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He just wanted to be friends


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I'm not sure if this is a coping or break up post but there's a lot to this story so please bear with me.

I'm 19 and I have borderline personality disorder. I've heard all the horror stories and felt the fear that comes with knowing what I felt like I was destined to become. Because of some intimacy issues I've had all my life I've always made the wrong choice in where to place my feelings and my teen years were full of infatuations and obsessions that made me feel hopeless and like I was never going to have someone want me back. Then I met my first boyfriend.

 

I had a crush on him as soon as I met him and it took almost 5 months to actually become his friend. And the great thing was his feelings were mutual. Except for the fact that he'd had a girlfriend of almost 3 years to break up with. I only know what he told me but the gist of it was, he desperately wanted to be with her but she was stuck between him and another guy and during their relationship she was stand offish with her feelings while simultaneously being clingy and possessive. Basically, she didn't like him as much but she still would come to his work to make sure he wasn't fooling around. He said he'd been done with the relationship for months and he had tried before to break up with her but he was lonely without her so he restarted things. But this was the final breaking point, meeting me and me being genuinely kind to him was his sign to end it.

 

So we started dating. And we went too fast. And as nice as I want to paint the picture of myself, I was needy and untrusting of his feelings for me. I would go above and beyond for him but in private tell myself he'd never do the same and with time maybe he could reach my level of kindness, as if I was some kind of saint. I also would be upset when our time together was cut short. It made him feel bad that he couldn't stick around but I felt worse that I was hurting him with my selfishness and inability to hide my feelings about it. It wasn't a perfect relationship and if I were to describe it, it would be as 'two best friends who had sex occasionally'. We talked about how when we broke up we had to remain friends at the very least, and though I didn't want it to be soon I would be okay with it and things wouldn't change too much. And then 3 months in, he broke up with me.

 

We hadn't seen each other for a week because my car had been broken for 2 and he didn't have one. He kept canceling the plans that we only could make on his days off and I was frustrated. Finally he told me he wanted to just be friends. He lost feelings for me during and they would come back sometimes but eventually they were just gone. It's been a week and we've been texting periodically and I saw him the other day and I tried to be mad and tell him off for all the hurt he did, but he asked me to truly look back at those moments and i realized I was wrong. He didn't hurt me I hurt myself before he could. I assumed he didn't care about me as much as I did him and I didn't treat our relationship with the respect it needed. And he told me that he'd just gotten out of that serious relationship, we went too fast, and in the end it was too much for him.

 

here's my problem. I refuse to drop contact with him and I know thats incredibly stupid but besides all my flaws I'm genuinely the first best friend he's ever had. And without him telling me what I needed to hear, I don't think I ever would've grown or accepted that I was acting badly and the relationship would never have survived anyway. but I miss him. I miss his sweet smile and his stupid jokes and the way he held me and told me how much he loved our time together. The only thing that has changed between us is I can't reach for his hair anymore or pull him into a hug or reach my hand out at a stoplight and cup his chin and tell him how much he means to me. I know he will move on. and I want him to, i want his happiness to be pure and lasting. But I can't help but wish it were me who was the one to do it.

 

Please don't be harsh with me I've posted in other forums and was torn apart for not mentioning my bpd but please understand his ex was also heavily depressed and he has immense patience and I definitely didn't deserve it but he is the one who insisted that we stay friends and he's told me that I can take the time I need away if I need it but I'm stubborn. I know that if i saw him tomorrow versus a month from now I'd still have feelings for him.

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My ex also suffers from BPD. Although he was diagnosed, he refused to get any treatment. For this reason, our relationship became untenable for me and he lives in near-constant emotional chaos. So above anything else, please give yourself the gift of treatment if you haven't already done so.

 

I don't think your BPD was the only contributing factor to this breakup, though. He is still attached to his ex and in no way ready for a new relationship. He now realizes this, too. He can't be a decent boyfriend to anyone when his heart and mind are somewhere else.

 

Yes, you will miss him and the good times. This is absolutely normal after a breakup. But it's critical for your healing to go No Contact. Trying to stay friends never works when one person still has feelings.

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Part of this was yea I definitely see that I need therapy. I realized I was using my mental illness as a crutch and an excuse to act badly and I don't want to ruin anymore relationships. you're right that we should be nc I didn't want to at first and then I got angry and told myself it had to happen but then he said he missed my company and I couldn't resist. I think I'm going to tell him we shouldn't have contact for a while until I'm at least in a better emotional state with therapy and more things to focus on.

I'm just afraid he won't wait for me and I'll lose him entirely but I guess if he leaves then he wasnt worth it in the end anyway.

I'm just nostalgic i guess lmao

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He broke up with me over message because he was too scared to do it in person. 3 month relationship, i gave him my virginity, my first kiss, my first relationship. He had just gotten out of a 2 year relationship with a girl who was severely mentally ill. She was manipulative and never let him feel like he was enough. He told me once that he could tell she never had the same feelings for him as he had for her but he still fought for the relationship. She didn't seem to care and sought other male's attention. It just occurred to me 2 months after our breakup that thats exactly what he did to me. I had sex with him because he stopped touching me he stopped kissing me and holding me and looking into my eyes. I sometimes felt like i had to beg him to kiss me. I didn't know if this was normal but it didn't feel right.

 

It only occurred to me after the fact that he compared me to her very often from beginning to end. Only positives, only things that he was trying to reinforce in his own mind about it being a good decision to date me. I wasnt perfect by any means but i feel used.

 

He said when we broke up "i want to go back to being friends, youre the best one I've ever had." And he meant it, he's never had a best friend. I tried to be his friend and for the past 2 months I've been doing anything and everything for him. We still flirted and hung out like a couple and he kept leaving things at my house. But I realized recently, he thinks this is what best friends do. He's not itching to get back together, he's lonely and I'm living in a bubble.

 

Finally i told him i couldn't do it anymore and he was devastated, he said I was his best friend, his first and only. He didnt have anyone else to share these things with. I said I just needed time to get over him, maybe a month. All a lie. I know myself and a month is not enough I just felt so guilty. Then exactly one week to the day that I told him I couldn't be his best friend he texts me that he needs a ride. And he wants to "have a talk" which I would later find out meant he a normal conversation about nothing. But I went, hopeful as always. That night I figured he wasn't taking me seriously. So I was finally honest I told him I was in love with him. I told him he had other friends and he didn't need me and I need more than a month. He said something along the lines of "I want you to be happy but I hope we can work this out I dont want to lose my best buddy" which. I mean. I guess? I can live with that as a response.

 

Then last night, it hasn't even been a week and he's hitting me with that "I miss you (the as a friend is implied)" text and I'm reeling again. I ask when I can drop his christmas gifts off at his work, I.E. when will he not be at work so i can leave them and not have to deal with this any longer. He asks about a party I said I'd throw for Christmas. I feel bad all of a sudden for the party I promised to throw and invite him to before this. I ask if its a good idea and mention that the only mutual friend of ours is mad at him and he'd only have me to talk to. He asks what he did to her. I remind him that she was my friend first and it isnt about her. He says something rude. I wonder if this is what life is gonna be like for me from now on. I tell him one last time i need space and remind him that we are exes and he doesnt want to talk to the ex girlfriend he left for the same reasons i dont want to talk to him.

 

I'm 19 it took me 19 years to find a guy I trusted enough to date and wanted to date me in turn. And call me naive for believing it'd last longer than 3 months but the more I think about it the angrier I get. I blamed myself for the break up. Its my fault i asked too much of him its because I'm depressed its because I didn't let him in enough. And yes i made mistakes and they factor in I'm not perfect but he let me believe his lack of interest was my fault. And he won't let me leave. I should just block him but I'm so afraid if something tragic happens he won't have anyone. Though he lost the right to my care a long time ago I still love the guy. I'm tired of this feeling though.

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He is being selfish, wanting you to remain that close and loving friend who will still flirt with him, but not wanting you to be his girlfriend. Well, it's tough; it's a choice he made and he is going to have to get used to it. Ideally, people would stay friends with their exs but it doesn't usually work like that. Hurt feelings and the need for space to get a perspective on the whole past relationship supercedes the friendship.

 

He should know he has no right to ask you about a party. He is trying to make things carry on as they were. He does not want to acknowledge that things have changed. It is clearly an important relationship to him and he is clinging on to it. That is his problem though and you should be looking after yourself and giving yourself all the space you need to get over him.

 

Why are you giving him Christmas presents? The guy broke up with you. You don't have to give him anything. I would guess you have been doing too much for him and had become his 'mother in the kitchen' rather than his girlfriend. He has no right to your time now. If he wants time with you, make him work for it. Keep away from him and cancel any prior arrangements. He needs to know you mean business.

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I have some of his things i put into a bag i bought him as gift that he kept "forgetting" to take with him and i just desperately want any reminder of him gone. I think i should just leave them with someone else until he asks for them then send them instead. I have a very bad streak of self sacrificing and letting other people walk all over me because of low self esteem but reading through the nc guide really opened my eyes. It wasn't fair or at all okay that he asked those things of me and I'm tired of feeling hurt all the time. Thank you for reinforcing that i have a hard time justifying my "no's" but this needed to end.

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Just as spiderowl said, he's being very selfish by insisting that you be his friend after rejecting you romantically.

 

That might be good for him, but it wouldn't be good for you.

 

Everything you've written makes perfect sense and shows sound reasoning.

 

You should trust your own sense of what is and isn't good for you.

 

Frequent visitors to this site have seen me post this poem before, but this time I'm posting it for you.

 

 

To part now and parting now,

Never to meet again;

To have done for ever; I and thou,

With joy, and so with pain.

 

It is too hard, too hard to meet

If we trust love no more;

Those other meetings were too sweet

That went before.

 

And I would have, now love is over,

An end to all, an end:

I cannot, having been your lover,

Stoop to become your friend.

—ARTHUR SYMONS, “After Love.”

 

 

Take care.

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