Hey
This is pretty complicated so sorry if I ramble on for a while. Basically, I'm 19 and in my first year at uni. I joined a club and met a guy who is 29 and isn't at the uni and has a job. We got talking over facebook and one thing led to another and we started 'seeing' each other. This was in November, and it's now March and things are getting complicated.
It started off just as a sort of 'friends with benefits' thing, just meeting up a couple of times a week. But as time went on we started to see more and more of each other and it started to be less to do with the sex. I came back to uni for a couple of days over the Christmas break just to see him, and once the new term started we basically saw each other every day up until now.
Because of the age gap, we never let anyone know what was happening, and obviously this has gotten quite difficult as we both have basically the same social group. The reasons for keeping it secret have shifted, from worrying about judgement, to it forcing us into a relationship, and now to that people would think it was just about the sex (which it was initially, but it really isn't at all anymore).
I think if I'm being honest with myself I've always wanted it to turn into a relationship, and just deal with the judgements of people and try and get through the problems it would bring. But he's pretty much been adamant the whole time that we wouldn't work. And obviously the reasons for that have changed over time too. At the moment it is because he says he is noticing the age gap more and more because of things I say and do, but says it isn't my fault and if I were a little older I'd be absolutely perfect for him and exactly what he was looking for. Which sucks massively!
At first we both agreed to be open about seeing other people, and that each other would be the first to know if we went on a date with anyone etc. That kind of stopped between December and now, but it's shifted back again due to him not wanting it to end badly.
Thing is, the club had a trip a couple of weeks ago, where a girl he'd previously got with was too. I knew about her, but he'd always said it wasn't a possibility as she lives at the other end of the country. But on the trip he was talking to her loads, and he could see it was hurting me and even said he hated hurting me but still kept doing it. It was all very confusing.
But yeah I think my reactions to all that weren't the best, I'm generally not very good at getting jealous and stuff.
So now at the start of this week he suddenly said he thinks we should not see each other as much, just a couple of times a week, and that he's probably going to see this girl when he goes on holiday in a few weeks. I think I can cope with the fact that we need to stop seeing each other so much, as I know we're getting too attached and it's only going to end badly if we don't start to stop now, but it's just the surprise of it. Three weeks ago and he was saying there was no one else and he couldn't see anything changing for quite a while.
He says nothing is changing in the way we act with each other, there's just gonna be less of it. But it still hurts so much
He's my absolute best friend, and he says the most important thing to him is that we get through all this still being really close. I'm just finding it incredibly hard to get my head round and I don't really know how to get over him if I'm still seeing him a fair bit. I really don't want to stop seeing him, cos we get on so well and have a really good time, but I'm just so confused!
Any advice would be really great! Just writing all this down is helping anyway