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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

Finally fancy him but...

89 replies

pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 18:34

I know I'm up for flaming here (thus the namechange), but I'll tell the background.

I have a good friend, we've been very close for about 8 years. For the first year he fancied me terribly but I didn't fancy him. He then got a girlfriend for a few years, then they broke up. We had a few snogs but nothing more - I wasn't all that interested then. He got another girlfriend and has been seeing her for several years. They live together.

We are still very close. We text almost daily, and have done for years. We visit each other and stay over in each other's beds (although nothing happens, although he used to fondle my hair sometimes if we were a bit pissed). We go out just with each other, rarely with her as well. If she does come out it's a very different night, and then she goes to bed while we stay up and giggle for hours. Pretty much everyone who knows us thinks we should be together and "would put money on it"- including the three different groups of strangers we met on a night out last Friday. At the end of the night we were pissed and walking down the street holding hands. There were one or two moments where I pulled away because I thought we might kiss. We went out for after work drinks again yesterday and do weekly.

I'm starting to realise that I actually really do fancy him after all.

I just think he needs to get his head sorted because if I was his girlfriend I wouldn't want him to treat another woman like he does me. It's not right. I can see that. He doesn't know that I've changed my mind. It's never been on the agenda - just good friends, although clearly a bit closer than it should be.

What do I do?

OP posts:
EdithWeston · 06/12/2012 22:00

You aren't his real life, you do know that, don't you?

He lives in a different city, has a serious girlfriend, career and social life there.

Your friends don't see you and him together in any serious way: it's teasing, another slice of unreality, based on trips back to the life he moved away from.

By all means tell him how you feel if you think there may be a chance, but if not reciprocated, wind down this friendship.

I am wondering what your relationship history has been in the years he has been with his long-term live-in girlfriend.

ravenAK · 06/12/2012 22:00

I have been here, sort of.

He fancied me, I said no thanks, we both went out with other people but continued with a slightly over-needy, over-close friendship for several years.

Then I decided I did want him, & drunkenly declared myself, only to have him tell me quite kindly that I'd had my chance & he was quite happy with his gf.

It was HORRIBLE.

They've just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. I'm good mates with both of them; more her than him these days tbh.

But we were all students. You are old enough to know better - this won't end well!

rednosedreindeerinthegarden · 06/12/2012 22:02

i guess that your friend's gf is maybe 13 years younger than you??? perhaps she is not as worried by you as she sees you as an older, desperate woman who is trying to cling on to her youth by spending time with a significantly younger man.

Of course, she may not think this; who know?. But, really, leave these two to their relationship, draw a line under it all and concnetrate on finding a lovely, available man that will be exclusively yours.

ShipwreckedAndComatose · 06/12/2012 22:03

The reasonable thing to do is to back right off until he is available. All the time he has a girlfriend, there is no other option.

Your emotional affair is screwing up any chance he has with his girlfriend and if you love him, you would give him the space to work it all out.

This is not just a friendship and you are in the role of OW

pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 22:05

Ah ravenAK I wonder if that will be the case. At least I think it might be the case with us. But either way something has to change because it is a bit confusing.

My relationship history? Had a 2.5 year, then a few small ones.

OP posts:
DreamsTurnToGoldDust · 06/12/2012 22:05

Why would you want to be with a man who is quite happy to share a bed with a friend whilst he has a partner?

pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 22:05

The gf is about 2 years younger than me.

OP posts:
DreamsTurnToGoldDust · 06/12/2012 22:07

Seriously, walk away find someone new and decent.

pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 22:09

shipwrecked my point is he doesn't know that i've changed my mind, and I don't know if he still feels the same way. I have said this already upthread.

rednosed I'm hardly a "desperate woman trying to cling onto her youth" but thanks for the description Wink

OP posts:
AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 06/12/2012 22:09

Can men and women be friends ?

That's a very disingenuous question, going off the rest of your thread

pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 22:10

Well, I genuinely thought we could, until recently.

OP posts:
AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 06/12/2012 22:12

You are taking your slating very well, OP. Fair play to you for that.

ErikNorseman · 06/12/2012 22:13

Yes but it's not friendship, sounds like it never has been
The dynamic has always been of him wanting you and you encouraging it. Not friendship.

pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 22:16

I knew I'd be up for a slating I'd probably be slating myself if this was another thread. I'm really a pretty level-headed person in real life. I don't want to be the OW. It's just that we had this wierd dynamic well before she was on the scene.

Maybe I have encouraged it. I've not considered that.

I think the answer is we need to clarify this wierd dynamic.

OP posts:
pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 22:17

weird, weird. I CAN spell.

OP posts:
AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 06/12/2012 22:20

why didn't you back off from this "weird dynamic" when she came on the scene then ?

do you think of him as "your property" and so you persisted in your closeness that is actually very wrong ?

that would be weird

pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 22:23

I don't really know. It was just such an entrenched part of how we related. There were a few periods where it was more neutral, and periods where it was more weird. Lately he's moved back to London and we are spending more time together and I've had a "gosh, actually he's lovely" reaction, and just not sure what to do about it.

OP posts:
AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 06/12/2012 22:26

spend less time together and stop feeding his ego

he must be strutting around like a dog with 2 dicks

making a tit of yourself with someone else's boyfriend is not a great booster of the ole self esteem

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 06/12/2012 22:27

I bet you'll say he isn't "strutting" though

you'll say he is a "sensitive" type

they are worse

Madeleine10 · 06/12/2012 22:29

I'm not sure what you want from this thread, please

It's pretty clear you want to tell him, and probably will. I hope nobody gets hurt if you go ahead, but I think it's extremely unlikely, whichever way it goes.

Have you thought that if he doesn't reciprocate your feelings, he may well tell his gf that you have declared them (as it were). Then what happens to your friendship?

I can,t imagine she will be happy for him to spend so much time with you in future - particularly not overnight - if she knows how you are thinking about him.

.

worsestershiresauce · 06/12/2012 22:31

It is possible for feelings to change, and it have nothing to do with fancying someone because they are no longer available. Plenty of marriages arise from platonic friendships, and some might say it is better to be friends first than realise you have nothing in common after lust wears off.

You have two choices - say nothing, and move on, or say something and risk losing a friendship. Don't have an affair with him though. That would be wrong on so many levels, and would hurt his girlfriend terribly.

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 06/12/2012 22:33

she already is having an affair with him

at least in her eyes

pleasedontjudge · 06/12/2012 22:35

Does he strut? Grin. He might be the 'more sensitive guy' tbh, now that is embarrassing. AF you do make me laugh out loud, love the idea of a dog with two dicks.

Yes I think I should back off - it's not an appropriate 'friendship'.

Madeleine what I want from this thread is some clarification about what is reasonable, and some perspectives on the situation. It has actually been helpful to distill it down to needing it to be resolved one way or another, particularly as it was just floating along. I don't know that I am determined to tell him, because of the obvious risks to our friendship, to people getting hurt etc. However the chance to think it through has been helpful.

OP posts:
CajaDeLaMemoria · 06/12/2012 22:37

I think your answer to how he feels is very much answered by the fact that he is in a long term relationship with another woman.

Yes they could be unhappy, but then he'd be unlikely to be considering marriage.

And yes he could be using her as a placeholder for you, but then he'd probably have split up with her when you became single again, just in case.

He'd be a horrid person if he's leading her her on whilst secretly loving you. He's already seeming like a terrible partner. Be honest, do you want a man who behaves like this?

SpoonyFuckersWife · 06/12/2012 22:38

Please back off for the sake of the girlfriend.

Do to others.. and all that.

It's that simple, op.

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