He Thinks I'm Not The One

Visitor's Question from a 21-30 year old Female
I had been friends with my Boyfriend for 5 years and we started a physical relationship when I moved to the same town him 9 months ago. I don’t think he ever really saw us as a proper couple. He thought we were best friends who slept with each other. I knew he felt this way but I felt we were very much a couple and becoming even closer to each other.

Recently I went on holiday with a girlfriend and whilst I was away (or perhaps before I went away) he started a relationship with another woman. When I returned I noticed that he was not interested in a physical way and I noticed his behaviour towards this other women. Whilst I was at his in house I saw them in the garden kissing and this confirmed my suspicions. After she left I confronted him and he admitted he was seeing her (She has ME and had had a serious health scare during the time I was away). He told me he had decided to stop sleeping with me (without discussing this with me) and he felt that our friendship would be the same. That night he also told me that he loved me more than her, but neither of us was ‘the one’. He was surprised at how upset I was- I felt like didn’t count and that he had just discarded me. We ended up making love that night- I think he thought he was comforting me.

He went away on a business trip for a week and we in contact all the time and when he arrived home he couldn’t wait to see me. I had been having a stressful time at work and we cuddled in his garden all evening and ended up making love. I called him that next evening determined to find out where I stood and he told me he didn’t want a relationship with me. The next day I wrote him an email telling him how much I loved him and that I really wanted us to have a proper relationship. I wanted to be sure of what he felt as he had been saying one thing, but acting another way. He replied saying that he really cared about me, but this other girl may be ‘the one’ for him.

Anyway, I do think he does care about me and has been trying to comfort me in a screwed up way. I feel very hurt and have been hardly able to eat. The stress has affected my work. I am seeing a counsellor and that is helping. But I am consumed with jealousy about his new relationship. His new girlfriend knows nothing of his relationship with me and that he been cheating on her as well. How can he continue such his relationship with her? How can he choose someone who doesn’t know who he really is over me and I love him even though he has hurt me badly? Part of me want to destroy his new relationship so he feel some pain or sometimes I feel like telling one of his friends what he has done (none of them know either). I’m so mixed up. Even after everything I would like to be friends with him (he wants it too), but don’t think I can be if he is still seeing her. How can I move on and get over my jealousy?

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RomanceClass.com Advice
First off, if he is sleeping with you, regardless of what "name" he puts on it, you deserve to know if he decides to start sleeping with someone else and/or stop sleeping with you. That is both a common courtesy and a health decision!

It can definitely cause all sorts of trouble when two people feel differently about each other. It seems in this case that you guys both knew you were sexual friends, but that you hoped it might turn into something more. That's really something you should always really talk about. If you just sort of "hope" it'll turn out - it's often very likely it'll go a different direction and then you'll be sad your expectations were squashed. But things don't just happen on their own.

Especially after knowing each other for so many years and sleeping together for almost a year, if something felt "wrong" to him - this would have been important to talk about. Maybe it was just a perception thing - that he felt a girlfriend should be X and Y and Z, and you were more a "friend". If that was the case, it would have been really, really important to talk to him about how best friends are THE most important things you can ever be in a relationship, and how that is the ideal that most people strive for. So if he was valuing other more superficial things in an "ideal girl" like blonde hair or whatever, talking about those myths and dispelling them would have been a key thing to do months ago (if not years ago).

On the other hand, there may be a real issue that he has in mind that keeps you in the "fine as a friend" category but not "great as a lifelong partner" category. Maybe it's how you feel about kids? Maybe it's your attitude towards religion or politics? You may think these things aren't important - and indeed they aren't with a casual date. But if you are choosing someone to BE with, heart and soul, for your entire life, these can be pretty critical.

Obviously *something* about how you two relate upsets him enough to consider a lifelong match between you two to not be something that can work. The *only* person who knows what this is is him. And the ONLY way you will ever find out what it is is to talk to him. Yes, it might be hard for him to tell you. And yes, it will obviously be hard for you to hear! But you have to promise just to LISTEN and not to argue or judge. He will be revealing something very difficult, and you must accept simply that he feels the way he does. Then go think about it for a week - SERIOUSLY think about it - before you go back to him with your solutions.

-- from Jenn
One of Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com

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