In love with friend’s DH

[kerrypacker]

Not really an AIBU (as I am BU, obviously - but not intentionally so!) Just wondering whether anyone else has experienced this, and if so how on earth did you handle it?! Good friend (from uni, now live in different cities but see each other every so often) has gradually got more serious with their now recently-married DH, which means I have over time got to know friend’s DH (FDH) better. To my horror as I get to know him better I’ve started to feel like this is someone I could really deeply fall for - everything I’ve ever looked for. Not something I would ever act on, and friend and FDH are very happy so it would make no difference if I did.

I’m trying to keep this brief, but it’s horribly upsetting. It’s not a situation I’ve looked for at all, and I’m not someone who typically falls for or goes after people in relationships. I’m also not talking about shallow feelings - they are powerful and I’m really struggling to get over this man.

There isn’t any solution really, but if anyone has experienced the same, that would (weirdly) be some comfort… not that I would wish this on anybody.

Not read the whole thread but i think that "unrequited love" exists.
I also think unrequited love speaks 110% about the person feeling the unrequited love towards the person not reciprocating it and less than 0% about the object of the persons unrequited love.
I don't doubt OP feels what she feels. I do doubt this bit "everything Ive ever looked for".
How do you know he is everything you ever looked for - he is not actually giving you anything at all is he? No affection, (presumably) very little if any attention, no emotional interaction, nothing sexual. So when you say "everything I've ever looked for" what you mean is he ticks a shopping list of things you hoped for in a man, you have observed from afar how he interacts with his partner and made some assumptions about that (which might be wrong and could very well be wrong as the assumptions will assume stuff about what happens in private between this person and his partner).
All this stops you spending energy on finding someone who is genuinely a good match for you. I'd say it gives you very useful information but only useful information that at this stage in your life it is safer for some reason for you to go after/devote your thoughts/time/energy to someone unattainable. Ask yourself why? That is really useful for yourself in a way the wishing and pining is not.

I think people are riled up because the pro-limerence (for lack of a better word!) Folk are very quick to cry limerance for any feeling that is strong and for someone where your relationship doesn't have a Hollywood movie structure to it. Many of the things that people describe as limerance is a crush. Crushes can be strong, it doesn't mean to devalue the feelings. There's also that stage where you really like someone for who they are, so more than a crush, but you're not yet in love. And of course there's love of all types - unrequited, long lasting even after the relationship ends, etc. It's frustrating when you're in love or experiencing a crush to be told it's just a obsession with a fancy name. It feels like devaluing of feeling, or trying to find an almost medical condition to explain away behaviour, like "hysteria". As a comparison, I remember my mum very clearly telling me, when I was 16 years old, that I wasn't really in love because teenager love isn't real. Well I'm twice as old now as I was then and I can safely say that if that wasn't love, then I've never been in love. It has always felt exactly the same to me (and I knew even at 16 that she was talking shit). Anyway. Being told you have limerance feels to me like that.

OP - I think you should switch this on its head, and take great pleasure in your own abilities of self control. This shows that you love your friend. And you are a strong person able to excercise her own free will. It's fine to feel what you feel, just let it ride it's course and eventually you'll fall for someone else (p.s. ask him if he has any brothers....)

It's really common - if OP had posted on the relationships board, a lot of people would have said this word to her by now! There are some really good resources online now. I like the Crappy Childhood Fairy on youtube - but she's by no means the only person to talk about this.

‘Ignore it, it’s just nature trying to get you pregnant’ has to be the quote of the thread 🤣. Never has a truer word been written. Fucking nature!!! Always messing things up.

OP I wonder if this guy is ‘twinkly’? If he is they fall under the bracket of charismatic and everyone fancies them. It’s a Russel Brand kind of magnetic pull. Funny, attentive, interested. Often handsome, well put together with a good job into the bargain.

"It's what the OP is experiencing" 😆

Thank you, armchair Freud! Amazing how confidently you can diagnose someone without knowing anything about their childhood or personality.

Thanks! I’ve just learnt to deal with it tbh

I am single at the moment which tends to be the best way as it’s hard to be in a rl relationship whilst getting these feelings.

Its not all bad though - I’ve managed to start learning a new language and have loads of motivation due to the most recent one - might as well use it for something!

Having a crush on someone may or may not be limerent or turn into limerence. For many of us, our first crushes were on, e.g. popstars and while they may have been consuming, we were aware that the object of our crush was unobtainable and that these were just fun daydreams. A person in limerence may begin to see 'signs' that the object of the crush is interested in her too, OR she feels unable to wrench her mind from the obsession she has. It can become extremely painful, as OP expresses. You don't actually want to have these feelings, but they are fulfilling a subsconscious need and as such they are very powerful.

Is there a blurred line between a crush and full on limerence? Yes, for sure, I'd say so. But as an adult, I think any crush is a kind of limerence. Adults can be attracted to one another, lust and desire one another, and maybe even fantasise about the other - but to have an obsessive crush on another person as an adult is not psychologically healthy. You lose yourself in limerence - you stop dealing with your own issues, you escape from loneliness, you stop living in reality because you become consumed by feelings of love and despair. That's not a normal, healthy attraction to another adult where you could say, oh dear I need to stop looking at my friend's husband in that light, it's inappropriate, and just switch off from it. If you can't do that, then yes, you are in some form of limerence.

I'm just going by what OP has said - how distressed she is by her feelings, how she feels unable to stop feeling this way.

Not sure why it would upset you to think that OP has a mental health issue? But sorry if I've triggered you in some way. All the best.

I feel for you OP. It's a rubbish situation and a lose/lose as to avoid him you will also end up losing your friend. It can't be helped and it's really rubbish all round.

That sounds really positive. I suspect it's highly likely that the more you focus on these fulfilling and rewarding parts of life, the less you will be susceptible to limerence in the future as well.

Ahh OP has already been diagnosed. MN has turned really condescending and full of BS diagnoses of ND and MH issues.

I agree with you @AmazingSnakeHead, it's frustrating for those with MH issues and the mention of triggering is petty and condescending. Let's hope certain posters don't actually work with genuinely vulnerable people.

It really is - and I have been in this position too.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I've been through this for many years and it doesnt get any easier because they're family friends so can't cut off our connection as you normally would. I can't give any sensible advice, but just to say I understand what you're going through. Reading your post actually gave me some comfort x

Yeah this is bollocks. Of course you can stay friends with her and rarely see him.

How many of us drag our DP along when we meet a single female friend for coffee/cinema/whatever? If she is doing that I would drop her anyway.

I feel for you OP, you have opened up here and got slated for revealing yourself, even though you are committed to doing the right thing.
Don't judge yourself as harshly as loads on this thread, a bit of self-compassion will help you get over it quicker. We are all human, and you are committed to finding the right line to walk. Good luck.

@5YearsLeft I'm sorry about this, it sounds truly awful. I don't have any words of wisdom, just my heart goes out to you.

Nothing wrong with how you're feeling. Can you avoid him and just meet your friend? Or even avoid them both for a bit?

The good thing, I've found anyway, with limerance is once you know it's that you can see how silly it is! I can then see there isn't this perfect person, and no if onlys, about it at all- I've just attached to someone nice and kind because I'm a bit lonely and it would be nice to have a nice kind person in my life. I find seeing it for what it is, a delusion of the brain, probably to fill a gap in you regarding needing love and affection, it's much easier to stop thinking about it and if I dom I just think 'oh there I go again' rather than treating it like a real thing that I'm being denied.

Also, of course you don't need to see the person, friends can easily do a girly chat, or meet for coffee or you can say can we meet just the two of us as I could do with a moan about men/love life! If that doesn't appeal, then be honest- you are using her to spend time with him and that's not ok and over the borderline of behaviour, it also won't help you move on, which I'm sure you will.

Thanks!

I think it’s easier when it’s famous people though as you know you can’t act on it. It must be really hard when it’s like the OP and someone they know in rl, albeit obtainable.

That said, I agree the OP should definitely focus on not being anywhere near this person and getting over the crush feelings.

@Highdaysandholidays1 I was about to say, “Ach, it’s okay, we live, we learn…” but then I realized… ha. So just, “Ach, it’s okay, we learn.”

Without humor, it would have honestly killed me… even more quickly…

Examine why you want someone you can’t have.

Lots of the time this will go back to our attachment style and family dynamics as a child.

Id work with a therapist to get to the root of this. In the mean time I would tell my friend I was having some issues (tired, stressed with work, feeling low) and just say you don’t really have time to see her for a bit. Stay in contact over the phone/ texting / SM whatever.

After working with a therapist hopefully you’ll have a better insight into yourself and you’ll be able to see her and her OH without causing yourself (or them) any pain.

Don’t be silly. I didn’t ‘do’ anything other than ride out strong feelings I did nothing to encourage in total silence. That’s the only honourable way to proceed when feelings are unrequited or one or both people aren’t single. We’re still friends, and he’s divorced. I’m still happily married.

The OP hasn’t said how well she knows this man. It could be that she knows him very well. I have made friends with people I originally met through their partners/spouses and in some cases that friendship has become as close or closer than the original one. There’s no mileage in telling her she’s just being silly and deluded, and that she doesn’t know him, and he’s probably awful and farts in bed and doesn’t empty the dishwasher. He may be great. It could be that they’d have been great together if they’d met in other circumstances. It’s completely irrelevant, as they met in these circumstances, where he isn’t free.

She needs to sit with the feelings, however painful, and not act on them.

Why are you so offended on behalf of the “genuinely vulnerable people” that op’s fantasy/ obsession is in her head. and therefore a mental health issue?

Mental health is a vast umbrella term to describe the state of mind of a person.

Op is upset, fixated on a fantasy and feels traumatised/ distressed by her obsession. You don’t have to be Freud to detect that

I think this poster is spot on.

@kerrypacker can you explain why you are unable to see this friend without her DP?