Cant stop loving my friend even though im married-help! (long thread, sorry but desperately confused)

[chickenmum]

Help, i dont know how but maybe if i just tell this to someone i may be able to move on.

I have been married for almost 4yrs but still have feelings for my friend. We havent seen each other properly since before i got married but my feelings wont go away.

Before meeting my dh i ws very close to this friend, we had supported each other when his dad died and i split from ds1's dad. Anyway as we grew closer i realised i loved him but was too scared to tell him how i felt for fear of ruining our friendship (we had known each other over 15yrs). I came close a couple of times but always chickened out at the last minute. It seemed that on a couple of occasions he ws waiting for me to say something but because i ws scared i didnt. He told me he loved me once but he thought i ws asleep at the time, then on another occassion he asked for a reason why he shouldnt phone a girl who had given him her number. Was he waiting for me to admit my feelings then? I wasnt sure so didnt risk it but then after walking me home one night we kissed properly for the first time. I still remember it, the only prob was we had both been drinking and the next day mt friend phoned to ask if he had done anything out of order the previous night as he couldnt remember. I wasnt sure if this was his way of saying it ws a mistake or asking if it was ok that he kissed me so i took the easy way out and said i couldnt remember either. All my friends/family knew how i felt and thought he felt the same but i ignored their advice.

Looking back now i cant beleive how stupid i was. I wish i had said something just in case. Things got worse about 2yrs ago when my nephew who worked with my friend told him how i had fancied him and everyone had expected us to get together. My nephew said my friend had looked at him sadly and said Oh no! but what does that mean. Did he mean oh no i should have told her how i felt or oh no she didnt did she?. I havent seen my friend since meeting my Dh he didnt even come to my wedding (which was before my nephew opened his mouth). The thing is I know that if he had turned up on my wedding day saying he loved me i would never have married Dh. I know that sounds horrible but as much as i love Dh it is nowhere near how i feel for my friend.

Also my marriage has never been 100% prfect, we argue all the time and i often feel neglected. When this happens i cant help thinking of my friend and what may have been if i hadnt been so scared.

Am I stupid for still feeling this way, can my marriage work if i love two men? Plese help i hate feeling like this but cant get my friend out of my head. He has probably forgotten about me by now but i just want to know if he ever felt the same as me. Should i try to track him down or try to ignore my feelings and get on with my life? Any advice welcome

I think you need to find out whether he felt the same for your own piece of mind as the always "wondering" will be there and you need to find some closure and move on with your life
whatever comes about
if he feels the same
do you think it would really work????
would you embark on an affair?????
would you leave you dh and set up with your friend ?????

if he does not reciprocate these feelings you have
will you stay married????

IMO if you are not in a happy marriage, get out of it and move on but I would allow yourself some space to move on and grow independantly as a person, before you embark on another relationship

Is it worth risking your marriage when you don't even know that your friend feels the same? If you act on your feelings and then find that he either didn't love you then, or doesn't love you now, you lose both men.

With regard to your marriage not being 100% perfect - show me a marriage which is. NO marriage is 100% perfect, and what's more no marriage will ever be anywhere near half way perfect if you don't work on it.

Maybe you should have said something at the time - but you didn't, and you can't change that now. If you love your dh then that's the relationship to work on. I have always said that if the grass is greener on the other side then you need to plant some more seeds on your own lawn - cherish what you have, rather than chasing rainbows.

Really not sure what I can say that's constructive.

Reckon he feels the same way from what you said. I also reckon that the issue is more about improving your relationship with the father of your children. Unfortunately when things aren't 100% it's very easy to dwell on old feelings for other men.

It is possible that if you'd pursued a relationship with the your friend you'd be having difficulties as well. It's difficult to compare feelings for a man you've been with for years and who has fathered your children with a dream of what life could have been like.

Is there any way you could try to improve your current relationship? I know this seems dull but I'm sure they'll be lots of people who followed a dream and it crumbled. I know many men who remarried and feel they traded a up and down relationship with another up and down relationship and can't tell you if they did the right thing or not. Of course they're men so never that wise.

what do you want to do chickenmum, if you are totally honest with yourself?

Dunno. If you have had children with your husband then you are in a spot of bother!

Let's just turn the focus away from you for a moment and look at other people. Your dh probably knows nothing of this and he's going to be hurt, upset, betrayed, etc. Just because you are not sure of your feelings for him does not mean to say that he is unsure of his feelings for you. If you have children, this is their father, leaving him would be bad enough, but leaving him to set up with another man would be insensitive to their feelings to say the least.
And this man, this friend of yours, is he in a relationship at the moment? You don't even know if he feels the same way about you, it could be a case of unrequited love!

I have a friend who was my best friend for a long time, many people presumed that we were going out but we weren't. It was more like brother and sister. He was a bit of a bad boy and I think he liked the fact that I was 'safe', in a way I had more respect than any of his girlfriends did. We are still very close and I would think nothing of meeting him in the pub for a drink without dh.

If you are unhappy in your marriage then do not lay the responsibility of that onto your friend's shoulders. If you want to leave, do so on your own steam. Do not leave for another man, I always think that's the lowest of the low. How would you feel if he rejected you? Could you still be happy in your marriage? If not then you either work on your marriage or you leave. But leave your friend out of it, this isn't about him, this is about you and your dh.

i may get shot for saying this but i think you should try and find out for closure. you cant live thinking what if, but dont do anything until your sure you can protect your children.. good luck and i hope you find some peace

FWIW I agree with prettyfly. I think you need to find out. I know that I couldn't live the rest of my life with such a huge "what if" hanging over me. I think that I would end up resenting my H (if I had one).

However, I do think it would be a good idea to think things through before you did plan to find out - how would finding out X Y or Z make you feel, and would it make you change anything in your life?

I know it is probably scary and seems difficult, but it really does sound as though you need to find this out.

xxx

Firstly, you should have a look at your own life and ask yourself some serious questions. Why did you marry your DH? Do you love him? If it wasn?t for the feelings you have for this friend, would you even be thinking of giving up your marriage? No marriage is perfect, but it can work if you want to make it work. If you love your DH and want your marriage to work, then you should sit down and have a talk about the things that are wrong in your relationship at the moment, and try to resolve to work those out. Have you been thinking about this friend for the past 4 years? Or has it only really been since there have been problems in your marriage. Sometimes when we?re going through a rough time it?s easy to start thinking about what could have been.

If you decide to make your marriage work, then you need to write off this friend as experience. You had the chance to tell him that you loved him and you didn?t, now you?ve moved on and that?s an end to it. There?s only room for two people in a marriage.

If you decide that you don?t want to work on your marriage then you should leave, but you should only leave because you don?t want to be with your DH any more, and not because of the feelings you have for this friend.

If you decide to leave your DH then I would leave it a few months before contacting this friend to find out if there is any chance of anything happening between him, and also bear in mind he may be in a relationship of his own by now.

I disagree with those that say you should find out to get closure. I think that finding out could have absolutely the opposite effect. If you contact him now and it turns out he did have feelings for you, you?re not just going to up leave because he?s said he loves you are you? You?d have to explore the possibility of a future with this man, and that means sneaking around, lying, having an affair, and all the hurt that goes with that, is that what you really want? And what if you went through all that and things didn?t work out ? you will have betrayed your DH and could potentially end up with nothing.

Thanks for all of your input. Im still not sure what I want but I do know I would never do anything to hurt my children and I am not planning on leaving my husband. I do love DH although he makes it very hard. He is never home, always out drinking, slags me off and is always threatening to leave but I stick with him because I dont want to hurt the kids. I expect most of you will think that all my feelings for my friend have resurfaced because of the problems in my marriage but No matter how much I love my dh I have never been able to forget him. I suppose the problems I am having have made me think more about what may have been but I made a decision when I got married and will stick with it as long as I can.

Part of me needs to know how my friend felt, for closure more than anything but at the same time I worry about how I would feel if he hadnt felt the same. I guess all the time I dont know, even though it drives me mad sometimes, I have that little bit of hope/fantasy. Even if he had loved me and still felt the same I would never embark on an affair or leave my dh for him, we have both made our choices in life and have to live with them. But at least I would know I hadnt imagined it all.

Im not sure what to do with regards to contacting my friend but I will continue with my marriage until a day when dh finally carries out his threat and leaves. I would try to work on it but after 2.5yrs of trying with no progress I think I would rather concentrate on my children.

I was 20 when i fell in love with my friend, i am now 28, I guess if I have lived with my feelings this long i can carry on. Who knows maybe when we are old and grey we may find each other again, maybe not but its a fantasy to dream of when things get tough!!

If your dh treats you that badly, what makes you think he loves you?
Describe a typical day for me will you?

I agree that you should not embark upon an affair. However what makes you think that it is doing your children any good to have a father who is never there, who comes home drunk and who slags off their mother? What makes you think that you should put up with this for their sake? What kind of adults would that make them? What are they learning about relationships from all of that?

By all means, if he is really that bad, then do what is best for your children. Pack up what self esteem, confidence and courage you have left and leave him! Or force him to leave you! Get hold of your solicitor, give him a bit of time to find somewhere else to live and then get on with the rest of your life. If after a certain amount of time you feel that you want to contact your friend again (if he is still single that is) then go ahead!

Putting up with this kind of treatment from your dh is not doing what is best for the kids.

Blimey I wouold contact the old mate and find out how he feels . You are young, dont waste your life on a man who threatens to leave you ad stays out at th epub. What sort of example is that to your kids?

Whatevr happens with your mate I would start leaving tbh!

i second what beety and rhuby say

Agree with what Beetroot and Rhubarb say - if u r not happy - get counselling or leave him.

Do not rely on your friend as a get out clause - I know you were good friends but as you know you don't 100% know what someone is like til you live with them and the initial excitement/lust wears off.

If you choose to leave - give it time, get your head together and your self esteem back. Then if you choose to tell him you are strong enough to handle whatever reply you are going to get.

I'm with Beety and Rhubarb on this.

Your DH suonds exactly the same as my XH. I tried and tried to make it work, to no avail. I eventually kicked him out in Nov/Dec. Now I am happy, happier than I have been for a LONG time.

I put up with a poor relationship for the sake of the kids and it was wrong. It was not until a counsellor from Womens Aid said I also had a responsibility to myself and my children adn that allowing bad things to happen was also partly up to me that I saw I must leave.

Sometimes allowing yourself to be treated badly is just ducking the hard questions and having an affair (which is what I had done) or allowing feelings to develop for someone else is again refusing to take responsiblity for your own feelings.

I am not saying that any of this is easy and I have made enough mistakes in sorting my own life out but in the end doing what is best for your kids is enabling them to live peaceful lives free from violence and/or bad behaviour and seeing that their mum is worth so much more.

I also agree that having space to sort out your own head before embarking on new relationships is important. Since my x left I have become a new person and the lessons I have learned about myself are really important. See leaving as an opportunity to create a fulfilling and valuable life for both you and the children and things will get better. Stay and I am afraid that unless you work very hard as a couple (that includes him!!!!!) things will not improve.

I hope you keep posting I have found the support here has given me enormous strength.