How well do you do with "just friends"?

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Well I recently closed this relationship (thought it was never actually a "relationship") drama in my life, and for a long time I was so stuck on emotional issues, especially when I was with her, so I was really better off alone.
But now my mindset has changed. Somehow I've managed to detach myself from those broken dreams and enjoy a very rewarding friendship. I just stopped thinking about what could have been, I've stopped myself from hoping, and I always stay somewhat detached. And now it's just kinda fun.

For me, it would depend on how attached I was to that person.

Tim

Im with tim on this one. Though sometimes if you care, is better to be friends than nothing at all.

My life is all messed up at the moment, so i got no good answers

Depends on what your relationship is like before and how deep your feelings are.

I think guys often are push overs, or really strange friends in this situation. They have hopes that if they are super nice she'll realize how good of a boyfriend he would be. That's a terrible place to be... and probably not that great of a friendship to start off with.

I think the jerks tend to push it in the opposite direction, they are rarely nice to girls... and when a girl rejects them they just reject her and it's a battle. Of course the jerks aren't really interested in being friends... it's why they are jerks.

I'm generally a jovial guy, so even in a painful situation I can joke and have fun. Come away from it with good humor, this helps. These situations are actually sources of much humor, and if you can joke with the girl of your affections... I think it can help build a stronger friendship.

Although I would like to be friends with my former wife, I do not feel anymore loss because of her not being in my life.
We didn't have the greatest last several years, and what she put me through during the divorce (and our daughter), just made me lose real love for her.... which is sad.

But, there is someone else I am still friends with but can't stop thinking about, often.
There's no chance things would change between us the way I'd like to see it, so I just live with it for now.
It's not like we see each other much either... she's got her life to live which doesn't include me, which I understand.

What was the question again?

Ah yes! I just posted then read the OP over again.

To take my friend (mentioned above) as an example...

While I would like to explore a deeper relationship with her, I am resigned to the fact that we're just going to be friends.
I do enjoy seeing her and talking with her.
I actually miss some of the sorts of conversations we used to have before I expressed my feelings to her a while back.
I'm guessing she is no longer as comfortable with me as she seemed to be.
I have that bit of attraction in my mind whenever I see her (actually it's more than a bit), so I'm sure that influences my actions around her.
But when we talk to each other briefly, lately, I still feel the same happiness I used to feel around her.

I just erased some stuff I was going to post.
I don't know.
I suppose I'm not very good at it considering what I've done to my friendship with this woman.

Last edited by wsmac on 25 Nov 2007, 12:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah. In my experience "jerks" do attempt to be friends, but only with the motive of using the friendship as a stepping stone to something more. Once it has been made clear that this will not occur, they're suddenly not so interested in being friends.



I can't think of a better attitude to have.

Out of curiosity... TMJ, did you really get rid of your hopes for a romantic relationship with this person? Or are you choosing to behave as if you did, but still secretly have them?

That's got to be completely different, having a relationship... and then when it falls apart... ugh. I don't think I could manage being friends with an ex-wife... well wait... I don't want to have an ex-wife either.

If it gets to that point, something has to be seriously broken in our relationship... something I couldn't forge a friendship over.

The question is more like, "I just don't think of you in that way." and still keeping a friendship over that pain.

The thing is Pugly, relationships to me have all been created with strangers... except for my daughter (she's the only blood family I have).

So, once I love someone and accept them as part of my life... I don't just let them go.
When I mentioned I would like to be friends with my former wife (the term 'ex-wife' has the connotation of anger, resentment,etc. to me because of the way I hear so many people use it), I said it because I do still care about her and what happens to her.
My love for her as an intimate partner is not what it used to be.
I still do not hate her, I've just been hurt and on the defensive for so long now that it's too hard for me to keep up the old level of attraction to her.
When I talk about her to other people, it's usually concerning something she and our daughter are doing together.
I'm excited to talk about them because I know the cool kinds of things my former wife does, the interests she has, and the great qualities she owns.
I have so many good memories of our time together and I can find no reason to let go of them or the feelings I get when recalling them.

That's why I would like to keep, at least, a friendship with her.
I do think it could be healthy for our daughter to see this work also.
But no matter, I still talk respectfully and passionately about her mom around her(passionately about what a great doctor or artist her mother is, that is).

Hmm... makes sense to me.

It's hard for me to even imagine such conflicting feelings though... if I still had those feelings I don't know how I couldn't still have a marriage. Unless it was out of my control... then I wouldn't be that respectful of her for breaking our marriage that I want to keep going. It would feel like she is stealing from me...

Can't say unless I'm in your situation though... I pray that I never am even close to that...

I had a crush on this one girl for quite a while. I tried to treat her as the object of my affection, and she treated me like her pet. Each of us resented the role that the other tried to impose upon us.
She's a real control freak. Every sentence she said to me was a command or a criticism. She once even told me to kiss one of my guy friends when he was really drunk. (I didn't.) She said I don't FEEL the music when I dance. She kept an argument going for four blocks about how I should have my bike lights on at night, even tho I was walking my bike on the sidewalk as a pedestrian, and there was no traffic. She told my friend that dipping his burger in ranch dressing was "the wrong thing to do".

At first, I was upset that she rejected me, and refused to let me be her boyfriend. Now, I'm having a tuff enuf time as it is just being normal friends. There's a song that describes the situation perfectly (at least the title does): "She Drives Me Crazy", by the Fine Young Cannibals.

Pugly,
I appreciate what you're saying.
Although I remember mentioning divorce first, as in, "If you can't accept me for who I am maybe we should get divorced",
she was the one who actually went to a lawyer and then came to me and told me she wanted a divorce.
I understand her reasons...
my ADD/HD (not getting things accomplished as much as she wanted and as much as other husbands seem to be able to do),
my gender-questioning issues (as she said..."I didn't marry a woman"),
and my 'anger' issues (by keeping my secret about the gender stuff, and having frustration over my ADD/HD, I would get so frustrated at myself I'd lose it and rant out loud and bust up things of mine, but never directed it at anyone but myself).

Since I care about her, I want to respect her feelings in all this. Just seems like the normal thing to do to me.
Even though the angry outbursts have all gone away (seriously! now that I have opened up about my add and gender stuff and have been working on understanding them finally), and the gender issue is not what I started out thinking it was, I am still left with the ADD/HD issues although I am more accepting of those also.
I have no doubts that she is no longer interested in me. There still is no reason in my mind for me to quit caring for her.
Just as I may not agree with my sisters or brother all the time, yet I still love them.

Honestly, this whole divorce has taught me some really good lessons, loads about myself, my former wife, her family, our friends, my family and of course, our daughter.
As hard as this experience has been for me, our daughter, and her mother, there are some good things to be learned in all this.

One thing I have trouble dealing with is why people keep telling me I should "move on" and quit caring about my former wife and her family. I mean, they were/are my family for 17yrs!
I just can't see why I should work towards letting them go from my heart.

Again, perhaps this has to do with the fact that up until my daughter arrived in my life, the only way I was going to have any family, indeed, the only way I have ever had any family, was to adopt them or they adopt me.
So, maybe based upon life-long experience, I have learned that I can form attachments strong enough to transcend blood ties.
I suppose I have formed a belief that when I love someone, I love them forever although the strength of that love may change somewhat.
After all I said in the other posts, I do want you to know that I do have love for my former wife. Right now though, I do not feel the same desire for intimacy with her that I used to feel and I have a different level of love for her.

Whenever I explain my beliefs, I feel as though I must be some sort of anomaly in this world.
I have had so many people not understand why I feel the way I feel about other people.
I have had certain individuals not understand my feelings towards them.
It's weird sometimes because it all feels so natural to me.

i have a friend that i had a 'thing' for back in high school. i don't think he knows that i did, and that's fine with me. actually, we just got back together (as friends) recently, and i still kinda like him that way, or have a 'crush', if you will. would i ever tell him? not on your life.

i lost my best friend in high school that way (different guy). never did get him back as a friend...and one of my biggest regrets in life is that i told him how i felt.

i have now made that mistake twice in my life, and do not wish to jeopardize another friendship. so yeah, being friends is better than nothing at all, and sometimes more rewarding...i would much rather a friendship where i feel more for the other person than risk not having the person in my life at all.

it's a lot more fun just being friends...you can still hang out, have long talks, joke around, even get hugs and stuff...and you can still love each other, just on a different level. not everyone can do it, and most people will tell you that men and women cannot be friends without there being sex involved. well, all my life, the majority of my close friends have been male. and there was never sex involved.

i have to agree with wsmac...when i make a friend, it's not an easy thing to do in the first place(though he's talking about the former wife) and when you invest all that time and energy and emotion into even the most basic of relationship, it's hard to just let someone go that easy. for me, everyone i take the time to get to know has a special place in my heart...some take up more room than others, depending on the level of emotional attachment. and yeah, it's damn hard to just let it go.

Hey SoDark, it's good to see you back!

I'm feeling plenty strange in my approach to male-female relationships, at least that it isn't standard or expected in modern society.

I can definitely relate to the adhd side of things though. I don't have a formal diagnosis... but I have many of the same problems. Intense forgetfulness and such and such, I don't know what kind of strains this'll put on a relationship.

It's interesting that you mention this gender-questioning stuff... since your approach sounds less masculine.

Nothing that you mention though, seems enough to break the marriage bond on her part. And for that I could not reconcile the relationship. I could be civil and work with her in raising our child, nothing else. The marriage commitment I make is very serious and I would expect the same of my wife when she commits herself to me.

Then again, I've never been that close with someone... also your experience about not having family... something else I don't have under my belt.

Well Pugly,

I'm glad to see you have given it some thought and seem to realize that although you have prepared yourself for that relationship, you understand that when it comes along, you might find some things change a bit.

Smart thinking!

Thanks!

I've been wrong about how life works so much... it's just easier to think like this.

I'll never have someone else's point of view... but I can at least understand how they got to that point of view.