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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Flip

Original poster

you don't have to say you love me, just be close at hand...

20 replies

CoveredInBees · 02/03/2006 09:56

would you stay in relationship with someone, or stay friends with someone if you really passionately loved them and they didn't feel the same?

have you done it, or would you do it, just to spend time with or be with someone you love?

could you cope with the jealousy/insecurity?

or would you end a relationship with someone if they didn't feel the same as you?

OP posts:

hunkermunker · 02/03/2006 09:58

I think being in a relationship with them would be different from being friends with them. But I'm not sure if it would be better or worse.

Depends on how they treated me. If they were offhand and casual about me, I'd not want to spend time with them. If they were loving, but not as much as me - not sure - would probably spend time with, but not be in a relationship with - would feel it was selling myself short not to have someone feel about me as I felt about them.

But I have a very high opinion of myself

Piffle · 02/03/2006 10:01

I ended it
I was devastating at the time but there was no way we could be together long term and be happy.
I loved him totally, I found out I was pregnant and knew he could not commit the way I needed, so to avoid future heartbreak to my unborn child, I ended it a few weeks after I found out (exp is a musician and that comes first)
I also left NZ for the UK as I struggled to get over him with him around a lot. He has been a very good father I might add.
We are very close friends now...

Original poster

CoveredInBees · 02/03/2006 10:04

yes you're right hunkermunker, different being friends
how do you cope with your feelings now piffle? do you still feel love? are you jealous if he has other reationships?

OP posts:

TambaTheDragonSlayer · 02/03/2006 10:27

I agree with Hunker i think. Although I would probably fall into a relationship with them and end up very hurt knowing me!

kleggie · 02/03/2006 11:22

I am really really sorry and apologise profusely in advance for not having anything constructive to say, but...

I LIKE MY COFFEE LIKE I LIKE MY WOMEN...COVERED IN BEES!

I love your name, please tell me it's Eddie Izzard related?

Okay, something constructive, because I feel guilty now, would never continue a relationship where the other person didn't feel the same.

I'M COVERED IN BEES!!!!!!

Aherm

harpsichordcarrier · 02/03/2006 11:34

that's right Kleggie I toyed with: "bitjammybitclangy" and "lookoverthereabadgerwithagun" but liked this one better

harpsichordcarrier · 02/03/2006 11:37

oh bugger there goes my cover
god I am rubbish at the name changing
(BTW newbies, I didn't get ignored...)
my friend was talking about this to me this morning, about someone she has been inlove with for ever
she feels the same, he likes her and they have had some casual encounters but (my observation) she is not his type because she is too overweight
but she enjoys just being in touch with him
says it is OK when he is seeing someone, but worse when he is just looking
personally it would drive me all sorts of crazy
but like hunker I have high self esteem issues
a superiority complex if you will

ABadgerWithAGun · 02/03/2006 11:47

If she could cope with seeing him with other people then there wouldn't be a problem with her still seeing him but as can't bear to see him on the lookout then she's going to end up making herself miserable. It sounds to me as if she has low self-esteem, and hanging around when it hurts so much isn't going to help with her self-esteem at all.

TambaTheDragonSlayer · 02/03/2006 11:47

Poor girl.

(I did notice you had blown your cover when you posted but didnt post a reply incase you were hoping it died and youd never have to fess up )

Surely being in a relationship like that though, you would never feel you were enough, never feel valued or anything other than second best. I couldnt stand that personally. Maybe like you say, we have too high opinions of ourselves, but when im in a relationship I need to know I am loved and wanted (sometimes to the point of almost suffocating the poor bloke) and if i felt that our feelings were on too entirely different levels then i would start to back off and try and keep my feelings in check - as a sort of self protctive thing. Less likely to get hurt.

Maybe she needs to spend some time on her. Get new clothes, get her hair done and have a night out where she can feel totally glam and show her that there is more to life than playing second best to someone that likely only wants to know when he cant find anything better

harpsichordcarrier · 02/03/2006 11:48

she has MAJOR low self esteem ABWAG
she is only OK with him seeing other people because she can convince herself thay are not a threat
(she's right actually, he chooses thin pretty STOOOOPID head case girls. he has problems too.)

Mazzystar · 02/03/2006 11:50

I reckon she needs to get a bit of distance. Or she will never find someone who WILL love her back.

harpsichordcarrier · 02/03/2006 11:51

I know Tamba
she ends up onthe phone to me about it
when I say move ON darling she says oh well maybe you have never been in love like this
tbh maybe she's right. I would never put myself through this, if someomne isn't interested and in fact wildly enthusiastic about me I just wouldn't get involved. end of

acnebride · 02/03/2006 11:55

spent 3.5 years patching together a relationship with someone who wasn't very committed. It was absolutely awful, in retrospect. When we finally split for good I didn't deal with it at all and was engaged to my first husband within six months just to prove that somebody wanted me.

feel quite sorry for both the poor s*ds now.

ABadgerWithAGun · 02/03/2006 11:55

Can she not see that love isn't love when it's only one way? This is infatuation - if she carries on she will either make herself ill or freak him out.

Actually, if he knows about this then I think he has to take a lot of the blame - it might be a big ego boost to him but it's unfair of him to keep her trailing like this.

Is her relationship with him so big to her that she is avoiding having other relationships of her own? Because if it is then I would suggest she needs help - counselling or something like that.

Mazzystar · 02/03/2006 11:56

Does she believe that one day, somewhow, he will "come round" and see her differently? It always amazes me that some people have no self-preservation instincts.

Has she been hurt before? Its sometimes safer to be "in love" and committed to someone who doesn't want to be with you, then you don't have to have a real relationship.

BudaBabe · 02/03/2006 12:02

Agree with Mazzystar - it sounds a bit like a self-preservation thing to me as well. And the weight could also be part of it. If she lost weight and he still wasn't interested, then what? So she stays overweight, admiring from afar and doesn't get hurt. Except of course that she is wasting her time and prob not open to meeting anyone who will love her for herself.

Bugsy2 · 02/03/2006 12:13

I think grown-up love (i.e.not that for your children) has to be a two way process. What your friend is describing is adoration, infatuation - possibly even mild obsessive love.
I think she would be leaving herself wide open for mega amounts of pain if she tried to continue in a relationship with someone who isn't loving her back.

RedZuleika · 02/03/2006 21:32

I found myself in a situation some years ago, in love with a man I had been friends with for some time. He was in love with me, but still in a relationship he had led me to believe he was going to finish previously. Had I known he was still with her, I would never have allowed us to become closer. He didn't know how to tell me they were still seeing each other and since they were temporarily living apart for various practical reasons, she wasn't immediately in evidence.

Nothing physical had happened at the point that he finally told me about her and I (absolutely gutted) said that I wouldn't see him while he was still with her. We agreed to write to each other (very nineteenth century...).

What with moving and new jobs and the such like, it took him quite some time to break with her - and I couldn't go on like that. And I thought that maybe he didn't really want to finish it, but couldn't tell me that either.

So I went to Israel and sent him a letter from Heathrow saying that I couldn't do it anymore.

I think one has to get a firm grip on oneself and think that one doesn't deserve the pain. And find distractions. Tel Aviv may have been taking it a bit far though.

turniphead · 02/03/2006 21:34

maybe, maybe not, depends on the turnip

pebblemum · 02/03/2006 22:46

Ive been in this situation with a close friend. We had known each other forever and gradually my feelings for him changed. There was a few times I thought he felt the same and we had a few 'encounters' (not sexual by the way) but as I wasnt sure exactly how he felt i never did anything about it. We had such a great friendship i was scared of losing that if we got too close and it didnt work out. In the end we drifted apart, i met dh and my friend decided to keep his distance. I miss our friendship. I still think about him now and again but more in a 'wonder how he is' way than the 'i fancy the pants off him' way i used to.

I feel for your friend. It is very hard being in a situation like that. My friend knew everything about me, he helped me through tough times, he was special (and very sexy!)I used to love being around him and for a while I was content with that but then I realised that if I carried on the way i was going i would have ended up a very lonely woman. If he had declared his love for me it would have been different but because i was unsure of his feelings i knew i had to try to move on which was when i met dh. I can understand how hard it might be for your friend to let go but for her own piece of mind she needs to try to move on. If her friend does have genuine feelings for her then he will do something about it, if not she needs to get on and enjoy life.

Flip