Experience of unrequited feelings/moving on

[Undividedself]

Hello. I’m a female who has relationships with men.

I’m led to believe that men always find a way, if they know what they want. Not all men, of course.

Without any signs of hope, I have to try to move my feelings on or lose a friendship.

Any advice on how to move on from unrequited love of several years, will be received with heartfelt thanks.

Any experience of similar would be helpful. I feel very alone with this.

Thanks

Men always find a way to what?

Is this unrequited love or forbidden love ?

Taking a long break from seeing or contacting that person, throwing yourself into other things, dating other people. Basically live as if they don't exist so that your brain can get a break from obsessing over them.

Not forbidden just a one way street

Don't contact them if possible, or at least keep contact to the absolute necessity if work or kids are involved. Also frankly, finding someone else has always been the most effective method for me. Be picky with OLD though. Endless mediocre or worse dates will only make them seem better than they are in contrast. Spend lots of time with friends, keep busy, set yourself goals.

Thank you. Confirmed my fears. This is going to hurt.

There is no way on this earth that anyone can have an opinion or advice based on the few lines you've posted here.

If you want some advice then you need to give a lot more detail.

Sounds glib but I have been here (think most of us have) and with experience, found that it is actually possible to distract yourself. That is to say, allow yourself a really good cry or two and a bit of time (I'm not talking ages) to wallow a bit, talk it through loads. After this, whenever these feelings come up again, distract yourself or curtail them.

It will pass. Do you know the person well? If not, that is harder as your imagination fills in what you don't know and idealises them. Remind yourself of this. If you do know them well, remember any negative points (don't dwell, just to nudge yourself back on course).

I think, accept you can't have something you really wanted (a relationship with this person), that it is going to sting but the feelings will neutralise in a bit of time and you will move on. The thing is to be quite brisk in reminding yourself of that and it does actually help.

It does pass, I promise. However the only way to speed this up is to not see them, in rl or online. No contact whatsoever

It took me 6 months where I can think of him without my heart breaking. It takes time and I know how much it hurts. Days and weeks and months of unrelenting aching... but it doesnt last forever, I can promise you that.

If possible, no contact at all.

You might find the threads on here about limerence useful. I do think it’s good to separate reality from the fantasy version of the person that can be built up. Listing the bad habits or less appealing habits and attributes that they have and less idealising or future faking thoughts.

Thank you everyone. I will take the advice on distance for a bit.
I do know them very very well. We are close and I have seen many undesirable aspects over the years but the feelings have persisted. A break will be quite hard. He hasn’t done anything wrong. He just does not feel the same I think. I haven’t done anything wrong but am responsible for dealing with my own feelings
It all hurts but I understand it.

Distraction sounds good. Time to try. Hopefully I can move forward. Read a lot of threads. This is a good place. Cheers.

Allow yourself to feel your feelings. I read that feeling them helps than go quicker.

Have you spoken to him about how you feel?

Delete them
Everywhere , phone , social media , contacts
Delete all files and memories
Basically exorcise them
Forget abut friendship
Happiness is more important than a friend that doesn’t like you back
As appropriate ensure they don’t contact you

Focus on self care , and feeling sexy but NOT about them
Watch , read whatever floats your boat
Take some flattering photos , do your hair and make up and go out and see who you like the look of
Get some sexy underwear (for you !)
Masturbate

Maybe join an OLD and see what tickles your fancy

I’m not saying this is right ! But it’s what I did x

@Lurcherloves

Have you spoken to him about how you feel?

I never wanted to wreck the friendship, so at times it appeared the right time I lost words, said the wrong thing. I do think he knows and is being decent. I do think that if I am honest I need to pull back. There are wise words here about looking for something to make you feel good and valued in the way you want. I am happy enough with myself so who knows why I got stuck on a situation of unreciprocated feelings. If he wanted to pursue things I imagine he would speak to me.

The only way to get over it is to take a complete break and let your feelings resolve themselves by really allowing yourself to feel your sadness and disappointment, to cry, feel angry about the 'unfairness' of not being able to have the kind of relationship with him that you really want. Eventually once the feelings have all moved through you, you will come to a point of acceptance that some things just aren't possible/meant to be.

You're not there yet because you're still holding out hope so your feelings are literally stuck inside you. As long as you don't tell him how you feel and hear from him directly that he's not interested, you can sort of convince yourself that maybe he feels the same way but hasn't said anything because he doesn't want to 'wreck the friendship'.

But that means the friendship brings as much pain to you as it does happiness. More pain, possibly.

But if you accept that it has to be all or nothing (at least for a while - maybe after you've had a break and gotten over him, you actually can be friends again), it brings an opportunity. If you are going to lose his friendship anyway, then there is nothing further to be lost (and everything to be gained) from being honest about how you feel. In fact, if you're close friends, you'll have to, really, or he's going to be really hurt if you mysteriously stop wanting to hang out with him.

And who knows? Maybe when you say you're sorry but you have to end the friendship because you actually want a different kind of relationship that you don't think he wants, you'll discover that he's just very very shy :-)