Boyfriend to Best Friend

[Tay]

Hey...I'm only new on this forum , however, the advice that you guys have been dishing out has been honest and truthful and I feel that getting some advice from someone I hardly know might be the best thing for my 'dilemma'.

Ok...this boy and I had only been going out for about 4 months...but the relationship had been building before hand...We were seriously so unseperable...like...best friends....wherever he was...people would go...yeah tay is there with him...tay and Tavis...that's who we were...We're both only seventeen...however, we put so much into the relationship...like everything we had that even other people were getting jealous of how great our bond was.

In the first three weeks that we were together, he told me he loved me...i mean...that freaked me out a bit because you know...it's the "L" word and all but when i got thinking after about a five minute pause, i realised that the feelings were definately reciprocated.

Over the next few months, I could tell that emotionally we were so deep and head over heels that it was just...I don't know the word to describe it...but basically just...surrounding us...i dunno if that sounds weird....he cried one night because he loved me so much...just one night when we were walking about under the stars, he hugged me so tight i couldn't breathe and cried and cried...and told me he was crying because he was overwhelmed with it. That night he had also told me....if we were not as young, he would've asked me to marry him. ( I mean...what guy says that? To me that's weird because I'm used to guys being commit-phobs)

He is now currently re-doing grade 12 because he was dissapointed with the way he totally flunked it the first time. so while he was going to school...i was going to uni....and at school he was also doing rugby...and it ended up from me seeing him....every single day and just having fun just being ourselves...to fighting to see him maybe an hour here and an hour there...He was also starting to make friends with the boys in his grade which put him in the position of what it felt like to me of always ending up second best....but he explianed to me that it was hard for him because he was trying to make friends with them...then i reasoned with him saying....you see them five days a week as well as another 2 hours after school for rugby training, and weights trainign with them...

Only two nights ago, he said we needed to talk...and i had a sense of impending doom...i knew what was about to happen. He told me...seeing as he had rugby every night after school, and worked all day saturday, had to spend sunday's with his family because his dad is away at work all week, we couldn't spend as much time together and it was eating away at him. He had the deepest amount of respect for me and he loved me so much that he couldn't be a half assed boyfriend and see me once a week, walk away 2 hours later and say..."seeyou next week then". He would rather be a boyfriend who took me out, saw me everyday, and treated me like aprincess.

Of course there were a few tears...and I was so devasted I started feeling so sick i was throwing up because of the fact that he was leaving me.

Apart from that...he said...i was still his best friend and he wanted to still be my best friend...but now, i'm in the position where...if i see him, everytime i see him, i'll just want to kiss him, and cuddle him. How can a best friend do that? I mean...I don't know what the protocol is...if he ever hooks in with another girl I will be so dissapointed and devastated because I know...that we will always be a part of each other...I'm even considering waiting for him?

Can anyone give me advice on say...how to get over him, loose my feelings of possessiveness...and most of all...how to be just "friends" with him in the mean time? Am I right to feel this way...

[bohemiandonut]

I'm starting to feel like a dick for telling everyone to "look around," so I'll give you some specialized attention, Tay.

Let me start by explaining a little concept called "No Contact." It is a strategy, usually employed by people whose partners have left them for a little space. My situation just last week was very similar to yours, and I am feeling infinitely better already.

With this strategy, you basically break off all contact with him whatsoever. If this would be shocking and very offensive to him and you're not comfortable jumping straight into it, maybe a little e-mail explaining to him you need some time to yourself, but nothing more. Remember, he broke up with you, you have no obligation to "stay friends" with him.

You have no obligation.

Your feelings are too deep for him to be jerked around. He cannot expect you to be there for attention whenever he needs you. You need to distance yourself.

The strategy runs two ways. It is possible that he is simply not ready for the responsibility. This is not your fault! But you need to be ready to let go if that's the case. Ten years later, and this might have been the man for you, but right now, he's a scared little boy. No Contact is the cleanest, most efficient way to let him go. Imagine ripping off a band-aid in one fast rip as opposed to having it continually peeled off, reapplied, and then peeled off again, etc. This is what you are doing to yourself if you stay his "best friend."

Break off contact. If his calls get urgent and desperate and he acknowledges a change of heart and so and so... Well, it will still be your call. You can't force him to be ready. He needs to do it on his own.

Most of all you need to use your head and not your heart here. Things will get better. I know you loved him, but your love has helped him in ways he is only beginning to understand. Stay strong, kiddo. This is tough, but we are all here for you.

[Tay]

Thank you so much Bohemiandonut...that advice was probably the best I've gotten yet from all the people I've talked to and thank-you for the support.