In love with a best friend.....but we are BFFs

[Jeff28]

Good luck with your situation. I have been browsing through other posters' posts here looking for some guidance myself, only in a little bit of a different situation.

 

My BFF has been my BFF for 40 years, we grew up together. We have seen each other through the good times, the bad, at our best and and our worse. We have been there through dating, breakups, (not ours) marriages and divorces and marriages Part 2.

 

He confessed to me 1 year and 3 months ago that he loves me. Duh, I knew that, I love him too, always have. But NOOOOOOO, he confessed to me that he LOVES me, as in, loves me more than a BFF and always has, since we met at the age of 8 even if it was only puppy love way back then. He told me he was just too much of a coward to ever tell me because he valued our friendship way too much to put it in jeopardy and would rather have me as BFF than not have me at all. He said he promised himself that he would take that secret to his grave. But.

 

We ran into each other after a very long extended period of time of not seeing/talking to each other because of certain circumstances (long story) and he blurted it out. He told me he just couldn't keep it inside anymore.

 

After many hours of texting, meeting and talking, hanging out together and so on, we began an affair. Not going into details ATM, but let's just say that if I could have a do-over, I would have done things differently. Our friendship is on the rocks at the moment. We have said things to each other that we have never said to each other in all the years we have known each other, hurtful, angry, shocking, disgusting....you get the gist. I wish we had never acted on the things we discussed. Its a total mess and I don't think it can or will ever go back to the way it was. If you really value her as your BFF, then maybe think long and hard before taking any actions that might potentially ruin that. BFFs are hard to come by.

 

Thank you for sharing this, I am sorry to hear you have had to go through this with your long time BFF. It sounds like permanent damage was done, I hope overtime the damage lessens and at least a friendship can be renewed. It does sound like a lot of work needs to go into it and there are things that happened that neither may forget.

 

BFFs are so hard to come by, especially the older you get in life I am realizing. I have a good size group of friends but when I am dealing with an issue in life there are very few I would feel completely comfortable turning to. This girl is one of those select few and despite what I am feeling I really really really don't want to ruin that. She also turns to me all the time when things are going on in life, she needs advice, she needs a shoulder to cry on or just needs to hash out something going on in life. I know she places an incredible amount of stock in me as a BFF and being there. I would hate for that to get ruined for her sake.

 

So I have been realizing that these feelings developed once I came out of my last failed relationship and I am starting to think that this is a case where I was vulnerable, she was there for me and feelings went from there. I really want to see if this changes once I am dating someone for a bit. If I wasn't single, would the feelings still be there? This girl that has really caught my interest is out of town for the next week and 1/2 but I want to really pursue dating her when she gets back. See where it goes.

 

I think when you are vulnerable, out of a relationship and feel alone, its easy to develop feelings for any friend of the opposite sex and I believe that honestly is what happened here. I have been doing much better with this, its not affecting me nearly as much, so I think I am in a much better place than when I started this thread.

[Jeff28]

Its been awhile and I figured I'd give an update to my situation.

 

I have gotten actively back into date the past 2 weeks and I've connected with one woman who has similar interested and I find very attractive. We aren't serious yet but we have gone out a few times since our first date, so interest seems to be mutual.

 

My BFF has really been struggling with a bunch of issues lately and I have done my best to be there for her, comfort her and cheer her up. She has been in a constant state of depression and its honestly been tough seeing her like this. As a result I have been spending a lot of time with her to try and get her through this rut, more so than the ex bf she is seeing. I have really just put my emotions for her to the side, and have focused on helping her out and cheering her up. Both of which seem to be working.

 

I do worry that the girl that I have started dating with is not going to be cool with this BFF friendship going on. I am not certain how I should handle this, but my guess is, its going to come up soon, since I have been hanging out with this new girl more.

[Jeff28]

In a strange twist, my BFF told me last night she had feelings for me. It was random how it went down....we met out for coffee and she just started talking and then said she has something to tell me and at this point she doesn't care anymore she just needs to get this off her mind. She said that she has felt this way for awhile but was always afraid to say anything since it could ruin our friendship in the long run if things didn't work out.

 

I was honestly shocked, I didn't know how to react at first. I told her I felt the same about her and its been like this for months but I never said anything because of her relationship with her ex BF and also I didn't want to jeopardize the great friendship we had.

 

We talked for awhile, took a nice walk and then ended things with a long hug. Strangely though nothing felt different after I left. I am still shocked over this. We have been texting on and off today and made plans again for tomorrow. Its just so strange, not how I thought this would go down at all. I literally had just finally got myself to move on, date again and really I was doing a good job of putting this whole episode of my life behind me. Its just so odd that at that moment she tells me she has feelings for me.

 

She has been done with her ex BF for apparently 2 weeks now, and while I caution with rebound, I just feel deep inside its not the case, she wouldn't jeopardize our close friendship for making me a round.

 

The only thing I can do now is move full force into this and just show her how much I love her!

[PaperCrane]

Congratulations!