Feelings for a friend

Let me start this thread by saying if you just want to spew moralistic crap at me, don't waste my time.

My wife and I are going through some issues. In fact we've been going through some issues for the last two years. Every time we're passed it, it comes back and it's put a lot of strain on our relationship. After we move we're gonna get into counseling for it.

But here's the problem. We have a friend who has been my go to girl for venting my frustration at this situation. Worse, she's everything my wife isn't in this area. I realized recently that I've developed some rather strong feelings for her. And I'm not sure what to do. Obviously I'm not going to cheat on my wife. I'm smart enough to know I can't tell my wife "be more like your friend". Or can I?

Disclaimer: Not married. Have never been.

That said, I've had a number of situations when dating that felt like that, and I've watched other people in similar situations. The usual case is that things are not going well in my relationship, but aren't so out-and-out bad that I can legitimize cutting and running. So I would take those things I needed/wanted and wasn't getting from my S.O. and projected them onto a female friend. Broke up, realized that the female friend I saw a certain way wasn't quite like that, but was really me looking for what I needed but wasn't getting.

Threw me for a loop with my current girlfriend of almost 6 years when I realized that she actually was the things I thought I was just imagining.

Like I said earlier though, I've never been married. At least to me, that changes a lot (which is why I haven't gotten married). If you've got kids, that changes even more.

I guess the point is: sounds like there are things you need that you're not getting from your wife that really bother you. Best course would be to see if she reasonably can. Maybe she can't. Also possible that you're not so much interested in the friend as projecting what you need on a convenient person.

Disclaimer: I've never been married, I'm only 21, and I've been drinking. However, I have been dating my girlfriend for very nearly 3 years.

I'd take a real hard look at what it is you are getting from your friend, and not getting from your wife. Why are you not getting it from your wife? Is it something that you should be, but she isn't providing? If you could vent to another friend, possibly one who is a male, would the situation be any different?

Salanis wrote: I guess the point is: sounds like there are things you need that you're not getting from your wife that really bother you. Best course would be to see if she reasonably can. Maybe she can't. Also possible that you're not so much interested in the friend as projecting what you need on a convenient person.

I'm just gonna +1 this bit right here.

i went thru this with a friend of mine last summer.. her and i have always had a very comfortable relationship where we could just always talk to each other about what was bothering us. she got married to my cousin in January of '00 and we still hung out on a regular basis. anyways, flash forward to last summer.. my cousin had taken the kids in the rv for a weekend of motocross racing about 100 miles away. in the meantime, she decided that she wanted to paint up their 8 year old daughter's bedroom while they were gone and surprise her when they got back. she asked if i could help, and i had nothing better to do, so i did. over the course of the weekend, we spent about 30 hours working on the room, and i crashed on the couch each night. on saturday night she was drinking a bit while we painted, and she starts asking me why i'm always there for them and why i help them out so much. then she starts telling me that she wished that she had chosen me over her husband back when they first got together in '98, and how life would be so much easier if she had a husband that she actually loved and all that stuff.. i just told her that we'd talk about it when she was sober, but that hasn't happened..

long story short, i tried to bring it up once in May, and we haven't really talked at all since then. she won't say a word to me when i'm over there, and won't even talk via email or facebook messages any more.i feel like i lost my best friend and most steady source of moral support, and i have no idea what's in her head- but i imagine she's got it all twisted into a plotline that you might see on 90210 or something.

so tread lightly..

I've been married 25 years, and I'll say this...

Don't waste your time in a marriage where you're not happy, just because it's the right thing to do. Just keep in mind that the the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. If you're not happy with your wife, tell her why.

If you are serious about:

Drewsifer wrote: ...After we move we're gonna get into counseling for it.

and this:

Drewsifer wrote: Obviously I'm not going to cheat on my wife

Then you are putting yourself in a dangerous position. Confiding in your lady friend is an obvious path for developing an emotional attachment. Developing an emotional attachment is the start to something else.

You are stacking the odds of success against yourself.

If you are NOT serious about those things and interested in developing a relationship with this other lady friend, then you have a different set of circumstances.

I know you said you are committed to your wife, but (as others have noted) a different message is coming through between the lines.

I don't think the problem is your wife OR the lady friend. I'm not sure that YOU are sure of what you want.

Drewsifer wrote: I'm smart enough to know I can't tell my wife "be more like your friend". Or can I?

There are ways to say that very nicely.

FWIW I was in the same situation with my 1st marriage. We had been together 7-years, and it had been bad for 6 of them, but we have a daughter together & I felt that sticking it out was the "right thing".

Eventually, I met a gal(who I had dated very briefly in high-school, some 18-years prior), that I was able to vent to & get feedback from. Long story short - I got divorced(after the start of physical violence from my ex), ended up marrying my friend, and we've been together 7-years & it's great!

Your marriage isn't working. It sounds like you've attempted to fix it, but it hasn't worked. It's time to do something different, but only you can figure out what's best.

SVreX wrote:

Drewsifer wrote: Obviously I'm not going to cheat on my wife

Then you are putting yourself in a dangerous position. Confiding in your lady friend is an obvious path for developing an emotional attachment. Developing an emotional attachment is the start to something else.

+1 Even if nothing else ever came of it, you are sharing your thoughts and feelings with a woman (i.e. investing time and emotional energy) who is not your SO.

The wisdom of Harry met Sally.
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFWGOKuFyjk
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuSyX2d1tbY&feature=related

Zomby woof wrote: I've been married 25 years, and I'll say this... Don't waste your time in a marriage where you're not happy, just because it's the right thing to do. Just keep in mind that the the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. If you're not happy with your wife, tell her why.

+1. Been married for 12 years now, and echo the above. With one caveat. Take a step back and really think about your wife. Do you love her for who she is? In your heart, do you know that she's the one for you? Every marriage goes through tough times. But if the foundation is strong and you know in your heart she's the one for you (and of course she has to feel the same way), then you might want to focus your energy on the marriage you have instead of using a "go to" person. My wife and I are both very strong willed personalities, so that can lead to some fireworks. But at the end of the day, I know there's nobody else I'd want to be married to...or maybe I know there's nobody else who'd marry my sorry butt.

I would like to know more about how you feel about your wife before commenting, from the angle that your "friend" had moved out of your life.

Don't ask me...I divorced the wife, married the friend and have been happier than ever for the past 8 years.

Been married 33 years, no disclaimer just my two cents.

If your wife had a male friend that she vented to because he is everything that you are not, how would you feel? If you want to stay married ditch the friend and focus on your wife, you may learn a few things.

Only you can make the call.

Dan

Everybody else has covered this pretty well, but let me add this:

Having the friend in this position should make it easy to identify what it is you're not getting from your wife. Since you know what you're getting from the friend to fill in the holes in your marriage, it becomes a matter of finding a constructive and tactful way to indicate to your wife that you need these things from her. And be prepared to accept that she probably needs things from you that she's not getting.

You say you've been having trouble for 2 years, but you don't say how long you've been married. You also don't say what the issues are that keep cropping up. That's your business and I sure don't expect you to describe them in gory detail on a public forum.

When my wife and I had been married about 10 years, we had issues that lasted more than a couple years. Part of that was the stress of raising 2 kids, and working full time, etc. Hell, we've now been married for 20 years, and we still have issues... but at all times, no matter how bad the flareups, we had fundamental compatibility. That's not to say there were not fundamental differences that caused a lot of stress, but there were no dealbreakers. Neither of us cheated, had unaddressed addiction problems, gambled, ran up the credit cards, etc. We're both headed in pretty much the same direction even if we take somewhat different paths at times.

There were plenty of times when we both felt it would be easier not to be married, but (at least on my part) there were never any times when I felt that I needed to completely removed from her in order to survive (mentally and physically). We've always had fundamental respect for each other, even if sometimes failing to actively apply that respect led to arguments. We've both become better at actually listening, and at examining our own actions, and at changing our behaviours to give each other what they need. After 20 years we have never been more happily married than we are now.

I guess my point is that 2 years is not a long time if you both feel you are fundamentally compatible, but just have certain things you need to do better for each other. Give it another 2-3 years of effort (it will NOT be a direct upward route to improvement) and revisit the situation as you go. BUT: if there is a real, fundamental incompatibility that is truly not resolvable, then the time is now to start to disentangle yourselves as adultly and humanely as possible. Of course, only you can decide that.

Hopefully all of these posts are helping. Good luck, and remember we are here to help.

[edit] One last thing - I see the friend as a symptom, not a cause or a cure. If you decide to separate from your wife, you owe it to everybody NOT to immediately pursue the friend, at least for a time. That would be a great way to make a bad situation worse. Give it some space and see if that is something real before going there.

Query:

Could it be that the friend is "what you think you need when you think you need it"?

Your wife must have had it once since she is . . . your wife. Maybe she has forgotten how to do that "thing" or your focus of other "things" cause you to forget why she is your wife . . . .

I say ditch the friend. It can go wrong so many ways past wrong quickly.

JoeyM wrote:

SVreX wrote:

Drewsifer wrote: Obviously I'm not going to cheat on my wife

Then you are putting yourself in a dangerous position. Confiding in your lady friend is an obvious path for developing an emotional attachment. Developing an emotional attachment is the start to something else.

+1 Even if nothing else ever came of it, you are sharing your thoughts and feelings with a woman (i.e. investing time and emotional energy) who is not your SO.

This. Keeping the friendship is no different than locking a recovering alcoholic in the store room of a bar. The alcoholic may be able to resist having a drink for a while, but eventually they will break. Eventually you will cheat (in my eyes you already have by going to the friend instead of your wife).

Cut the friendship, focus on reconnecting and rebuilding your relationship with your wife. Be honest with your wife about the feelings you have been having for your friend. Be honest with your friend that your feelings have gotten out of hand and you can not continue the friendship.

A good relationship is like a P.O.S car, you have to keep working on it to keep every thing go's smoothly. When it dose start breaking down, you need to start fixing it as soon as possible. You also need to know when it is not worth your time any ways...

Ultimately the strain is that you and your wife are not being completely honest with each other, that's why it's easier to confide in your friend. Fix that issue and the rest will clear itself up.

Oh, and I'll add this(now that I've had caffeine): This is really two separate issues, and you need to treat it as such - first your marriage, then the friend.

Deal with your marriage and whatever comes of it, but this has obviously been a lingering problem. If you really don't feel it can be resolved/saved, then do yourself and your wife a favor and just get it over with. If you really feel you're both committed to making it work - then make it work.

Only after that decision is done, then deal with the friend. You may find she doesn't really have feelings for you after you're single, so don't count on anything happening there.

I'll echo the comments above: Life's too short to be unhappy. Though you need to find that happiness inside first.

Setting aside whatever issues you've got with your wife, yeah, this thing with the other woman needs to stop because it's poisoning any chance you have of fixing things with your wife.

Even when things are going well, a close friendship with another woman can make the realities of the one at home seem overwhelming. It's easy to start fantasizing that somehow things would be better with the friend. If the realities of the one at home are already overwhelming you're just screwing yourself.

Drewsifer wrote: But here's the problem. We have a friend who has been my go to girl for venting my frustration at this situation.

Just my opinion, since you asked.

I don't think there's anything good to come of the relationship with the friend. If you don't think you can save the relationship with your wife, get a divorce. If you want to work on your marriage, I think you need to get this "friend" out of your life. There's no way she can make it easier and almost certainly makes it harder.

And no, you can not tell your wife to be more like the friend or anyone else. She is who she is just as you are who you are. She was that person when you married her. Either that's a good thing, or you made a mistake. If you want to work on your marriage you have to accept her as she is and meet her there. If you're not interested in doing that I'd say you may not have a great chance of making it work.

But trying to get her to change, or even wishing she would change, is not a productive line of thought. She's not going to turn into this friend any more than you're going to turn into George Clooney.

Just one last bit of advice. Often when people talk about working on a relationship, they are looking at everything but the one thing they can actually change- themselves. You have to ask yourself what you're doing, what you could do differently, then honestly decide if you want to do that. Identify the things that you aren't happy with and ask yourself if they are more important to you than your relationship with your wife.

If the answer is no, then you need to decide that you're going to let those things go and not be bothered by them again. You've thought it over, and decided that your marriage is more important than "x". When "x" comes up again, remind yourself that you already made a call on that and it is what it is. You've decided to accept that. Don't waste any time festering over it. Think it through now and make a decision you can live with. Then put it away.

If the answer is yes, then you need to see if she's willing to accommodate some change in that area for the sake of your relationship. She may, or may not. There's nothing you can do about that. You have done what you can do. You honestly accessed the situation and decided that you cannot live with "y". If she is unwilling or unable to do anything about "y" and there's no other way to resolve it, then you have to move on. But you can move on confidant that you thought it though in a productive way and made the best decision you could.

Is the friend hot? That's an important factor.

Joey

joey48442 wrote: Is the friend hot? That's an important factor. Joey

LOL!!

My wife is my best friend and we both confide in each other constantly. If anything bothers me about her she hears about it right away and vice versa.

I knew my wife was "the one" when she said we need to save our money for fresh R compound tires for autocrossing in the spring.
And she's hot. Can't forget that one.

If there were any serious problems I'd have no problem heading to a good marriage counselor and that is what would recommend.

Duke wrote: When my wife and I had been married about 10 years, we had issues that lasted more than a couple years. Part of that was the stress of raising 2 kids, and working full time, etc. Hell, we've now been married for 20 years, and we still have issues... but at all times, no matter how bad the flareups, we had fundamental compatibility. That's not to say there were not fundamental differences that caused a lot of stress, but there were no dealbreakers. Neither of us cheated, had unaddressed addiction problems, gambled, ran up the credit cards, etc. We're both headed in pretty much the same direction even if we take somewhat different paths at times. There were plenty of times when we both felt it would be easier not to be married, but (at least on my part) there were never any times when I felt that I needed to completely removed from her in order to survive (mentally and physically). We've always had fundamental respect for each other, even if sometimes failing to actively apply that respect led to arguments. We've both become better at *actually* listening, and at examining *our own* actions, and at changing our behaviours to give each other what they need. After 20 years we have never been more happily married than we are now.

+1. This is exactly what I was saying in my post. That sounds exactly like my marriage. We've got 3 little kids, both work full time, have all the joys/fun of home ownership, etc... That, combined with our fireball personalities, can make life interesting. But at heart, there is no doubt in our minds that we belong together. Like you said, we're constantly learning to actually listen to each other and not just point the finger at each other.

So OP, that's a question only you and your wife can answer. How do you really feel about each other?

Edit. Just to add one point. Several people have brought up the idea of a marriage counselor. Definitely consider it, but be honest with yourself. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it, but I just personally wouldn't do it. I'm not one to go and tell my deepest inner feelings about something as personal as my marriage to someone that I don't know, and doesn't really know me. Given that, I'd have a hard time telling them everything, then taking their advice. So you have to be honest with yourself and if you do decide to do it, you have to be "all in".