A guy wants to be more than friends

Ok I have a male friend, who I have known sense elementary school. He really is like family to me, about a year ago out of know where he decides to tell me how is and has always been in love with me and so one. I have always had awkward moments with him, and had that feeling that he wanted to be more than friends, I guess I just avoided it, because I do love him in my way, I just can’t look at him the way he wants me to. I would be like incest, and I know I am from the country and all but that is not my thing.

I have repeatedly told him that I could never be romaticallyy involved with him, but now he just will not stop, he sends me flowers does other stuff, and has point blank asked me to leave my fiancé, and tells me my fiancé does not really love me or that he could never love me like he does, and that one really ticks me off. It is really bothering me, but I have no idea what to say to him. I have basically really distanced myself from him, in the hope that he will find someone else, but he is not giving up and this has been going on for a year, any one have any ideas? I don’t want to hurt him he is a good person. What more can I do?

Yikes.

I'm so sorry, that is a hard situation to be in.

Basically, as far as I see it, he wants you, he's afraid he's going to lose you, and this is his pitch to win you before you're gone. There aren't many responses to that, and they are based on what you want and what you can handle.

If his entreaties are too much to deal with, you'll have to draw boundaries -- "I care about you, we have a long history as friends; but [this] is what I'm doing with my life, and if you don't stop, we won't be able to see each other anymore."

If you can deal with it and it's more important to keep close to him, then you can draw smaller boundaries -- refuse the flowers, don't respond to anything he says that has romantic overtones, if he starts pestering you about it you should leave, etc.

I also wonder: What does your fiance say about this, or doesn't he know? At some point if your friend is trying to break you up, this will involve him as well... and I doubt he will be happy partly because he'll want to protect his relationship and he will want to protect YOU. It's better if you can resolve this issue without your fiance having to get involved and things turning sour quickly...

If I had to pick, I would say it is time to draw boundaries -- you're not interested in him, you won't be interested in him, and if he does truly love you, he will respect your decisions and help you cultivate the marriage you are planning, and if not, then you need to stop interacting with each other until he gets over it. That will hurt in the short term, but it will probably prevent worse catastrophe later. Your friend might not be able to get over you without that sharp confrontation with reality and then potentially withdrawing from you for awhile as he works through the loss.

Ask for help from his male friends, especially if he has someone relatively close who's good with women. They can tell him that what he's doing isn't helping him one bit in any way and I think he's more likely to listen to them than to you. There's very little you can do because he won't listen no matter what you say.

I am really lucky because my Fiancé is very secure, he never has to doubt my devotion to him, he knows me too well, and he knows he does not need to protect our relationship, I will do that by my own nature. He laughs about that one sometimes, how he knows he will never have to assert himself. We were out ounce and a guy started hitting on me, and I went off and chewed the guy out, and told him how dare he disrespect the man I love like that, I was not as offended by the things he said to me, as I was about how disrectful it was of my fiance. That is also what is bothering me most with my freind now the disrespect it shows of my fiance.

I try not to hide things from my fiancé, but how much this is bothering me, I do keep to myself, just because I think my fiancé feels bad and that he is causing a rift between my friend and I, and that is just not true, it is my friend that is creating the rift not him.

I think you are right boundaries need to be set and clearly defined.

Originally Posted by Loke

Ask for help from his male friends, especially if he has someone relatively close who's good with women. They can tell him that what he's doing isn't helping him one bit in any way and I think he's more likely to listen to them than to you. There's very little you can do because he won't listen no matter what you say.

OMG I never thought of that, that is a great idea, I could totally hug you!!!!

First of all, you have no choice. He's convinced himself that he's "in love" with you, and the only way out is to hurt him. [well, not the only way, you could leave your fiance and marry him, but that's not what you want, is it?] Right now, by not hurting him overtly you're hurting him more, if you get my drift. Ideally, in retrospect, when he confessed his love for you, you should have said, "Well, that changes everything." and cut him off completely until he came to his senses. He could maybe then have let it all go and gone back to the "just friends" mode. That may not be possible now, and you need to accept that getting engaged/married may mean losing this "friend".

My bet is that he's been picking up signals from you that he's trying to reflect back to you, that you're not in love with the fiance, that you could be romantically involved with him, etc. This is all filtered through his eyes, and he is only seeing what he sees. If you can think of what you might be doing to support this notion (or what you can do to shatter it), then maybe there's some insight you can get that will help your response.

If you can't hurt him, at least don't be a co-dependent. DON'T return his phone calls or e-mails, no matter what. No signal is better than a misinterpreted one.

Originally Posted by red riding hood

OMG I never thought of that, that is a great idea, I could totally hug you!!!!

That's ok, a simple click on the "thanks"-button in my post will suffice ;)

Originally Posted by red riding hood

...We were out ounce and a guy started hitting on me, and I went off and chewed the guy out, and told him how dare he disrespect the man I love like that, I was not as offended by the things he said to me, as I was about how disrectful it was of my fiance. That is also what is bothering me most with my freind now the disrespect it shows of my fiance.

You are amazingly passionate on that point.

Maybe it's what you need to show your friend.

He's really only thinking of himself right now. He probably needs to see he's hurting and driving away someone he cares about because he's offending her sensibilities and hurting other people SHE cares about.

I think my fiancé feels bad and that he is causing a rift between my friend and I, and that is just not true, it is my friend that is creating the rift not him.

Totally. If there is any blame here, it is coming from your misguided friend who is not behaving appropriately for the level of relationship you both share and is really just thinking about himself right now. Since you care about your old friend, you want to not hurt him more than necessary... but in this case he hasn't left you much room to find other options.

Recently I had a really good friend of mine violate boundaries in our relationship, I was very upset about it... and the whole time it was happening, I was frustrated because I found myself trying to protect HIS feelings while he was obviously not paying much attention to mine. I realized that, yes, that's simply who I am, to try to protect people I care about even when they're being buttheads; but at the same time, he was being very selfish and I needed to be much more emphatic and blunt (the equivalent of an emotional slap across the face) so that anyone in the future who pulled that crap with me would get the picture right away.

In the end, being clear about what's going to happen and not happen is better for everyone involved. My friendship with this guy was immensely strained over what he did and what I allowed to occur, I should have been more forceful from the beginning.

Good luck, hon! :)

The Ladder Theory

I just love posting these

Everyone here has posted good advice already.

I just want to assure you that you can tell him the truth without destroying him and your relationship. If you don't confront it, his feelings won't resolve and you won't be able to go back to the way it was.

You need to say something forceful, yet compassionate, like... (sorry, this is sorta very cliche) "Joe, I know you have strong feelings for me and really love me, but you have to understand that I love my fiance just as passionately. I don't want to push you away, because I admire you and cherish your companionship, but you have to understand that you won't ever convince me to leave him and your efforts are only driving us apart as friends. I deeply appreciate your feelings, and I am unbelievably flattered. But I'm getting married, and it would be great if you could support me in that. You're a fantastic friend, but if you can't work through your feelings, I will be married, but without the support of my friend." (mix and match sentences as you please)

Just something that strikes the balance between the truth of the matter and not crushing his soul. He will probably be devastated, but strong feelings like his don't wash away overnight. It will be tough to see your friend suffer for a few weeks, but he will emerge resembling much more the friend you once had.