I am sick of feeling sad about someone that was never mine.

[wwsb]

Please bear with me, this is pretty long...

I had an amazingly close friendship with a guy, it was obvious there was an attraction between us but I never acted on it because he has a girlfriend. Recently we hung out and stayed up late drinking and had amazing sex. His girlfriend was never brought up and it never really seemed like an issue. For a week after that we were exchanging really intense sexual texts and eventually met up to hook up again. We spent an entire afternoon having sex (this time sober) and everything was fine. The next day I heard nothing from him, which made me feel weird, then the day after I got a text asking how I was. We chatted via text for a while, before I broached the topic of what had happened between us. He simply replied "It would be great if we could do that every now and then" which of course made me feel like crap and I told him so. We've never so much as discussed the fact that he has a girlfriend, or how we feel about what we're doing, it's pretty much just a silent given that we won't tell anyone else. I tried to talk to him about how I was feeling, to which he got really defensive and we had a huge argument. We managed to smooth things over, or at least I thought we did, until later that evening I messaged him and he completely snubbed me. I left it a few hours and messaged him to tell him that that was disrespectful and he'd never have done that to me before we started sleeping together. He replied straight away to say he felt suffocated; I just felt like his whole attitude was really callous towards me. I've since deleted him from Facebook and unfollowed him on Instagram, as well as deleting his number. I felt I needed to purge him from my life in order to find some kind of peace. I got a notification on my phone saying he'd followed me on Instagram, which clearly meant he'd unfollowed me, had a change of heart and re-followed. I messaged him to ask what that was about and all he said was "I'm finding this really awkward and upsetting." We haven't spoken since.

Obviously I feel really used, until that afternoon he'd been hot on my tail, texting me all of the time. When we were friends I couldn't ask for someone nicer in my life, he was always telling me how much loved our friendship and that he was glad he'd met me. I feel betrayed and hurt and I'm so, so sad. I'm not just mourning the loss of my friend, but I also think I might have feelings for this guy. To make matters worse, he seems to have gone into some sort of guilt spiral. I have his girlfriend on Facebook (she added me before any of this stuff ever happened) and since him and I stopped talking everything she posts is then filled with gushing compliments and proclamations of love for her. It makes me feel awful to see and the fact that he's made no effort to reach out to me makes me think he never really cared at all.

What do I do to move on from all of this? I get I've done a horrible thing by being the "other woman" but I just miss my friend more than anything.

You need to ask yourself some questions here. Why did you give yourself permission to sleep with someone else's boyfriend? He has been rightly slagged off on here and now it is your turn. What kind of woman knowingly shags someones else's bloke? Certainly not a type I would like to have as a friend! People have been very kind to you on this thread. You have had a lot of sympathy. I have none for you.
He isdespicable and you are not nice either.

He has been rightly slagged off on here and now it is your turn

Standing there with your cane are you RobinandRowena?

The older you get the more you realise that while it is sometimes possible to have platonic friendships with men, more often than not it's some sleaze trying to befriend you to get in to your pants. You've been naive. Take this as a lesson.

Jeez. You don't deserve a beating up here OP. It's HIM who was attached, not you.I've never understood this thing about beating the other woman up. Bad men tell women they want to bed all kinds of sleazy lies; some of them are powerfully svengali-like. Some women have such poor relationship models and low self worth that they are easily won over.

OP don't beat yourself up. He is not the man for you. It's possible to completely hit it off with people who are really absolute shits. They're often captivating, humorous, attentive and charming. It's easy to be taken in.

My gut reaction after reading your post, is to say Just Grow Up!

You reap what you sow.

Write him off completely, OP. You don't need people like him in your life in ANY capacity.

To him, you were an itch. He scratched that itch with no thought that you are an actual human being with your own needs and thoughts and ideas. When you started 'acting up', he freaked out because that was not the way it was supposed to go for him.

He's dangerous to your mental health, and you need to stay away from him.

But you knew he was attatched so should have rejected him. Or said you will see him when he is single.

Well she didn't.

The only person I feel sad for is his girlfriend.

Sleeping with someone else's partner is wrong. That's why you don't do it and it's why if you didn't do it you wouldn't find yourself in your current mind set.

He wasn't a great friend, he fancied you.

You wonder why he wasn't responding to you afterwards? Erm maybe his GF was in the room with him..........

His GF is the woman he wants, you are the woman who he sees not suitable for a relationship but suitable for secret sex.

That's the unspoken agreement/understand with the OW regardless of how it is dressed up.

These things never end well. Ever.

Ridiculous and obviously projecting post from RobinandRowena there, OP, ignore it. Same on every thread.

===

wwsb, you've made a mistake here in your friendship. You obviously felt more for this man at the start hence you had sex with him. You knew he had a girlfriend and it would have been better if you'd told him that you don't have sex with men who are not single. I imagine several if not many of us have done this before the in the past and it never does turn out the way we plan in our heads.

The only thing to do is completely remove him from any area that you might see him, block yourself from his gaze and don't be tempted to respond to any more of his messages. He's shown you what he's about... now what are YOU about? That's the important thing. He will only ever hurt you.

He's not a friend, you thought he was but when you both fancied each other, that changed the parameters of that friendship anyway. Friendships can only stay completely platonic and stable that way if neither makes a move towards anything else. You did, he did - it's happened. You will make other friends and somewhere out there is somebody who will be free to have a relationship with you. Just have a tinker with your "I will only have relationships/sex with available men" so that it doesn't short-circuit your self-esteem button again.

You'll get past this. Your conscience is pricking you, you don't like the feel of it, and are projecting it as being upset at the loss of a friendship, that's all. Chin up.

Ok, so you shouldn't have had sex with someone who has a girlfriend, it's a pretty shitty thing to do. However, he's the one who owes his girlfriend honestly and fidelity. I'm afraid you've learned the hard way that men who shag other women when they already have a partner, generally are just looking for a bit of sex on the side, they're not good people and they'll dump you the minute things get complicated.

You allowed yourself to be used. Try to value yourself more. Nobody deserves to be anyone's second best.

I don't think Robin's post is ridiculous at all. I take it as an obvious moral position that you don't build your happiness on the back of other people's misery. OP was quite happy to do so and it seems would have been quite happy to continue the affair if her friend had offered her more attention ( the gf never really seemed like an issue, according to OP).
You accuse him of having a callous attitude to you, but actually you both had a callous attitude to the girlfriend. She is the one who has been shat on here. By both of you.
And no, I am not projecting. I have no reason to think any of my partner's have cheated on me. My position is based on simple empathy.

Maybe in your hearts of hearts you wanted him to leave her for you. Why else would you sleep with him again, sober this time.

You played a dangerous game and got burned. Your own fault.

I'm another who has no sympathy whatsoever for the OP and, furthermore, I suspect that some of those who appear to have overlooked the obvious wouldn't be quite so understanding if it were their bf/partner she shagged despite knowing full well that his affections were engaged elsewhere.

You kept shagging him, happy as long as you were not talking about his gf - who is your facebook friend, right?

thats a really crap thing to do to another woman - and you are complaining that he is callous?

goddessofsmallthings, JohnFarleysRuskin, no one has overlooked the obvious. If you read the OP and her subsequent posts you will be able to gather that these are fairly young adults caught up in useless drama.

We've all said, including my mammoth post upthread that she needs to see this as a lesson learned and never to behave so stupidly again. She is already beating herself up enough as it is. She feels wounded, bruised, upset and used. Rightly so IMO. She's learned a very hard lesson. She isn't a conniving bitch who schemed to steal someone's husband after 20-odd years of marriage. Not that it therefore excuses her actions but you both seem unable to see further than the ends of your noses.

To be honest the whole Instagram & FB thing is exhausting enough. She is already beating herself up. Her self-esteem has taken a battering. They were both in the wrong but I suspect the OP posted here more to ask how she could move on and get over this than to ask for a flagging about actions she knows full well to be wrong and is currently reproaching herself over. Be practical in your advice, not vindictive.

She feels wounded bruised upset and used.
Yes she does. She misses their wonderful friendship very much- she can't understand why it's turned sour - she's said this several times- I get that. She's v sad.

Im not being vindictive, I'm just pointing out that in the midst of all her 'why didn't he call me?' And 'He is sO disrespectful' angst, she might want to look at her own behaviour as well.

.

Ditto Glastokitty. You should have known what kind of guy he was when he chose to cheat. You also made the choice to enable his cheating. Neither of you come well out of it.

Totally disagree John. She's in the process of reproaching herself over her actions and wondering how she could have been such a fool.

This isn't about him, it's about her feelings of anger towards herself. She's probably replaying those moments wishing she could go back in time to change things. Her questioning over things turning sour etc isn't about missing him, it's more about feeling like a fool.

She is looking at her behaviour, it's causing her to feel shame and hatred towards herself. She clearly knows she was wrong, but her post is about how to move on and rebuild herself. Castigating someone who already feels such hatred and anger towards themselves does not help. I don't condone her actions but I will be helpful where I can.

I just read posts about their wonderful friendship, amazing sex, she misses him desperately, why aren't they friends anymore and why is he being so nice to his gf.

I must have missed the anger at herself, reproach, shame and self loathing

Well I suppose it's not your fault you missed that. But let's all thank our lucky stars that none of us are judge and jury here.

I feel like you do OP except we never had sex. We were going to - he lives a way away, we have been close friends for about 26 years, which is how old his girlfriend is...the sex thing was before she was properly on the scene, then he met her and decided not to come to visit after all.

We stopped contact a while after that as I just found it too hurtful. We had got to the point of saying we loved each other etc.

I think he was just hanging on, like I was, as we both hadn't met anyone else.
Then he made excuses not to see me when probably, he just didn't want to hurt my feelings.

Huge sense of loss though. I love him to pieces. Now we are sort of in touch again, it's been a couple of years and I really missed him. and he still says Oh, we won't live together (him and girlfriend) and how casual their relationship is. I think he is happy like that though.

It hurts a lot. Your chap seems to be using you badly and I would rather be in my position than yours

I think your mistake was not 'taking stock ' before you slept with him. You knew he had a gf and therefore the sex was likely to be of the (cheating) fuck buddy variety, and you broke etiquette of that by pursuing him, being upset after mutually enjoyable consensual sex. I don't think he 'used' you any more than you used him. Had you acted cool and accepted the 'it would be nice from time to time' framework then that may be what would have happened and maybe you'd still be friends.

But given the fact that you would then be 'OW' how valuable would you have found that? Probably not very.

Did you think the sex would win him over and he would leave his gf for you?

Sorry this is so painful for you OP, I have actually been in your shoes in the past and learning my lesson the hard way has saved me so much future trouble .

So don't be hard on yourself, chin up , best foot forward !