Losing a good friend.

[edjuvreason]

We broke up about a year ago, (although according to his new girlfriend we were never officially together) and while we've had some incredibly painful times and (emotionally, not physically) violent disagreements, we are still very close friends.

(We only broke up because he felt he didn't "love me as much as I deserved" ... he was never mean or cruel to me like so many others.)

 

He's sat with me while I've cried and admitted I'd attempted suicides. I've sat with him while he cried and told me he'd fantasized about committing one.

He's the only one who's ever read most of my body of print work, and I'm the only one who's ever heard about some of his craziest confessions.

Whenever one or the other of us is messed up, we know we have someone to call.

We can easily live without one another, but since we're each so messed up ( ) it's much easier to remain friends because we balance each other out sometimes.

 

But now he's moving six hours away to move in with his girlfriend, who's always been relatively nice to my face but is regarded by mutual friends to hate my living guts. She pretty much only allows my ex to speak with me because he told her flat out he'd leave her if she argued it.

He says he'll be back in the fall, has registered for classes and gotten a job, but I have a very hard time believing it because she can be extremely persuasive and he tends to make rash decisions without really thinking about it.

I'm also worried that something might happen while he is there (he might run out of money, have a breakdown, break up with her) and have nowhere to go.

 

I don't want him back as a boyfriend -- the love I feel now is almost familial, as if he's a brother -- but I do have a sinking feeling that I am never going to see him again. I have trouble trusting other people, and know that being permanently forsaken by one of the only people I DO trust (especially in favor of this other girl who is my opposite), would really hurt. And as I said, I worry about the silly bugger.

 

I guess I mostly wrote this as catharsis, and so someone could hit me if I was being stupid Thanks for reading ...

[DN]

First of all - I understand how you feel. But there are a couple of points you might consider.

 

First - I am sure most people would understand why she feels threatened by you - i think most people would under similar circumstances. You know how you feel but convincing her of that so she really gets it would be tough. She may be resentful of the fact that you are so emotionally close and thinks that closeness should belong to her.

 

Secondly, and more importantly for you: it is not wise to become as emotionally dependent on another human being as you are with him (with the possible exception of an SO) for the very reasons that you have posted about. That is not to say you don't become close to people and rely on them but that is a very different thing to being devastated at the prospect of them leaving your life.

 

Friends come and go in our lives - it is not at all unusual to grow apart for various reasons from those we were once very close to in various ways.

 

It is wise to always make yourself responsible for your own happiness - others can make us unhappy by their actions but that is not the same thing.

 

Take this opportunity to become more emotionally independent and to make some new friends at the same time.

[edjuvreason]

Yeah, I just reread this and realized it made me sound terrible.

 

I'm not dependent, per se. Not at all. I like being alone and am pretty good at it. I am just going to miss him like mad, at least for a while.

I worry that I'm pretty much worthless because I love (even albeit platonically) someone who does not "belong to me." And THEN I think that is such a terrible term, because the reason he and I were not together in the first place is that we were both morally opposed to "owning" other people. But look now -- he has a girl who is upset because she does not "own" him.

 

Oh well. I just have such a hard time trusting anyone ... I trust myself just fine, and am happy being alone, but sometimes it feels empty to know I can't trust.