Being in love with a friend…

Here are my thoughts based on the hard lessons I've learned over many years, many similar situations, broken hearts and broken promises.

There is a reason why you two are friends in the first place. You've been brought together to teach each other something. Whether it's to learn about real friendship and love or whether it's to learn about shallow friendship, that is something only you can know in time. 

Jealousy is a sign there’s something you need to work on in yourself. I would say that is why you've been brought together.  It's never about the other person. Jealousy is an emotional response to fear, fear that comes from the thought that a relationship or some aspect of that relationship isn’t going how we want it to go and it may come to an end.

I would work on that as my first priority, because jealousy is toxic to relationships, and left unchecked, it will poison and destroy your friendship with this guy.  Once you've worked out what's causing the fear within yourself (usually the thought that he won't want to be friends with you if he's with someone else) then you can have a conversation with him about that in an honest way.  You can arrange a time to sit down and talk together as friends, and you can tell him the truth about what you've been experiencing and why you think it's happening.  You're not telling him just to get some reaction from him or in the hope that he'll marry you. You're telling him because you value his friendship and you value the honesty in your relationship. The outcome is irrelevant in that respect. You will be surprised at how people react when you tell them the truth, without malice, without trying to manipulate their reactions. 

I can say with great certainty that most people worth knowing are the ones who prefer you to tell them the honest truth about how you are feeling, without trying to manipulate their reactions.

Here are my thoughts based on the hard lessons I've learned over many years, many similar situations, broken hearts and broken promises.

There is a reason why you two are friends in the first place. You've been brought together to teach each other something. Whether it's to learn about real friendship and love or whether it's to learn about shallow friendship, that is something only you can know in time. 

Jealousy is a sign there’s something you need to work on in yourself. I would say that is why you've been brought together.  It's never about the other person. Jealousy is an emotional response to fear, fear that comes from the thought that a relationship or some aspect of that relationship isn’t going how we want it to go and it may come to an end.

I would work on that as my first priority, because jealousy is toxic to relationships, and left unchecked, it will poison and destroy your friendship with this guy.  Once you've worked out what's causing the fear within yourself (usually the thought that he won't want to be friends with you if he's with someone else) then you can have a conversation with him about that in an honest way.  You can arrange a time to sit down and talk together as friends, and you can tell him the truth about what you've been experiencing and why you think it's happening.  You're not telling him just to get some reaction from him or in the hope that he'll marry you. You're telling him because you value his friendship and you value the honesty in your relationship. The outcome is irrelevant in that respect. You will be surprised at how people react when you tell them the truth, without malice, without trying to manipulate their reactions. 

I can say with great certainty that most people worth knowing are the ones who prefer you to tell them the honest truth about how you are feeling, without trying to manipulate their reactions.

☕Tassimo ☕ said:

Jealousy is a sign there’s something you need to work on in yourself. I would say that is why you've been brought together.  It's never about the other person. Jealousy is an emotional response to fear, fear that comes from the thought that a relationship or some aspect of that relationship isn’t going how we want it to go and it may come to an end.

I actually disagree with this. While it CAN instigate toxic behaviour, jealousy is actually a warning sign which should not be ignored. But first I need to work out the context to weigh:

What our commitments are

What our expectations are

What the imbalance is

Say we start a business together. You confirm you're in 100%. So I give 100% but notice after a while you're splitting your investment between me and several other individuals. It could stand to reason that somehow (no blame) I misperceived or was given the wrong message about your level of commitment, which therefore impacted my expectations and has now created an imbalance. Jealousy, at it's core, is about fairness. 

With intimate relationships this is emotionally charged 100x. 

It sounds to me like your new bf doesn't have well appropriated boundaries with his levels of intimacy and this might be because it's fun for him or because he's immersed in a consumer society and easily fluid with his transactions - seemingly intimate while not actually investing his heart in the right way or he's just not really ready for any commitment because he enjoys the chemical response from the attention he gets while not really weighing the cost. 

Unfortunately you'll need to manage your own expectations and pull back to protect your very soul. Hyper sensory awareness includes the emotional senses and while these may be intense right now, he's not showing signs of a proper balance that could facilitate a proper commitment. The hardest part is to recognise what, if anything, we might owe one another. 

I've been told that feelings follow action, so if you choose to disengage, the feeling of jealousy may dissipate. The intensity may dissipate. Which can give off a more mature expression and can either be more attractive or it just 'wasn't meant to be', the stars weren't aligned or what have you. But you don't need to go on dates, maybe just let him know you need some space for a few weeks to indulge in things you enjoy as this is more intense for you than him and feels a bit unbalanced. Allow him a little quiet and mystery time to consider your affair. x