Male friend told me he's in love with me.

[moustachio]

That's it really. A very good long-term male friend told me a few weeks ago that he's always been in love with me.

I am happily married, my friend knows that and I don't really know why he suddenly decided to tell me his feelings. We have always got on so well but now it's really awkward.

Do you think it can go back to normal again?

Oh dear. Not sure things can go back with you now knowing his feelings, must be a really awkward situation for you. You say you're happily married so you don't have any feelings for him then?

No I have never thought of him in that way. I care about him a lot of course and would hate not to have him as a friend. My DH doesn't know what my friend said, I don't think he would be very happy.

I think they can go back to normal, but it will take a long long time and you'll have to play it very carefully - be sensitive, but not so sensitive that you feed it and make him think there is any chance.

Lots of space for a bit (explain first) might help.

Don't spend ages talking about it with him, it just keeps the whole drama going.

I used to be in love with my best friend for AGES and made all those mistakes - hoping he'd leave his girlfriend, endlessly wanting to talk to him about it, sleeping with him when he was single (he probably shouldn't have let that happen!), and it just dragged on. Some space helped - I got out more, met other people and it distracted me until I realised I was over him (and met my husband...!)

Bongo that sounds like such a hard situation - good you are now truly moved on! Since he told me I feel like I've been analysing everything say and everything he says whenever we meet which is not fun!

everything I say, that should read

He probably won't 'get over it' until he meets someone else or his life takes a different direction. I agree that it won't do any good talking about it. I know it must seem very awkward at the moment but, as you said, you haven't done anything to lead him on and so you can just be normal.

He must know his announcement wouldn't get him anywhere, but maybe the agony of unrequited love got the better of him. I expect he feels fairlly mortified at the moment, and maybe even scared you'll tell you dh.

If you say anything, just say that you're very flattered but be firm and tell him you both know nothing will ever hapoen as you don't see him in that way. Make an effort to keep things 'normal' for him and be your usual self (even if it feels mortifying at the moment.) But maybe this will help him reliase he's on a hiding to nothing loving you and it will force him into getting himself out there a bit and not see so much of you. Hopefully, his feelings will fade over time until they're platonic again.

Thank you.

I normally tell my DH everything so this feels very weird for me, however I don't think there's anything to be gained by iy, and like you say, not nice for my friend to know I've passed on information.

I do feel flattered and I told him that. I didn't really need to say anything else as he knows the situation, obviously he just couldn't not say it any longer.

Now that he has declared his feelings for you, it should have become clear to you that you and him have different agendas when you and him meet up. Do you feel comfortable meeting up with him at all?

I think you and he need to agree some distance. He's been honest which is very brave of him, but equally you must both be clear by now that the feelings aren't mutual and aren't likely to be given husband/children. He's only going to get over it by moving on himself - which basically needs to involve him marking you 'unavailable/gone' mentally, which your physical proximity won't make easy.

Has he been single for a long time? Does his passion for you date to after your marriage? I ask because IME quite often lonely men fall for 'safe' women whom they can then idolise without having the pressure of having to act on the emotion. If this is the case with your friend, it may be that confessing his love is a positive step forward as he's moving out of that fantasy stage back into reality.

We've known each other since well before I married. He has been mainly single. Maybe this is some kind of moving-on strategy for him, I never thought of it like that.

It makes me so sad to think we might not be able to see each other as much, but I agree, it could be a good idea at least for a while.

Will be very hard to say that to him though.

I know it's completely unjustified, but I feel a bit annoyed with him for "spoiling" our easy friendship! We always used to have such a laugh together, could talk about everything, and now it's all complicated.

Yes that's a different situation you are describing.

i do understand re the spoiling of the friendship! Been there, done that. Without meaning to offend you, it's possible that things were so brilliantly easy because he was in love with you, which always makes people very easy to be with! Clearly you have lots in common anyway, or he wouldn't have fallen for you.

Perhaps don't mention that you're backing off, just subtly be unavailable to meet unless with lots of other fiends. You could keep communication channels open but don't refer to your decision, or to his anouncement, or any feelings it has raised of either of you, so he can be clear you are moving on (it would be v mean and crossed-signals to keep talking in lots of depth about each other's feelings until he's well and truly moved on i think).

Also agree it's difficult re telling the husband. Leave it until it's old news I think and just say your friend seems to be busy at the mo if he notices you're no longer hanging out so much.

Also meant to to say - changing the rules of this relationship is going to be a wrench for both of you, even if it's only him in love. You have both clearly invested a lot of emotional commitment in the relationship and both need to put similar amount so energy into changing how you relate to each other, and coping with that. So you might have to find a new person to be so emotionally open with...

Before DH I was in a relationship with a man who was in love with one of his female friends (although he didn't admit it to me until much later). It was impossible, as they shared a hobby so were together a lot, and I could TELL that he liked her, and it made interaction with her very hard for me, however much I tried to think that it wasn't her fault, I was jealous and didn't really want anything to do with her.

So, be prepared that if you do stay friends, and he does get a partner, that might not be the end of your difficulties, and may throw up new ones with your DH.

I think you're absolutely right to be annoyed with him, he has put you in an awful positon.

Hello, I can see this must be very difficult and uncomfortable for you. (I'm a bloke, by the way.)

Trying to see why he'd do this, I think it must be that he wanted to see if you felt in the least bit similar. He must have known that it was a very risky strategy, with potentially everything to gain - or lose. Obviously, his fear of not being with you if he possibly could overcame his fear of the chilling effect on your friendship if he got this wrong. So he probably has overwhelming feelings for you.

And in that situation, what can anyone do? Say what we think, rather than facing a lifetime of regretting something that (erroneously in this case) could have been.

But a bit of a shock for you, I realise. How can you, frankly, behave as if nothing happened? He will still be looking for evidence that you're not sure, or that little tiny part of you is avaialable. Depending on how obsessive he is, that could keep him going for ages.

It will really, really hurt him but you just have to back right off and not be with him 1:1. Don't explain yourself or get embroiled in what he said to you, but you could perhaps just say that he's a valued/dear/lovely / whatever appropriate expression friend and are sure that in time he can find someone else to love. That's a kind thing.

This thread recalls one a few weeks ago in which a MNer was asking whether it was safe to have close male friends who were married or in a relationship.

similarly

Do you know what, I have known people that do this sort of thing and it is CRAP. I don't know why everybody is ascribing some sort of pure as the driven snow motives to this guy, it's a horrible thing to do to someone.

It puts him in a position of power over you. You and he now share a secret, a little lovely secret about him 'loving' you. You are at his mercy, you can't tell anyone because then they would shun him or at least pity him. And of course you can't tell your husband because then your DH wouldn't want to see him!! So you and he have this secret, and you can be pretty certain that he'll remind you of it in little subtle ways, certain looks and touches, whenever you're together.

Basically now that you know, he'll be able to flirt with you and you'll have to accept it because you can't tell anyone so he can have his little nasty fantasies of you leaving your husband and children for him.

If I were you, I'd tell my husband, and then I'd stop seeing this guy unless there are a million other people there who all know how ridiculous he's been.

I agree with letsblow, it's leverage for him if he knows you won't tell your husband.
How awful will it be to be out somewhere with your H and this guy, both knowing something your husband doesn't. I couldn't keep something like that from mine.

If you don't tell your hb (understandably) then would suggest you deal with it in a way that hb could not reproach you for if he did find out. This probably means being unambiguous with your bf, so there are no misunderstandings or false hope. Your relationship with your dh doesn't want to be shaken by this.

Thank you again, wise people....

I don't want everyone to think badly of my friend, perhaps it wasn't his best idea to pour out his heart at this point in time but I get the impression he didn't necessarily plan it. I can't believe I didn't realise before, I guess, like omaoma said, we are so used to the easy friendship we've enjoyed for so long hat I just didn't question anything.

It does make me wonder about male-female friendships actually. Maybe I've been really naive, but I will feel a huge loss if I can't talk to him openly like we always have done. I think the gradual backing off for the immediate future is probably the best way, I don't want to hurt him. And then we're going to need very clear boundaries.

He is a lovely friend and I don't feel (at the moment anyway) that this will become a "power" thing at all. It just feels like the elephant in the room at the moment.

I can see why you wouldn't want to think badly of him, after all you've been friends with him for ages!

But it's not healthy, what he's done. Healthy people don't pine over unattainable objects for years on end. Healthy people don't say, "the love of my life is marrying someone else today. Le sigh." and then keep on dangling. A healthy way to deal with it would have been to have told you BEFORE you got married and then if you said no way, to bugger off and find someone else who likes him back.

I think it's either a way to control you and to control his relationship with you or it's a roundabout way of saying "look I fancy you, do you want to have an affair?" (and also control you with his great enduring love for you.)

Personally, I wouldn't continue this friendship. It's clearly not healthy for him and it won't be healthy for you in the long run--he will get you under his thumb in one way or another. And tell your DH. If you really want to say nothing, cut it off clean with your friend and make up something to for your DH, but don't continue to see the guy without your DH knowing what he's up to. It's not fair on your DH (unless you want to have an affair.)

I feel I have to add a different experience to letsblow: it is possible to fall in love with the wrong person and be unable to escape that emotion, notwithstanding it being unhealthy and unhelpful for everybody. In fact my DH had a v similar experience with me - we met at university, became friends and only got together after an intense long-term rel of mine I got into almost immediately after we met, failed; after it became clear to me what the depth of his feelings were it still took a year or two for me to finally realise I reciprocated. He had been pretty independent and pursued other relationships while I was unavailable; and he really didn't push the issue with me by eg, declaring love (although EVERYBODY knew how he was crazy about me). But if that original rel of mine had carried on he might have been in the same situation as Moustachio's friend, 10 years on.

I'm not saying mine is the right reading, but you understand why this guy's position resonates with me.

I liked your story omaoma.

Like I said before, I don't know why he has suddenly decided to share his feelings. I've wondered if he's been regretting it since, but we've hardly talked about it, I think we've both been avoiding the subject like mad.

We met around the same time I met my now DH, so it's not like there was ever a chance I could be more than a friend to him. He totally knows that, which is why I'm thinking this could be some letting-go exercise for him maybe?

I think for your own sake, you need to create distance. He will thank you in the end once he has a partner of his own, but it is impossible for him to find one if he thinks there is some sort of hope with you.
Think of friendship as a long term thing...at the moment, you need to put the stops on the intimacy you have till he mentally takes himself away from you and latches on to someone else. Only then, can you pick up.

But why would he think there is hope with me?

I agree about the distance though.