From lovers to exes, to best friends, to acquaintances

[Asha1]

Hey everyone,

My best friend and I used to be lovers for a short period of time. 4-ish powerful months. We ended it a year ago for various reasons, despite still being in love with each other. We went back to being very close best friends. We had the same amount of contact as a couple just without the physical contact.

It hurt and I was so guttered when we broke up. The reasons are too confusing to explain. For 2-3 months straight I was depressed. I slept all of the time to escape the way I felt inside. It hurt us both but we didn't know how to fix anything.

I pulled myself together. She was still in love with me and knowing that eased the pain. We'd somehow found a way to remain best friends through the pain. We were in this stable state for about 5 months.

6 months ago she told me she wasn't in love with me anymore. I was guttered. The pain of the breakup was previously swept under the rug by how much attention we still gave each other. Over time, those 5 months, she was getting over me when all I was doing was fixating on how much she was still in love with me, despite not being together. This is when the heartbreak really started. I've accepted the fact that we will never be that way again - together. But I still feel the same way, just without the expectation of anything. So I've been managing. I knew that if I didn't accept it I would lose her as my best friend altogether. Neither of us wanted that.

Over the last 3 months she's been pulling away without realising. She talks less, the conversations are vague. She's been busy but she's always found the time in the past. I know she still cares but the communication is still so poor now. I'm in pain with it because this is all I have left now. My strong friendship with her is all I have left. I don't have any other close friends. She no longer feels the same need to talk to me, as I do her. She seems to be satisfied with conversation of acquaintances.

I've asked her about the change and she doesn't know how to explain it. She hasn't meant for it. All she could say was "I don't know what to say. I think I have changed."

I miss her. I feel broken. Lonely. I can't handle anymore changes. Instead of running when she told me she wasn't in love anymore, I found a way to cope - and she wanted me to find a way - because we both wanted to remain close best friends.

But now I feel like I'm really losing her altogether.

I don't know what to do. The thought of my life without her in it feels empty.

[geoff]

hi Asha, I'm so sorry for you, but no break up is never easy for anybody, because there is always one person who finds it so hard to cope with, because they are still in love, and now it's you.
What's so hard for you is that you were lovers and then to become only close friends is difficult to understand why your relationship has changed so much, because when this happened you felt as though you were losing her and then finally having no contact with her.
Unfortunately there could be many reasons why she has changed, and I'm sure that you are thinking of all the worst scenario's ranging from different ones to what you think maybe true, but uncertain, and uncertainity is what is playing on your mind.
There are no easy words that I can say to you, I wish I could find some, but I know how you are feeling because it has happened with me, but a long time ago, and now it doesn't bother me, but when it did happen I was married so the last few years of our 25 year marriage weren't the most pleasant.
I could suggest going to your doctor and then to see a psychologist, but losing someone you love is never easy to overcome. Geoff.