FWB for 4.5 years and have just fallen in love with him. Need help.
I am against relationships. My horrible abusive prior marriage fucked me up so badly. I can't describe the shock when he walked out and left me alone in a foreign country, where we had made our lives, and the longterm depression that followed. I've seen the underbelly of relationships and now I can never un-see it. This total lack of faith in commitment is how I managed to stay feelings-free for so long. I do not believe in love. Everyone's out for themselves and male love is so shallow, all based on looks. You only have to look at the difference between how slim women and larger women are treated to see that. I have been both. When I was very slim, many years ago, the power I had with men was insane. It's truly pathetic.
He's a filthy dirty sexy man who has been lovely to me for a long time, and 18 months ago told me that he loves me. We don't that near, about an hour apart, so there's a built-in stop, which suits me well. I know he was unfaithful in his last marriage, which is a big thing that put me off. I figured that I was so broken about relationships and they were all crap and that I'd rather be hung up by my thumbs than ever marry or live with anyone again, so I might as well sleep with the sexy rogue. I could not ever imagine having anything but in-the-moment feelings for anyone again.
Maybe you would call it a casual relationship rather than FWB.
He's just lost his second parent and he sent me a link to the hundreds of family photos he's putting into a video. I made the mistake of looking at them, and I saw how gorgeous he was down the years, and still is, and how lovely his family is, and I don't know, it's done something to me. He looks so good in his new suit for the funeral. Now I'm sitting here playing teenage love songs and contemplating sending him Falling by Angry Anderson! It wouldn't be inappropriate, he's said he loves me many times, but I don't believe him. If he can cheat on his former wife and the mother of his children, he can do it to anyone.
I think relationships are a pile of utter horseshit. They promise the earth and then let you down from a great height. And don't get me started on marriage. Most people shouldn't be married. Most cannot live up to the promises of marriage. So I see no point, except to have sexy in-the-moment fun, and we have had a ton of that.
Now, how do I get out of these feelings? Withdraw a little? Throw a bucket of cold water over myself? See other people? I have actually tried that over the years, and found a couple of people I liked who ruined it by getting really sexual really fast. My FWB has excellent bedroom manners. I haven't really tried to date others in ages because my dad got cancer in 2022 and died in 2025.
YABU - Go for it with him. Send the song, fall into his arms, throw caution to the wind.
YANBU - Making a conscious decision not to play the love game is a perfectly reasonable approach to life if the stakes are too high for you. Withdraw gracefully.
I'm too old to have kids and he has adult kids, so there's no issue with life trajectories or anything. We're past all that.