Can Love Conquer All?
Name: Robin
State: Maryland
Age: 30Comment: Hi,
I am hoping you can help me with this dilemma. I have been very close friends w/ a guy for approximately 8 years. We met in grad school and have a shared group of friends but our friendship has always been closer than with the rest of the group. We talk almost every day, we hang out, we go out to eat, when I’m sick he takes care of me, we complain about our love lives to each other, we ponder the meaning of life and why is life so hard, etc.
I have had 3 serious relationships while we have been friends. In each my significant other was not exactly a fan of our friendship. He on the other hand is afraid of commitment and over the span of time has not had anything really serious but has seen a few women here and there.
About 3 years into our friendship when I was single for a few months, we slept together a few times. Then nothing. He kind of avoided me for a bit then I forgave him and we picked back up our friendship as if nothing happened. When all of this happened I was pretty hurt b/c at that time I really liked him. I was his friend but I wanted him to make a move on me. After all of that happened and we became friends again, I wouldn’t allow myself to see him that way and just concentrated on our friendship.
We never talked about it until recently. Five years later he comes to me and says that he messed up and he wanted to know if he can have a second chance. He explained that he was still caught up in an unfinished relationship back then and what he did was pretty stupid and immature. I was relieved to finally know why things happened the way they did. I always wondered about it and even thought something was wrong w/ me when he would date other women and would remain only my friend.
Here’s the deal. I do like him, I always have. I suppressed it b/c of what happened all those years ago. Now that he’s told me this, I think we could make it work but I have reservations. He hasn’t been big on commitment but I am a serial monogamist. He is a really good person which is why we have remained friends all these years.
We are both currently dating other people but nothing serious for either of us.
Wondering if I should give it a shot?
I don’t think there’s any harm in giving this a go. However, you need to stay cognizant of the fact that he told you who he was. In 8 years, he’s never had a serious or lasting relationship with anyone. He had sex with you, his good friend, and still pulled back. These are warning signs. Is he still that person? Neither you nor he knows.
To his credit, he admitted where he went wrong. That’s not easy to do. To be able to do that it authentically shows an important level of self-awareness. If you’re going to get involved with someone with any kind of limitations (and pretty much everyone has them) then you want to choose someone who knows themselves well enough to be able to identify and own them. Just understand that it is not your job to try and fix or save them. Only they can do that, and that’s only if they choose to.
I’d say to give this guy another chance, but you have to make a concerted effort not to get too invested until he’s demonstrated a consistent baseline of productive/healthy behavior. Also understand that he will falter. He will. This will not be smooth sailing from the word go. Rewiring the system isn’t something that gets done overnight or over the course of a few months. These things take time. The most important thing for him to do is to figure out why he has such ambivalence. If he can’t or won’t do that, then he will never actually change. He’ll say he has. He’ll probably even believe that he has. But until he knows the source of the fear, the changes will be temporary. You can’t just treat the symptom. You have to treat the cause if you hope to be able to manage a problem effectively.
If you see a lot of good in this person, then you’re going to have to commit to giving him a chance to work his stuff out. How long? That’s up to you. At this point it should be a clean slate. Don’t hold on to everything that transpired over the past 8 years. You have to accept him as he is, right now, today. You can’t keep bringing up – to him or to yourself – who he was. You two have established a foundation of friendship. Without that this would just be another smash and grab situation where the guy is just looking for an easy piece of ass. It doesn’t sound to me like that’s what this is, although I do think you’re probably imagining the intensity of the intimacy that you two have. Probably because we’ve all seen the movies and tv shows where the two friends fall in love and live happily ever after. Remove all of those images and stories from your head. That’s fiction. You are not Sally. He is not Harry. He is a man with intimacy issues. That is not cute or quirky or funny. To someone emotionally available, this sort of person is their Kryptonite. That’s why you have to be sure not to romanticize things. Don’t listen to your girlfriends who tell you he’s afraid to love, or afraid of his feelings for you, or that he’s probably been burnt before. That all might be true. It’s good to be compassionate and empathetic, But not to the point where you become so sympathetic that you trick yourself in to believing that love can conquer all. It can’t.
We are far too complex as a species for things to be that simple.
The Death of Pretty, Rise of Hotness