fiancee) dumped him, and now he needs to have other women to meet his needs so he just drifted into a FWB situation with you without bothering to clue you in that he was using you with no real thought to the fact that he shouldn't go down that road unless he was serious about a romance with you because you've known each other way to long to treat this lightly and as if you were someone he hardly knows and can cast aside after a couple months with no thought to the impact on you or the friendship.

 

So you learned something about him. Maybe there's a reason his fiancee left him, especially if they had already postponed the wedding several times... perhaps he never fully commits to anyone, and 'enjoys their company' but then when it gets close, he finds ways to put distance between them, and his GF got sick of waiting around for him to fully commit and found another guy. and this birthday thing is really suspicious. He obviously should have taken you if you were dating, but he clearly avoided that because he didn't want someone at that party to know that he was dating you. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't also dating that other woman at the same time as you, but never told you (or her) about it.

 

So he turned out to not be such a good friend or a good BF either or he wouldn't have behaved this way. The thing is that when you start to date someone, you learn things about them you'd never learn as a friend because the whole game changes. And you learned some unpleasant things about how he treats women he dates. He talked a good game like you were 'special' to him, yet his actions show that he is totally leaving his options open and probably juggling multiple women/cheating and feeling like he deserves to be left alone and allowed to do it.

 

As a friend, that wouldn't matter since you don't expect that you'll be his only friend or have rights to expect to see him on weekends etc., but if you're dating someone, the standard for commitment/expectations are far different, and he certainly doesn't want to abide by that and calls it 'drama' if you expect him to act like a BF, when really you were only asking for what would be a normal expectation for someone you date, for him to take you to parties with him and not sniff around/see other women behind your back.

 

So once you go down this path, there is no turning back. You can't unknow what you now know about him, and pretend you didn't share the intimacy you did or have the feelings you did. He may be drifting from girl to girl because it suits his purposes/needs, but he should have exercised a higher level of care with you if he really valued your friendship enough to want to preserve it.

 

In my own case, he was absolutely devastated when I gave him the heave-ho and ended the friendship, but he deserved for the friendship to end because betrayal of any kind doesn't belong in a friendship or a relationship! This guy betrayed you by spinning you up then acting like he owed you nothing or you were wrong that he was running around with multiple women, when frankly he was wrong to treat you so lightly and use you for gratification without care for your feelings or starting something up he never should have if he didn't have the feelings to finish it. If he acts so selfishly and with such disregard for your feelings, then he deserves to be dumped as both a BF and a friend.

[Ms Darcy]

Friend or not, I think you always have to be savvy when you date anyone. For example, it sounds like you two slept together before establishing if you were in a relationship. So in that sense it is important to agree on your status and establish exclusivity. Confronting someone you are not in a relationship almost always turns out to be a bad thing. Generally no one likes confrontation. And second I do think a lot of women can be very demanding and insecure so how you brought up the issues makes a difference too.

 

Ultimately the problem was that you two were not on the same page emotionally and in terms of commitment. His comments about wanting to date for a while is not really a commitment and I think you mistook your friendship as something that would somehow fast track the commitment.

[Rosti87]

I co-sign this. His dating record is not very good based on what you shared. Sometimes people are different as friends than they are as lovers and vice versa. I still believe that being friends first before being lovers is the best policy. I think you merely lucked out in this scenario. I would cut my losses and move on. You may become friends again once your heart is healed and you have moved on from this. Maybe in time he will realize the error of his ways with all the women in his life before he ends up a lonely old man.

[LolaMay4559]

Thank you for all of the replies. I'm doing better than I thought I would. A couple of years ago, something like this would have devastated me. Now, I will just go back to doing what I do and find ways to improve. I only want people in my life who appreciate what I bring to the table. Whether I should have gotten jealous or not is debatable,, but the bottom line for me is that he did not even give me the chance to explain myself or apologize and talk the situation out. He just...disappeared. I can't be with someone like that anyway. I like to get everything out in the open and move on. I'm glad I handled it well yesterday and didn't get over emotional. I can move on with my head held high, and he can keep searching for a woman who is perfect!

[catfeeder]

After friend's long relationship ended he signed up for a ride on the course of least resistance. He's not ready to do the commitment thing again--so anything that remotely spells accountability is not going to happen with him, probably for a very long time.

 

Is it possible to rebound with someone who's been free from a decade long relationship for a year? Sure. People who use others for healing after a significant breakup don't necessarily 'heal' from that or limit themselves to only one, and they don't necessarily clean up old business within a year and bounce back, ready to commit to the right person as soon as she appears.

 

It's unfortunate that you interpreted your comfortable historic connection with this guy as a green light for expectations of committed behavior from him. Your story doesn't mention any discussions or agreements about that. It's also not clear what details about his outing upset you and drove you to confrontation, or what you'd identified as deception on his part.

 

He was never commitment material.

[Rosti87]

Thank you for all of the replies. I'm doing better than I thought I would. A couple of years ago, something like this would have devastated me. Now, I will just go back to doing what I do and find ways to improve. I only want people in my life who appreciate what I bring to the table. Whether I should have gotten jealous or not is debatable,, but the bottom line for me is that he did not even give me the chance to explain myself or apologize and talk the situation out. He just...disappeared. I can't be with someone like that anyway. I like to get everything out in the open and move on. I'm glad I handled it well yesterday and didn't get over emotional. I can move on with my head held high, and he can keep searching for a woman who is perfect!

 

I know the feeling of not being able to get direct closure with someone who has let you down. But Time will be your avenue of closure. And self-growth will be your reward.

[Ms Darcy]

I think it is had that he disappeared on you. Fundamentally, I agree with catfeeder and her points.

[lavenderdove]

I think he disappeared because as he said he didn't know what to do and was being cowardly about it. He wants to have his cake and eat it too... have you be his best friend but then also be there for FWB when he's lonely and/or doesn't have another date lined up! And I think when you called him on it, he slinked away because he realized you weren't going to be relegated to just FWB even if he wanted that.

 

Some people don't put nearly as much thought/care into their actions as they should. They just follow their latest whim to wherever it leads them, then it's 'uh oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that...' So he drifted into your bed and now is drifting towards someone else's. And honestly, if he and his ex never married in 10 years and the engagement kept breaking off, I think that is his pattern, he's a drifter and follows his whims.

 

So don't tell yourself he's looking for a 'perfect' or 'better' woman... he's just doing what he does, drifting around, so I think you dodged a bullet if you discovered this after only a couple months rather than spending 10 years with him drifting in and out like he did with his ex before she got sick of it and gave him the heave ho for someone else!

 

btw, are you sure it is his ex who cheated to break off the engagement? I've known several cheaters who play the victim when a break up happens, when it was really them who cheated yet they try to blame it on the ex, or perhaps they both had a pattern of cheating until she got sick of it and swapped him out for a new guy. He certainly set that precedent with you, dating you for only a couple months before he's sneaking off for 'special' birthday parties with other women!