late friday night i received an email from listener “k” saying she is in love with her best friend.
“ I am profoundly in love with my best friend.
She is beautiful, smart, funny, genuine, and accepting. She is
unhappily married and we once had a physical intimate relationship.
While I long for that again, and would give my life for her, I doubt
we can ever have that again.
How can I move on
when I am 100% completely in love with her?”
-K
pit
in
my
belly.
unrequited love is so painful.
regardless of why it is unrequited.
sometimes it is because the person we love so desperately has issues (sexuality, intimacy, self esteem) that preclude himself/herself from being able to love us back.
other times it is because the person we love so desperately WON’T love us back because he/she is committed to another.
sometimes it is because the person we love so desperately actually doesn’t love us back.
sadly, the REASON you won’t be together today can’t matter.
what matters is that you won’t be together.
today.
and how you deal with that realization is what’s most important.
1. please do not make this about you. and how you are unworthy of your best friend’s love and attraction. it is not.
this is about HER. and where she is in her life.
even if unhappily, she is married.
2. get yourself a shrink/counselor/trusted friend/spiritual advisor. you need someone to whom you can vent. ad nauseum. i have always found that ruminating over something with a confidante is unbelievably helpful. can aid in lessening the impact of the situation the more you address it. you will hopefully get past the place of despair and into the place of giddiness over the depth of the despair.
i have found repeatedly that getting to the laughter after the ick is the most helpful and most healing.
3. this huge giant hole in your heart that seems like it’ll never be filled by any one other than the woman you’re in love with..will get smaller. maybe not today. maybe not tomorrow. maybe not even this month. but it will get smaller…IF YOU WANT IT TO.
sometimes it is easy (and oddly comforting) to wallow in our despair. once you move through that phase, the intensity of feeling will diminish.
4. isolate the worst part of the whole thing.
is it the understanding that you won’t be together as a couple that upsets you?
is it the threat of losing her forever that consumes you?
is it the realization that you need to let her go for you to move on that worries you?
5. find the positive in your love for her. there is something beautiful in loving another so deeply that we don’t even stop loving whether that same love is returned. you can keep these feelings in you. and still get on with your life. and find love elsewhere.
6. i fell madly, deeply in love with my husband when i still had strong feelings for someone else.
and suddenly the importance of the what he hadn’t been able to give me didn’t matter as much.
and suddenly his inability to love me back in the way i needed him to didn’t hurt me as much.
and then, his significance in my consciousness diminished.
i still loved him. but i no longer ached for him.
and the love became sweeter and more understandable.
and appropriately part of my past to remember fondly.
had someone told me before i started seeing my husband that my being with him would help heal the wounds from the other i don’t think i wouldve believed it.
but i swear it is true.
you are in love with your best friend.
and you may never have the relationship you want with her.
but you will find love and happiness again. quite possibly while you still want her.
you asked how you move on from the situation.
do you want to?
are you ready to?
do you feel like you need to have a discussion with her about it before you can move on?
there are so many issues for you to deal with. and i believe you can and you will.
but do so without worrying about the outcome (easier said than done).
and know that regardless of the outcome you will be ok (because isn’t that your biggest worry?!)
you will survive. and you will thrive.
xo
jenny
ps: if you havent checked out the media page and audio page on my site please do!
Great advice Jenny. I am dealing with a very similar situation, and you are exactly right with your points. It seems the hardest part is trying to get over the pain one day at a time. In the moment it is the hardest & most painful thing you can experience. Slowly (way too slowly!) that pain seems to fade….
So well said Jenny. I wish you were my friend in the 80′s and 90′s through my heartbreaks.
well, it is much easier to have clarity 16 years later and not in that kind of pain. always easier to help someone else feel better than ourselves!
Your shift key feels unloved.
because i dont use caps?
Dear Listener K:
Listen to Jen. She has it nailed down.
I lived with a woman for 5 years. She wasn’t the most healthy person you could meet. I went through 5 years of abuse, and I loved her every minute of it. I still do, some 18 years after she left. Do I miss the pain? No, I don’t. Did I finally move on? Yes. I’ve been happily married for the last 11 years, and even through some heartbreak, I welcomed my daughter Lina late last year.
I had always promised myself I would never ever sound like those people I hated to hear when she first left… but it’s true. Time heals all wounds. And while I have scars, both physically and emotionally, I’m in a MUCH better place now than I was then. I can say without hesitation that having the support of loved ones and friends to help ease the transition is a must. I would encourage you, like Jen, to find someone to talk to, to trust and just let it all out. You have to do what’s best for you, even if it’s going to hurt. And it will. But it does get better. I’m living proof.