Love, Friendship or Business??

[dinah]

My friend James and I have been building a strong and very tangled relationship for the past few months. We've been friends for about 4 years and in that time started working on business projects together. We work brilliantly together and have been nominated for awards as a team.

About 6 months ago I broke up with my long-term partner and sleeping with James was inevitable (and brilliant!) We both wanted it for so long and we decided to have a Friends-With-Benefits arrangement. This lasted for 5 months but things started changing when we both started slipping into "relationship" behaviour - eg, he'd cook for me and I'd take him shopping.

Now we've decided to very slowly embark on an emotional relationship. This is tricky because I've just come out of one and he was hurt so badly from a previous relationship that he hasn't had one for about 5 years.

The trouble is that now the lines are really blurred between business, friendship and love. When I come over to work on a business project the meeting often ends with sex, but when we go out socially we rarely leave together. We went out for Valentines Day dinner but he just joked around and we didn't even kiss, but the next day we worked late into the night, had some drinks and had sex.

It's like all the pieces of a perfect relationship are there but they're all coming out at weird times. I can't keep track of which hat I should be wearing at what time because I never seem to have the right one on. I feel like sometimes he wants to be friends, sometimes he wants to be lovers and sometimes he just wants to get things done, and these are all very separate versions of our relationship.

Maybe it's too early to consolidate them into one big relationship, but how do I balance three relationships with one man?!

[MerryH]

Have you talked to him about this?

[sweetkissesforu]

Put all the pieces together and you might have a great relationship