My Story of Heartbreak

[Ashe]

A few years ago, I met someone online and we had started a good friendship. That friendship became closer to the point where I felt I could trust her with anything, and she had became my best friend. Not once did we ever have even the slightest disagreement about anything, and we were both there to help support each other through difficult times.

 

When her marriage ended, I was there to help her through it, as best friends do. A few months after her divorce, she told me that she had feelings for me, and I said I felt the same about her. We became much closer, and she made my every day that much brighter just by being there. The whole time, she insisted that "this wasn't just a rebound thing" and that her feelings for me were real. Although we lived a long distance away, we mutually agreed that we could take our time to work this all out and that we felt we'd be together some day.

 

Over the summer, she came to visit me and we had a wonderful time together. We even took a 2 day trip together. She met my folks and friends, and said she felt very comfortable being with me. When she had to leave, it was hard to see her go but we both knew that our time apart would be short, as I would come visit her soon. She even left a very sweet "I love you" note for me to find after she had left.

 

When I visited her, she was happy to see me. Our time together felt great from the start, but as my visit went on, she began to feel more distant. I wasn't sure if it was really happening or just my imagination. I met her folks and friends, and when I left things between us felt okay.

 

A few days after I left, she sent me an e-mail saying that she has no feelings for me, and that it's over. How can someone's feelings change so quickly like that? We spent months talking to each other, insisting our love was true. When she visited me, she loved being with me.

 

I just don't understand what could have happened to make her feel this way so suddenly. When I offered to talk with her about it, she didn't really want to. And now, when I asked about our many years of friendship and where we are with that, she's sounding very much like she doesn't want that, either.

 

This is all just so shocking, and has left me feeling very hurt, lost, and saddened. If anyone has any insights into this, I'd love to hear them because I honestly don't know why her feelings changed so suddenly.

[velvet]

During your visit to see her what happened? What was the last thing you both did or said that triggered her first negative emotion to you?

 

I don't believe anyone can have a change of feelings over night. Unless the person was dishonest in the first place. Perhaps you caught her off guard somewhere during your visit and she panicked resulting in pushing you away.

 

The best thing would be to contact her one last time. Tell her this is the last time you will attempt to reach her. Express yourself to her like its the last time you will speak with her. Demand for a more logical explanation for her reasons and from that you will not come in contact any more. Email or phone. I don't think one preference over another would matter.

[Ally Boo]

Maybe the expressed extreme disapproval, and she felt pressure to end it. Who knows??? Maybe you should ask her. We can only guess.

[clia]

She did just get out of a marriage. The ending of her marriage could just be hitting her hard now, and she doesn't want to date you or anyone else. Perhaps she's not ready to get into a relationship and only just realized it. The easiest solution for her may be to end things entirely with you, rather than string you along and stay friends/dating with you.

 

This is pure conjecture...only she knows the true reasons...

[Ashe]

During my visit to her, I felt everything went great! We did lots of things, and I thought that meeting her friends & family was a major thing. I honestly can't think of anything I might have said or done to bring on these feelings in her. Which is why I'm just as shocked by all this, because her change in attitude happened much too quickly.

 

I have tried to talk about this with her, but she's being very distant about it. I've spoken to her once, and she wasn't saying much but when she did speak, there wasn't alot of warmth in her voice. And in her e-mails, it just doesn't seem like her both in what she's saying and her writing style. Not that I think someone else is pretending to be her.

 

I wrote her a lengthy letter asking her to think about our times together, what we told each other, and in the end I asked her to seriously to think about it - take her time. But in her response, she didn't really discuss or even acknowledge most of what I had said.

 

I just don't get it. After all the times she said she'd never do anything to hurt me, and everything else she said to me - was it all just a lie? She even went so far as to say that everything online was more fantasy than reality. I can respect her feelings if she needed time to be herself and not be in a relationship, but is that any reason to end a friendship as well??

[velvet]

We often come to stops in our life that don't have much explanation. It seems she felt like she needed to reply to your email because she had too. She avoided everything serious and gave no answers.

 

Are questions aren't always answered. I find that her behavior is very uncouth. I wouldn't attempt to contact her anymore. Taker her off your email list and if you want to, just for kicks, email her and tell your taking her off the mail list. Don't respond to any emails if any. She may not contact you anymore, she may go crazy that you have dropped like a bad habit.

 

Right now the best thing is to refrain from any thoughts of her. The wondering and questioning will only haunt you more. You deserve a vacation from the drama. You owe it to your heart, mind and soul.

 

I'm sorry that your questions were answered.

[BeReal]

When she came to visit you was that the first time you two met in person? Meaning, you've only met her in person on two seperate visits?

[midori]

What a difficult thing, I'm sorry you're having to struggle with it.

 

As I read your first post, I thought to myself, "isn't it a little strange that a married woman starts an intimate friendship with a man online?" Of course I realize that it happens all the time, and there could be many innocent reasons for doing so, but regardless of whether or not she was consciously going outside her marriage for emotional intimacy, that's what she ended up doing. I'm not suggesting that you were part of the reason her marriage ended. What I am suggesting is that you became an emotional escape hatch from her marriage. During its breakup you were there for her, blunting the edges and loneliness, etc. You were a "friend" with a very specific role, even if neither of you recognized what that was.

 

Now that her marriage has ended she doesn't need to have a friend-who-represents-more. Because she probably wasn't consciously using you as a distraction from her marital woes, once she escaped them she probably honestly thought that she wanted to start a relationship with you. But without the circumstances that prompted her to seek you out in the first place (her apparently troubled marriage), you're superfluous to her life. She tried, she really did. She probably really did think she meant it when she said "I love you." But she was kidding herself, and unfortunately you were fooled too. It could only go on for so long before she had to face the truth: she doesn't love you after all, you were convenient when she was married and then going through a divorce, but she doesn't have a need for you anymore. She's probably experiencing a mix of emotions: embarrassment, guilt for having used you (although she'll probably never admit that to herself, she'll remain convinced that she did love you at one point), and a wish for you to just go away. She doesn't want to deal with you, she's probably too confused about what she did and why to be able to answer any of your questions. How could she change her mind/heart so quickly? Because her heart was never in it to begin with.

 

Maybe I've got it all wrong. It's just one possibility. To my continued shame, I did this once myself, several years ago. I was just out of college, living abroad and heartsick about a love-affair gone wrong back home. I met a local guy who really fell for me. And for a few months it was easy to go along with his excitement and romance, it made me feel better. At the time I convinced myself that I really loved him. But when I got home I found that very quickly my feelings for him evaporated. He didn't understand. He came to visit me and I was moody and withdrawn, just wishing he would pick up on the fact that I didn't feel love for him anymore without my having to come out and say so (and thus look and feel mean). Of course my behavior was far worse than if I'd come out and told him that it was over because I didn't care for him anymore. At the time I didn't want to face the fact that I'd been using him. And I don't know whether knowing the truth would have made things easier for him. But I know I took the coward's route, and I'm still ashamed of myself about the hurt I caused him.

 

I think it's always important to look at another person's whole picture, not just the part that pertains to you. Especially if that person is involved with someone else! Or if they're living far away. Why are they going to such lengths to nurture a relationship that is perhaps unethical, and certainly inconvenient? I'm not suggesting that this woman deliberately undertook to use you. I'll bet she didn't. But she wasn't being honest with herself, and if you'd been looking at the larger picture you might have had an inkling of that. I'm not saying that you could have changed the outcome of your affiliation with her. But it might not have blindsided you as it has.

 

Finally, I agree with what velvet and clia and others have said. Leave her alone. You're not going to get any satisfaction from her.

 

Good luck

[Ashe]

Thanks, everybody, for your replies. It definitely helps.

 

She sent me a message the other day repeating the same things. Even when I asked if we still have a friendship left, she couldn't give me an answer to that. I guess that even with several years of friendship, that doesn't really amount to much in her eyes.

 

I plan on sending her one last reply saying that this is all her decision and it's something she's going to have to accept. It's a shame that she had to make such a sudden and drastic change in personalities like that, but it's not something I can change with her. As hard as it will be to refrain from any thoughts of her, I have to try.

 

Midori, I should clarify some things (sorry that I wasn't very clear in my initial post). While she was married, we were just friends and nothing more. There were no intimate feelings involved whatsoever, just that in the years that we were friends, we got to the point where we felt we could share anything with each other.

 

I think what you wrote is excellent, and I agree with you totally. Even though she said she had dealt with whatever emotions she was feeling from her divorce, I don't think that she really did. She just made herself busy with things until one day it all suddenly hit her and she couldn't - or didn't want to - deal with it all. And that included whatever she was feeling for me. So again she decided to push it all away and make herself busy with other things.

 

I'll still keep the door open if she wants a friendship, because that's who I am as a person. I just wish that after many years of friendship, she could have actually talked to me about it rather than just send some e-mails. I'd think that a friend for years would deserve that at least.

[midori]

"I just wish that after many years of friendship, she could have actually talked to me about it rather than just send some e-mails. I'd think that a friend for years would deserve that at least."

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. But don't hold your breath. When people behave badly they often just want to avoid the person they've insulted or injured, rather than face what they've done, fess up and apologize. Especially when it comes to love, both because the hurt they caused is greater (and therefore they have more to feel guilty about), and because at the same time they can sidestep their own culpability by saying, "that's the way love goes. I just don't love him/her anymore. It's not my fault" rather than admitting, "I never actually loved so-and-so, they were just a convenient distraction." Admitting something like that, even to yourself, would take a lot of courage. Admitting it to the person you hurt would take even more. Most people don't have it in them. I didn't, eight years ago, when I hurt someone in a similar way.

 

So I applaud you for being big about this and wishing to remain friends. I wonder if you're perhaps kidding yourself just a little bit (can you honestly say that some part of you isn't hoping that she'll pull herself together and want to get back together?). But it's good to not end things with her on a hostile note. If you did, it would be all the easier for her to write you off: "things didn't work out between us as a couple, and he just couldn't deal, so now we're not even friends. It's such a shame, but what could I do? It was his choice." You're being honest with yourself and with her about your feelings, and you're not seeking to punish her by telling her off. When and if she reflects on this (whether it's next month or next year) she'll know that she was fully to blame -- for hurting you, and for abandoning your friendship.

 

Just one thing: please don't wait around for her. Try really really hard not to think about her. Date other women, go out with friends. In other words, keep yourself busy. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as you don't use another person to forget the past ... like she did.

[Ashe]

I'm not really holding my breath for her. I mean, sure, it would be nice if things could go back to the way they were, but that's very unlikely to ever happen. Whether she realizes her guilt or that she handled this situation badly is something I'll never know. All I can go on at this point is that I did so much for her, I enjoyed our time together, and I didn't have these feelings that she suddenly developed. And yes, I have to say that she "developed" them because after her visit to me, she was still okay with us - otherwise, if there was a problem, why prolong the agony?

 

As hard as it would be to remain "just friends", I would rather have that than nothing. Maybe deep down in my heart, I would always think there was still a chance or that I still love her, but those are feelings which never really go away. They just kind of get pushed down somewhere and don't surface.

 

I promised her I'd never hurt her, and I'm a man of my word. Maybe she is looking for me to end things with her on a sour note, so she can say that I broke my promise or that I'm not the guy she thought I was. But that won't happen. The thought of her reflecting on all this is a toss-up as well - maybe she will, or maybe she'll totally repress and try hard to forget everything. I just found that's not always possible because there's some thing that will bring memories flooding back.

 

I don't think I will wait for her. I'm still going through a "healing" phase and that will take a little bit of time yet, but I'll be able to move on. I can't say that I won't think of her, because there's no way I can suddenly shut off whatever I felt about her. But I guess I won't think about her as much as I used to.

 

I hope she's using her time to reflect on how things went and really think about all this, rather than just see things one way and leave it at that.

[Ally Boo]

Far too many times when people have such an intimate relationship, it's weird when they actually meet. I mean you "love" this person, yet they are essentially a stranger. Maybe she quietly felt this way, and wanted to see if it changed the second time....maybe it didn't. When you do online dating, you are playing Russian Roulette with your heart. And it's not fair to yourself to be involved with someone online because.....the internet only lets you see what the other person WANTS you to see about themselves. There's something about actually knowing someone in person, picking up on their habits and personality traits that you'd never know about them had you only known them online. I've been in love with 2 guys on the internet, one of them for years...so I've learned the hard way.

[Ashe]

It's true that you don't have to show the other person who you are completely when you're both online. But we were friends - and nothing more - for several years online before meeting. In that time, you get to know someone pretty well and in my case, I knew a lot of important and personal things about her, just as she knew the same things with me.

 

I can certainly understand any "weirdness" when meeting someone in person for the first time. It's the same sort of awkwardness you feel from a blind date. I tend to take people for who they are, and after talking to someone for so long, I would expect them to be the same way in person as they were online. That's how I am myself.

 

The most difficult thing is to not have her to talk to anymore, whether it's as a friend or more. She was my best friend, and to lose a best friend is a tough thing to deal with.

[Ally Boo]

I'm really sorry for your loss....but ya know? If you know her so well, then she wouldn't be acting like she is. She'd know she could be honest with you, and you'd probably have some kinda insight as to what's goin on in her head!

[Ashe]

I thought I knew her very well. For several years when we were friends, she was very sweet and kind and just an all-around nice person to be around. The kind of best friend anybody would want. When we became closer, her sweetness became even more to the point where it was very easy to love her for who she was. I loved everything about her - even her little quirks were adorable. Which is why all this comes as a complete shock to me because it truly doesn't seem like I'm talking to the same person I knew for so many years.

 

I just get this feeling - now that I've re-read some of the things she's written me recently - that there are some issues rambling around in her own mind that she hasn't dealt with. Other wise, I have no idea what brought on her change in attitude and - unless she tells me about it - I won't know the reasons behind this.