married, but have feelings for married male friend :(

[notagreatsituation]

I've been using mumsnet for nearly a decade at this point, but have had to sign up again as I don't post much and forgot my old account details. I'd appreciate people going easy on me here as I'm feeling bad, but I know what the internet in general can be like, so I'll try and brace myself. Would be grateful for advice either way.

The title sums it up. We're not really longstanding friends, less than 2 years. The attraction was (I strongly suspect) mutual initially, but it seems to have worn off for him - I expected it to dissipate for me as well, but unfortunately it's gone the other way and developed into something that feels more significant. I don't think he's remotely aware of this.

I need to extricate myself, but I can't figure out the best way to do it; if we were both single I'd just be honest, but we're not. We don't even see each other that much - our main contact is texting a few times a week, with occasional calls and much less frequent meets, but he would notice and question it if I suddenly pulled back: for the last year, there hasn't been a single full week that we've been out of contact, and my feeling is that I'd need significantly longer than a week of absolute zero communication to get past this.

Can anyone please help me decide what to do? Obviously I shouldn't have let it get this far in the first place, but here I am. He's been a good friend to me and has done nothing wrong, so I don't want to abruptly fade him out without explanation. Perhaps there are people could could pull it off without being too obvious/offensive, but I'm quite socially clumsy and not good at stuff like this.

Do I need to go with an extremely slow fade and just deal with the emotional stress in the meantime? That's the 'best' solution I can think of, but I really want to have space from this more immediately than that would allow. I've been putting off doing anything about it for months in the vague hope that it'll just resolve itself, but that clearly isn't going to happen, and it is affecting my mental health.

If anyone else has dealt with something similar, I'd find it helpful to know how it panned out, if you'd be willing to share.

@Penseuse You even said yourself you've been in a very similar situation!
Your post has bothered me more than the others, because a lot of the more vicious comments have been massively inaccurate their assessment of what's going on (claiming I must be hoping to run off with him, that I'm trying to goad him into confession feelings, that I must be fabricating my own marriage issues, etc.) to the point that I can easily ignore them.
But you've actually described a similar situation to mine, given an accurate summation of some of my own reasoning, but said that for some reason the reasoning itself 'obviously' can't apply to me?!

And whenever I ask someone to articulate why I'm being given zero benefit of the doubt, everyone goes mysteriously quiet. Aargh.

@stode Not at all, appreciate the perspective. I can see where you're coming from, but to be honest I do feel further on than I did when I first posted. The obsessive/addictive aspect of it has massively declined, which I think has been due to having an outlet - I really did feel extremely stuck inside my own head with this before.
Suspect you're right about the marriage stuff, but easier said than done unfortunately.

I can see that I wasn't thinking it through about you becoming friends with this man's wife, @notagreatsituation . I foolishly assumed that if you got on with him, then you might get on with his wife as well (but obviously realise married couples don't come as a homogenous lump!).
I suppose what I'm really perplexed about is your choice of action (or lack of action) in resolving this problem as it was developing.
Did it develop quickly, before you had a chance to consider ways of mitigating your strength of feeling?
Have you considered that a large part of the attraction might be due to his public persona or his texting persona? Have you considered him warts and all?

Also might be worth just thinking about whether you're currently experiencing an inclination towards obsessing over things (not saying you are, not judging you, lots of people do experience this from time to time however, just something to consider). @notagreatsituation

Why don't you just leave this woman's husband alone, stop thinking about him, his life is nothing to do with you.

In no way, shape or form are you helping their marriage.
Just leave them be.
You are not important.

You just won't listen, you are coming across as obsessed, prolonging this need for validation, can you not see your actions are unhealthy.

Stop feeding the obsession.

@notagreatsituation

How are you doing?

I have concluded we are just friends. He is more and more being open about his wife. I actually sent a message to him saying hope your wife and son enjoy their time away.
It's my issues with my current partner that caused me to like rely on this friend. He not my guy he never will be I feel like I do use him when things are not right with my DP.
I can't trust my own feelings because they are mixed up.
It's an attachment and our connection which he said is we are similar.
I think keeping myself distance and sorting out issues with my DP is more important. I will ruin our friendship if I will reveal my feeling. He not reciprocated at all. My head was stuck in the past but things do change and maybe he did in time and realized we more friends than anything else.