Have a girlfriend but think I'm in love with my best friend...

[UnstableTimes]

Ancient History...

I have known my current best friend Liz for almost 4 years now. When I met her, I was in high school, and I really liked her at the time. Back then, neither of us had ever been in a serious relationship, nor had any real sexual experiences. Back in high school, I had an emotional roller coaster with this girl because she liked me too, but that lasted for about two months, and then she started to like my best friend Joel who secretly was pursuing her as well. When it finally came out that they had feelings for each other that pretty much came out of nowhere for me, it crushed me. I was really upset about it, and it didn't take long before it ruined the friendship I had both with the girl, and my best guy friend back at the time. I am only 20yrs old right now, and this happened when I had just turned 17. This event took a HUGE emotional toll on me, and made me lack trust in people for a WHILE. After about 4 months, I was pretty much over what had happened, but the event itself changed how I looked at everything, and how much I trusted people even to this day. Anyway, 2 months or so after I was over this, and emotionally stable again, I started dating my current girlfriend, Brittany.


Less ancient history.

Me and my girlfriend were together for about 5 months before I reconnected with Liz again. When I had reconnected with Liz, she had already been broken up with tom for a few months. Reconnecting with Liz at the time seemed like a healthy friendship was being born between us. We hung out a few times with friends all in good fun, and about 3 months after hanging out, she realized she was into Joel again. I took this opportunity to try and make ammends with Joel and tell him that Liz was into him again, and I actually helped to resalvage their relationship. Once they were back together our friendship kinda just naturally died out without any hard feelings whatsoever.

Second Reconnection..

About 6 months after they got back together, me and Liz decided to reconnect, and she went with me and some friends to a college party during spring semester of my freshman year. During the party, we danced together and were flirty with eachother for a lot of the night, and it was a lot of fun. However, the next day, I couldn't stop thinking about the night, and how beautiful I thought Liz was. These thoughts of attraction for Liz lasted about a month or so, and then they slowly died out because we rarely hung out with eachother after that night.

Third RECONNECTION...

About 4 months after the night that I saw her at my school, me and some friends hung out with her and her friends on a boat. We drank only a little, but me and Liz connected in a way that was more than just friends connect. We were very flirty with eachother, and we held hands randomly throughout the night, for extended periods of time, and I really enjoyed this, however, I wasn't sure whether or not she thought of it as anything special. Anyway, after that night, all I could think about for the next month or so was her, and how I enjoyed and wanted to spend time with her...after that night, I hadn't seen her for about a whole year....

Very recent history to present, the final and still lasting connection....

Over this last summer, my girlfriend had a lot of work, and was busy all the time, and me and Liz were lazy bums who had no jobs what so ever. Since her and I were around all the time, we started to hang out ALOT. We hung out with eachother multiple times a week throughout the summer, and we became VERY close friends. I told her everything, and she told me everything. We had days where we would just hang, and other days when we would hang and have sessions of flirtiness like in the previous times we had reconnected. Eventually my girlfriend noticed a bond that was building between me and Liz, which of course made my girlfriend feel very uneasy at times. However, at this point, I was so happy with the friendship me and Liz had, that it was all that really mattered to me. It wasn't till mid summer that I started feeling STRONG emotional connections with Liz, and that I started fantasizing about romantic things like kissing her and what not. For the most part, these feelings were hidden because at the time I had a strong bond with my girlfriend. However, since Britt was always working, Liz was the only one around, and in a way, Liz was giving me the emotional connection I wasn't getting with my own girlfriend. Eventually over the summer, my emotional connection with Liz, almost completely overpowered my emotional connection with my own girlfriend, which I realized was unhealthy, but I never saw need to reconsider my girlfriend and I's relationship. This emotional connection continued getting stronger, and eventually it did come in the way of me and my girlfriend, and became one of the reasons why my girlfriend and I took a break...

During the Break...

During the break, I saw it as an opportunity to potentially explore my options with Liz. I went to Liz's school for her birthday, and basically we flirted, but nothing other than the norm happened. She even preferred to sleep in the same bed as her suitemate, than with me. I saw this as a realizing fact that I was in friend zone, and shortly after that weekend, my emotional attraction to Liz was practically non existant, and i started feeling a need for Brittany back...

After the break...

About 2 weeks later, I actively pursued working things out with Brittany again, and things worked out amazingly, and within no time we were back into a relationship. When we got back I felt like nothing else mattered and all was amazing....On a side note, me and Liz were still contacting eachother on the regular as we had been since we have become close over the summer, because at this point we were so close and I did/do love the friendship and have no intentions of ending it. About a month after getting back with my girlfriend, I fell right back into that pattern of my emotional connection to Liz becoming greater than with my own girlfriend....

This Past weekend..

this past weekend, Liz came up to visit me at my school for a night. That night, I finally cracked all discipline I had, and made a move on Liz, and she went along with everything I did. Yes we were tipsy, but still, we hooked up. The following morning we woke up, had breakfest, and everything seemed absolutely fine, and when she left, I had the biggest smile on my face, but I didn't expect that 2 days later, right now, I would feel the way I am feeling...

How I feel...

I have the strongest desire to be with Liz right now. I can't stop thinking about her, and about that night..The emotional connection is still overpowering that of my girlfriend, but now there is a romantic connection with it that is making me slowly detatch more and more from my girlfriend. Note, my girlfriend and my relationship is a long distance one because she goes to school about 2 hours away, while liz goes to school about 45 minutes away. Anyway, I have not been in contact with Liz since she left, and I don't know how or when to initiate conversation again. Things didn't end off, on a bad note between us, im just afraid, and I feel more vulnerable than I have ever felt before. I don't want to contact her because I feel so emotionally unstable right now, Im going crazy with different emotions, and I think I know what I want, but I don't think I can make any rational decisions just yet. I think that 1, my current girlfriend and I relationship is completely ruined, and two, I want to begin exploring a relationship with Liz, however, I have always said to myself that Liz isn't girlfriend material, and is not in one way trustworthy, and I would just feel constant insecurity with her as my girlfriend, unlike my own girlfriend now who I have always felt security with. I really don't know what to do. I already had plans to visit her at her school this weekend for a big event going on on campus, and I don't know if she wants me there or not, she hasn't, nor have I contacted eachother since this past Friday. I think I am going to end things with my girlfriend soon, and ultimately try to explore things with Liz, but I don't know how to go about this...


Now that you know my WHOLE life history, here is my question...

No matter what, I feel like things with my girlfriends are doomed to fail at this point, because I would refuse to give up my friendship with Liz, and Liz is the only reason I have lost emotional connection with my girlfriend. I don't want to break it with my girlfriend until I have more of a clear head, but I don't know when that will be. I DO want something more with Liz, but I feel insecure at just the thought of her being my girlfriend because I know how she is. I Also, would like to mantain a friendship with Britt, and I am ok with ending romantic relations with Britt, to start something with Liz. Basically, I don't know how to go about this, or when to go about this. I feel so lost, it's constantly on my mind since this event happened, but no clear solutions are coming into my head, everything is such a blur.....

[zebedee]

This might not be very useful but if you have another good friend who knows Liz then you could get them to ask her what she thought of you. Then you will have a bit of a better idea of her feelings. Also (this worked for my friend) when Britt is away ask Liz to come over for a movie. Get out two ( a really boring documentry and a romance one) it's obvious what she will choose. when she is really into to it put your head on her shoulder or lap and pretend to sleep, she will probably laugh and kiss you. Urrrrrrrr hope this works