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[Shakerag]

I'm not sure how I feel about it, on one hand it means I can believe she actually believes all the things she said to me, but on the other its still entirely uncertain and I know that she won't actually tell me when she's decided, especially if its not in my favor.

Well, spend some time with it all, and let it roll around in your head like a hard candy.  Sort your feelings out, and figure out if you're willing to wait on a possibility and for how long. 

[nenjin]

Personally, to me life is too short to spend it tormented by someone else's confusion/emotional ambiguity/cruelty/whatever. There are plenty of people out there willing to unconditionally love you. Spend your time finding them, instead of chasing after/pining for the one that isn't even sure what she's not sure of.

And while I don't like playing this card...you're young. Time and emotional experience compresses itself in unbearable ways when you're full of hormones. That means fuck all to you right now while you're in the throes of it (as it did to me), but in time you'll look back on this (regardless of the outcome) with a measure of bemusement.

Put another way....regardless of how this shakes out, life goes on. Try to bear that in mind and see if it doesn't temper your angst.

[zehive]

H

[Solifuge]

Oh boy... heart goes out to you. And to her. Hoping that you all can find the best path out of this.

Personally, to me life is too short to spend it tormented by someone else's confusion/emotional ambiguity/cruelty/whatever. There are plenty of people out there willing to unconditionally love you. Spend your time finding them, instead of chasing after/pining for the one that isn't even sure what she's not sure of.

There's a lot of truth here. If she has really decided that she doesn't feel the same way about you as you feel about her, then you need to address where you're putting your energy. I'm not experiencing what you are here, but I don't think you necessarily have to torch this bridge in its entirety, if her friendship is something you actually value and would like to hold on to. In any case, distance will help. Spend some time apart with zero contact. Connect with the rest of the world. Cast a light inward, and take that energy and effort and care you've poured into her troubles, and direct them inward at your own for a time. Help build yourself into a better person, whom you'd want to be with. Try to become more whole, and get to a place where you don't feel a need for someone else. Then, after the feelings have cooled, try to reconnect and see where she's at. See if she's even the kind of person you'd want to be friends with after all.

A few things you also might want to ask yourself, to understand how you actually feel once the drug of infatuation has worn off (and I hate to say it, but that's what you're experiencing right now); do you feel anything toward her, other than a desire to sacrifice yourself for her wellbeing? Do you relate to her on a friendly level? Do you resonate with, or "get" her? Have you been hoping for a physical relationship this whole time, and has everything you've done for her also been working toward that end? If she wasn't dating anyone, and if for whatever reason could never be in a physical relationship with anyone (including you)... would you still want to be in her life if you could never have that? Is she someone you would actually want as a friend, or is she actually just a fixer-upper project that you've become obsessed with, to distract you from working on your own issues?

Hard questions. Cruel questions. But questions you should ask of yourself.

Best of luck to you, and much love. Again, I hope everyone involved finds the best paths forward.

[Shakerag]

You know, I never got the whole "this person is my best friend and I care about them so much more than anyone else and we're so close, and this other person is who I live with and have sex with (and am possibly married to)".  It boggles the mind.

She says "that I'm the most important to her and she loves me."  Do you personally feel that way? 

[zehive]

J

[Shakerag]

Maybe it's a fear of comittment thing?  I mean ... it seems like you've said she's very positively inclined toward you, but she still wants to date around.  Maybe she's afraid of tying herself down to one person?  Maybe she's not monogamous at heart?  I don't know. 

I guess ... if she truly does care about you that much, then she should be able to talk with you openly and honestly like you've done to her.  At the risk of sounding manipulative, maybe tell her how her actions hurt you, and if she's okay with that? 

That last one is a fine line, because you want to be honest, but you don't want to guilt her into a decision either. 

[zehive]

1

[nenjin]

It's about an emotional safety blanket. She knows you care for her deeply and that gives her emotional security: the knowledge that she CAN be loved and cared for.

Unfortunately, that's not enough for her. She wants to experiment, to be thrilled by meeting someone new and different, to have sex with someone else. You being her emotional safety blanket is WHY she feels secure in going out and meeting someone new. After all, if it doesn't work out, she knows you're still crazy about her.

See, this is the rub. She wants you to invest the same amount of emotional energy in her, as when you were sort of dating, now that she's officially dating someone else.

And this really comes down to how you feel about monogamy. Me, personally? My emotional energy goes towards my mate, the one and only. If we're not partners, you're automatically entitled to less of my emotional energy. It's a finite resource and to give it to someone who is simply a friend is basically, to me, ejecting half of your energy out into the void. Because it's not coming back to you, except in the friendship form. Relationships need equality. If you're sending out love, you need to be getting it back. Otherwise you're draining yourself and never refilling.

People in open relationships will likely disagree with this interpretation. Then again, emotional investment in open relationships tends to be lower because a) there's no exclusivity and b) there's multiple partners involved, each which takes their own little piece.

This is what I'd recommend. Learn to be her friend, not her lover, not her confidant, not her shoulder to cry on. That's a balanced relationship. Create boundaries, and be willing to say "Yeah, I don't know. You're going to have to deal with that yourself." If she can't tolerate losing your undivided support and sympathy and affection, then she made the wrong decision in deciding she needs to "see other people and sex and stuff." She sounds royally immature in that she doesn't see how unfair it is to you, to change the context of your relationship but expect the same level of emotional energy from you. That's bullshit. It's like your job firing you but asking you to come in on the weekends regardless.

So yeah. You've told her how you felt, told her what the consequences of her choices are in terms of your relationship....there's nothing left for you to do, except start rebuilding your sense of self, your confidence and put yourself back out there. It's brutal to go through but believe me when I say this a necessary part of EVERYONE's emotional maturity. From this you can learn what it means to value yourself as much as another person. For her....I guess she'll learn that the world isn't all about her needs and wants, that you can't take from people without giving back.

And yes, the withdrawal period from her will likely suck as bad as anything you've ever known. (Biochemically speaking, addiction to love can be like an addiction to a drug. Your body/mind gets used to one thing, then it's completely gone and you go into withdrawal.) It passes. What can help it pass faster is finding another woman who digs you. Because in the end, the agony you're experiencing is your ego, going "AAAAAHHHHH I'll never be happy/loved ever again!" Proving your ego wrong can help you get over your dependency to her....and nothing speeds that process along like a new fling. Assuming you can drag yourself out of your misery far enough that you're approachable, that is.

[Shakerag]

And this really comes down to how you feel about monogamy. Me, personally? My emotional energy goes towards my mate, the one and only. If we're not partners, you're automatically entitled to less of my emotional energy. It's a finite resource and to give it to someone who is simply a friend is basically, to me, ejecting half of your energy out into the void. Because it's not coming back to you, except in the friendship form. Relationships need equality. If you're sending out love, you need to be getting it back. Otherwise you're draining yourself and never refilling.

People in open relationships will likely disagree with this interpretation. Then again, emotional investment in open relationships tends to be lower because a) there's no exclusivity and b) there's multiple partners involved, each which takes their own little piece.

This is not the topic at hand, but for the record I completely disagree with you, and boggle at the idea that love or "emotional energy" could be a finite resource. 

[QuakeIV]

Thats an interesting thought that it provides emotional security just by knowing that you 'could' be loved or whatever.  I'll need to think about that, that does a good job of explaining certain anomalies I have been observing recently.

@ Shakerag,

Its finite in that the supply can go dry without any warning or explanation.  (with me anyhow)

There are lots of ways to 'recharge' other than interacting with other people however.

I'd guess you two are just using different metaphors to model the same thing.

e:  Metaphors to model things that could in fact be fundamentally different for both of you.

[zehive]

4

[Vector]

Perhaps you should try leaving her alone, like you said you were going to.

She has a right to space, and she has a right to emotions.  Just like you do.  You may wish she weren't mad at you, and you may take issue with whatever expression she chooses, but you don't get to stick emotions in her head just because she's being inconvenient.

[nenjin]

This is not the topic at hand, but for the record I completely disagree with you, and boggle at the idea that love or "emotional energy" could be a finite resource.

Age check?

Try having multiple demands on your time/input/emotion/presence and tell me that. Take a full-time job that wants the best of you everyday, a partner who wants you fully engaged in "us", friends who want your time, your advice.....these all draw from the same pool of "you."

That pool gets depleted, people get run down, and nothing requires more emotional investment (a phrase I did not make up) than romance. Which is why bad romances ruin people emotionally, because they put so much of themselves, their thoughts, their time, their worry, their stress....into it.

Perhaps you should try leaving her alone, like you said you were going to.

++

Because if you really want to trash your relationship with her, pester her while she's about with her new bo. You'll quickly go from "that friend I tried to let down easy" to "that friend who can't let go and is becoming obsessive."

[zehive]

8