My best friend stole my FWB. Why does it hurt so much?

[Alphaqueen]

Well I have been lurking on these boards for awhile & I finally had to sign up and reply to this thread. Probably because I have a young son (22) and my heart bleeds for young people especially in the areas where they are trying to grow up, find themselves and figure out what love and friendship is all about. If I could just take over sometimes and help my son and his friends skip all the heartache I would do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately to learn and grow you have to make mistakes and hurt.

 

 

Alphaqueen I hope you do not take anything I say as an attack on you because it is not. It is honestly years of experience with friendships, love, and life in general. First thing I want to address is you are very young (I am 40 so I am allowed to say that LOL) 19 is just the beginning of your life to figure out who you are, what you want and need in romantic relationships and in friendships so I sincerely ask you to reconsider marrying your boyfriend right now. You have a lot of self discovery to do before you tie yourself down to a man. ESPICALLY a man with children. To be 19 and agree to adopt children is taking on A LOT!!! And it stunts you from getting to have the most exciting years of self discovery of your life. Right now it sounds from all your post that you do not have high self esteem and you need a lot of attention to feel validated. That does NOT make you a bad person it just means you still have some growth to do in your life. With the way the world is these days it is so easy to look outside of ourselves to feel our self worth. If you take on two children you will find yourself very quickly shoved into "mom" role which means you as a person are put on the backburner. That is not fair do to someone so young. I have a step child who I love as my own but it is NOT an easy role in life and there are times you feel like an outsider or that the kids are more important & loved more. With the issues you are dealing with that will not help you overcome those issues. It will just make you feel worse about yourself & you deserve to get healthy. The goal in marriage is to find someone that YOU want to love and take care of & make their life better for the rest of your life. It is NOT about anything they can do for you. My Dad was a preacher & me & my husband had to go to pre-martial counseling before he would marry us. The first visit he gave us homework to list 10 reasons we wanted to marry the other. The following week we giddily turned in our homework.

1. He makes me laugh

2. She cares and is kind to my family.

3. He makes me feel beautiful

etc. etc. etc. My Dad read over our list of everything the other person did for the other & he said: "Both of you are not ready to get married."

 

 

We were properly offended. HELLO we had been together for four years!! How dare he tell us that. Then he went on to explain.

"Globug, there will be a day that he does not make you laugh or make you feel beautiful. The stress of a family, job, day to day life might wear him down & he will not be able to give you all he does now. What would be holding your marriage together then? Globug fiancée....what if something happens in your family that deeply hurts Globug and she can no longer care or be kind to your family? What then? Basically if you are marrying the other person for what they can do for you or to you then you are marrying with stipulations. Because as soon as they stop doing those things are you going to give up on the marriage? What if one of you were in a horrific accident and their face was scarred and they were in a wheelchair the rest of their life? Would you love them enough to stay with them, remain faithful? For better or worse? Those vows never put a stipulation or say" Well for worse UNLESS this happens. As someone so young I just don't want you to settle for something now just to set yourself up for more hurt, heartbreak and even divorce in your future.

 

 

Ok I KNOW you were done hearing about the boyfriend so I will move on now to the FWB and your best friend.

 

 

FWB regardless if you are in a relationship or not (because you already know that was wrong) is a very slippery slope. Us as women were made to be in relationships. We want it to feel loved, important, cherished and number one. And when we give ourselves physically to someone (esp if there is a friendship too) it bonds and attaches us to that person. IF you are going to have one of these people it is best to have them in your life JUST as a FWB. Not as a friend too because that is when you get hurt. Guys are more geared to just have sex and nothing more. Women, not so much. That is why it is called a booty call because you ONLY call these people for that one thing. Not to confide in them, or open your soul to them. That is what girlfriends are for.

 

 

So now onto your best friend. PLEASE PLEASE do not think I am being patronizing to you because I don't mean it this way BUT at your age a lot of young adults are just finding out what true friendships are about. I sometimes think the art of learning how to be a true friend and find good friends is more painful then finding a good guy. The fact that you felt jealousy toward your best friend due to her looks and there was a tiny bit of competition in your heart toward her just shows you two had not gotten to the point of true friendship. I am sure you two had a blast hanging out with each other & talking and sharing things but true friendship there is no jealousy, no competition, not one friend feeling less then the other. It's about two people loving each other unconditionally, lifting each other up, calling each other out when they are messing up, being loyal, honest, wanting the best for the other, and letting no one..ESPICALLY a man come between you.

 

 

Your friend hurt you because her words did not match her actions. She was dishonest to you and that is the crux of the matter. You figured out some of the feelings you were harboring toward her she was toward you too and it felt like she "WON"

 

 

In black and white she did not do anything wrong because he was not yours to own and you were in a relationship. But she broke the girl code. If you two had a healthy friendship she should have said: "Actually I am attracted to him too & yes if you are ok with it since you have a boyfriend I would like to see where this could go.

And if you had a healthy friendship with her and FWB you would ultimately just want them both to be happy. You would say: "Well that was fun for me when it lasted but I love my BF so I know it cannot turn into anything for me so I want them to have the best. I think he is great & I think she is great so good luck to both of them but dang it is going to be weird I have seen my best friend's guy naked!" LOLOL

Unfortunately that is not how it went down because nothing about any of the relationships rather it be with your BF, your FWB, or your GF was healthy.

I promise eventually the pain will fade & in the meantime work on yourself getting healthy so you can have healthy relationships. I am proud of you for getting in counseling. That is the first step! Based off the fact you have this need to be wanted, chosen, first and the attention you need to feel good about yourself makes me think your parents might have failed you. Otherwise you would be able to see yourself for the beautiful woman you are turning into & you will not need validation from people. Rough bump in your life but you are still growing up. I am sorry you are hurting but I hope you can take from this experience the areas you need to change, the type of friends you want and the type of friend you need to be.

Sorry for being so long winded. Keep us updated!

 

First of all, I want to give my big sincere thanks to you for taking the time to type all of that. You are so right- my friendship with her wasn't even healthy. It was one big competition for me and I'm pretty sure she probably never even saw me as a friend- she was just really nice to me like she was to everyone. Come to think of it... she basically treated me like she treated everyone else even though she was supposed to be my "best friend". It was never even real.

 

I decided long ago not to marry my boyfriend. I know in my heart it won't end well and the reasons you have make a ton of sense. To be honest, I can't guarantee that I won't cheat on him again especially now that I know there are more attractive men that would make love to me and could be better at it. I'm actually considering breaking it off with him.

 

My dad was never really apart of my life. He gave me, my mother or my siblings no love at all. He's mentally ill and I believe something happened in war that caused him to lose ALL of his ability to show affection. All he ever did was pay the bills and punish us when we misbehaved. That's all he ever did. I do believe he's a big reason for my craving for affection and validation from men.

[Justanaverageguy]

The first visit he gave us homework to list 10 reasons we wanted to marry the other. The following week we giddily turned in our homework.

1. He makes me laugh

2. She cares and is kind to my family.

3. He makes me feel beautiful

etc. etc. etc. My Dad read over our list of everything the other person did for the other & he said: "Both of you are not ready to get married."

 

We were properly offended. HELLO we had been together for four years!! How dare he tell us that. Then he went on to explain.

"Globug, there will be a day that he does not make you laugh or make you feel beautiful. The stress of a family, job, day to day life might wear him down & he will not be able to give you all he does now. What would be holding your marriage together then? Globug fiancée....what if something happens in your family that deeply hurts Globug and she can no longer care or be kind to your family? What then? Basically if you are marrying the other person for what they can do for you or to you then you are marrying with stipulations. Because as soon as they stop doing those things are you going to give up on the marriage?

 

Wise words - wise man ?

[Globug]

Wise words - wise man ?

 

My daddy was a wise man. I miss him dearly.

[Globug]

First of all, I want to give my big sincere thanks to you for taking the time to type all of that. You are so right- my friendship with her wasn't even healthy. It was one big competition for me and I'm pretty sure she probably never even saw me as a friend- she was just really nice to me like she was to everyone. Come to think of it... she basically treated me like she treated everyone else even though she was supposed to be my "best friend". It was never even real.

 

I decided long ago not to marry my boyfriend. I know in my heart it won't end well and the reasons you have make a ton of sense. To be honest, I can't guarantee that I won't cheat on him again especially now that I know there are more attractive men that would make love to me and could be better at it. I'm actually considering breaking it off with him.

 

My dad was never really apart of my life. He gave me, my mother or my siblings no love at all. He's mentally ill and I believe something happened in war that caused him to lose ALL of his ability to show affection. All he ever did was pay the bills and punish us when we misbehaved. That's all he ever did. I do believe he's a big reason for my craving for affection and validation from men.

 

I wanted to ask about the involvement of your father but I didn't want it to sound like I was trashing your parents or making assumptions. It is a proven fact that the majority of the time girls are raised without their dad's being a part of their life tend to keep looking for that love in romantic relationships. I am proud of you that you can be honest with yourself that you can't guarantee you won't cheat on him because there are more attractive men out there. Go see what's out there!! You are young!!!! But as you explore keep working on yourself so when you are ready for a relationship that is more then just sex and physical attraction you will be as ready to give unconditional love as well as receive it!