yet another new friend of a survivor
Hi everyone. I've been reading posts on this website for a very long time now, but I have never posted before. The time has finally come for me to talk. I've read so many of your posts, I feel like I've known some of you forever.
I am the closest friend of a survivor. He disclosed to me almost 5 years ago; I've known him almost 8. I love him very much, but despite mutual attraction he has refused to move our relationship to a sexual relationship. It's a complicated story (aren't they all?). In the shortest version possible, it goes like this:
1) we meet and are friends; we flirt regularly but he kept me at a distance for a while
2) then he made sexual advances and proposed a sex with no strings relationship
3) that didn't appeal to me at first, so we tried that briefly, after all we are consenting adults, but it was not what i really wanted at the time
4) after a period of time of being just friends again, and no sexual relations, i confronted him and wanted to know why he kept me at such a distance; there was this wall beyond which i could not go emotionally.
5) in that conversation, he disclosed to me his abuse. he said then, and maintains today, that he has never trusted anyone else with this.
6) in the instant he told me that information, everything clicked. i spent hours reading and learning and educating myself. everything i read--it was him--i read his life story everywhere i turned. his insomnia, his PTSD, his trust issues, and other things just suddenly clicked into place.
7) from there, i promised myself and him that he had a friend in me forever. i am forever an optimist, idealist, and i realized i have been very lucky in my life to have had a stable, safe, and normal childhood. and i am not a selfish quitter.
8) so after he disclosed to me, he became somewhat distant at first; he began dating a lot and decided to fit in socially with the rest of our peers professionally, he needed to have a girlfriend and be in a relationship.
9) his "girlfriend" is submissive, and knows he has cheated on her in the course of 4 years (not just with me, but others); he controls the entire relationship. it's about him alone, and he does everything to make her end the relationship. he tells her he does not want to be married. she still stays thinking he will change his mind. he always does just enough to keep her around, because after all, even though she does not live with him, he uses her for certain purposes.
10) when he first told me he was dating her, i was pissed and felt betrayed and a fool. in the end, my belief in love and friendship kept our relationship in tact. i always knew that i would be around longer than the "girlfriend." after all, i would always have known him longer. and he really didn't care about her. i would always be the one he was honest with and who knew him better than her. and i also believed that if i cut him out of my life, it would just prove him right--that there is no such thing as unconditional love; and that he was not a good person deserving of a healthy relationship; and that all the reasons he didn't trust people were valid because if i abandoned him, he was right to stay in a shell.
11) so our friendship grew; i dated others (never all that seriously), but never did i feel for anyone as i did for him emotionally. and even when i dated others, our relationship was always strong, and constant.
12) now, it has only strengthened. here we are 4 years later. we have had a few sexual encounters, but they have been somewhat random and spread out over time. we support each other in every aspect--professionally we both work very hard. in fact--he is a workaholic; very ambitious and devoting his whole life to his career. i know that often SA survivors do this--they go to extremes and can be workaholics. i interpret it as he avoids his life, his emotions, and his pain by throwing himself into work, among other things.
13) so my relationship with him--he still has the girlfriend--yet we spend more time together than he does with her. and we always have a fun time. it is comfortable, it is warm, it is honest, because we know each other well and share everything. he is my best friend, and i am his. whenever he needs something, he calls me. and vice versa--he never tells me no for anything i need help with. he is truly a good friend and person. he knows how proud of him i am, because i tell him. i know he is proud of me too, because of how he brags about me when we are out with others.
whenever we are together, because of our obvious closeness, and how we know each other, and spend so much time together, people always assume we are a couple. it hurts when, i wish we were a couple, and i have to hear him say, "no, we're just friends." i hate that our relationship is minimized to that phrase. because i know for both of us it is so much more significant.
14) six months ago, on the way to a black tie christmas party, we ended up on the discussion of us. purely by accident. and he said to me--if i were going to be hurt by continuing our friendship because i wanted more and he would not commit to more--then he would be willing to let me go to keep from hurting me. he insisted that he loved and cared for me, but apologized because he didnt think he could love me the way i wanted to be loved; he didn't want to hurt me and insists the best thing for me would be to continue the beautiful, unconditional friendship we had. because he knows he will just hurt me as a boyfriend. by the way, we went to the party and had a blast as if nothing had happened; when we got back into the car, the conversation picked up right where we had left off before the party!!).
15) so at that point--i was devastated and told him i deserved more than he was giving me. and i didn't mean giving to me materially. he agreed. the things i want from him cannot be bought. i decided then that if i cut him out of my life, just like he again offered me to do--i would prove him right about his belief that there is no such thing as love.
16) and in the course of a few days, during which i was digesting and thinking about our talk, he surprised me with a very extravagant gift--mind you, he had never bought me anything before like that. don't misunderstand me--he is always the perfect gentleman, opens every door and pulls every chair and pays for every dinner. but a gift that required thought or effort--never happened.
17) we had also travelled a few times together--shared a bed--and nothing sexual happened on those trips. so now, six months later, we have spent even more time together; we are closer than ever mentally, emotionally. and we take another extravagant trip together. he insists on the trip as a gift for me because, he says, he wants to do something nice for me to make me happy--because i do so much for him. mind you, i can afford to pay for my own trip, but he made all the arrangements. i realize it means a lot to him to do it, so i let him. but not without feeling guilty for it.
the girlfriend does not know i go on the trip with him. she is mad that she did not get to go actually. instead, he has another mutual male friend go on the trip with us, and he is the alibi. he planned for me to sleep in my own room.
18) he invited me into his room one night, but i failed him miserably and breached his trust, because i attempted to initiate sex the next morning. we talked a lot later, and he finally--after all these years--revealed to me that he does not enjoy sex. and he again stated, he does not want to ever get married or commit to me romantically. things clicked yet again! i finally realized that the relationship we have--it cannot involve sex because he has been so hurt by it; he does not equate love and sex (that I knew already) but that i was the one person he could rely on who didn't want him for sex (since we were together 99.99% of the time without it).
i feel like i was being tested. he told me, he invited me to his room because he trusted me, and then i betrayed it. how could i be so stupid? but at the end of all this, he has again said to me that if this relationship was going to hurt me more, than maybe we should not be friends anymore. of course, he said he wants to keep our friendship as deep as it is, and loving as it is, and trusting, but that is it.
so i am here. i have never cut anyone out of my life before. never. no matter what and i do not feel it is fair to either of us if i do. we both need each other and want to share each other's lives. but clearly we both have different boundaries and needs in mind.
i am here to seek thoughts; opinions; insight. what am i missing here in all this? or am i missing nothing and paying the price for being an optimist? for wanting to see only the good and teach him that there really is something good about love? and for wanting him to realize his value? and for wanting to keep this friendship in tact?
This is so long--I apologize---so I will end this in anticipation of some insight.
I am the closest friend of a survivor. He disclosed to me almost 5 years ago; I've known him almost 8. I love him very much, but despite mutual attraction he has refused to move our relationship to a sexual relationship. It's a complicated story (aren't they all?). In the shortest version possible, it goes like this:
1) we meet and are friends; we flirt regularly but he kept me at a distance for a while
2) then he made sexual advances and proposed a sex with no strings relationship
3) that didn't appeal to me at first, so we tried that briefly, after all we are consenting adults, but it was not what i really wanted at the time
4) after a period of time of being just friends again, and no sexual relations, i confronted him and wanted to know why he kept me at such a distance; there was this wall beyond which i could not go emotionally.
5) in that conversation, he disclosed to me his abuse. he said then, and maintains today, that he has never trusted anyone else with this.
6) in the instant he told me that information, everything clicked. i spent hours reading and learning and educating myself. everything i read--it was him--i read his life story everywhere i turned. his insomnia, his PTSD, his trust issues, and other things just suddenly clicked into place.
7) from there, i promised myself and him that he had a friend in me forever. i am forever an optimist, idealist, and i realized i have been very lucky in my life to have had a stable, safe, and normal childhood. and i am not a selfish quitter.
8) so after he disclosed to me, he became somewhat distant at first; he began dating a lot and decided to fit in socially with the rest of our peers professionally, he needed to have a girlfriend and be in a relationship.
9) his "girlfriend" is submissive, and knows he has cheated on her in the course of 4 years (not just with me, but others); he controls the entire relationship. it's about him alone, and he does everything to make her end the relationship. he tells her he does not want to be married. she still stays thinking he will change his mind. he always does just enough to keep her around, because after all, even though she does not live with him, he uses her for certain purposes.
10) when he first told me he was dating her, i was pissed and felt betrayed and a fool. in the end, my belief in love and friendship kept our relationship in tact. i always knew that i would be around longer than the "girlfriend." after all, i would always have known him longer. and he really didn't care about her. i would always be the one he was honest with and who knew him better than her. and i also believed that if i cut him out of my life, it would just prove him right--that there is no such thing as unconditional love; and that he was not a good person deserving of a healthy relationship; and that all the reasons he didn't trust people were valid because if i abandoned him, he was right to stay in a shell.
11) so our friendship grew; i dated others (never all that seriously), but never did i feel for anyone as i did for him emotionally. and even when i dated others, our relationship was always strong, and constant.
12) now, it has only strengthened. here we are 4 years later. we have had a few sexual encounters, but they have been somewhat random and spread out over time. we support each other in every aspect--professionally we both work very hard. in fact--he is a workaholic; very ambitious and devoting his whole life to his career. i know that often SA survivors do this--they go to extremes and can be workaholics. i interpret it as he avoids his life, his emotions, and his pain by throwing himself into work, among other things.
13) so my relationship with him--he still has the girlfriend--yet we spend more time together than he does with her. and we always have a fun time. it is comfortable, it is warm, it is honest, because we know each other well and share everything. he is my best friend, and i am his. whenever he needs something, he calls me. and vice versa--he never tells me no for anything i need help with. he is truly a good friend and person. he knows how proud of him i am, because i tell him. i know he is proud of me too, because of how he brags about me when we are out with others.
whenever we are together, because of our obvious closeness, and how we know each other, and spend so much time together, people always assume we are a couple. it hurts when, i wish we were a couple, and i have to hear him say, "no, we're just friends." i hate that our relationship is minimized to that phrase. because i know for both of us it is so much more significant.
14) six months ago, on the way to a black tie christmas party, we ended up on the discussion of us. purely by accident. and he said to me--if i were going to be hurt by continuing our friendship because i wanted more and he would not commit to more--then he would be willing to let me go to keep from hurting me. he insisted that he loved and cared for me, but apologized because he didnt think he could love me the way i wanted to be loved; he didn't want to hurt me and insists the best thing for me would be to continue the beautiful, unconditional friendship we had. because he knows he will just hurt me as a boyfriend. by the way, we went to the party and had a blast as if nothing had happened; when we got back into the car, the conversation picked up right where we had left off before the party!!).
15) so at that point--i was devastated and told him i deserved more than he was giving me. and i didn't mean giving to me materially. he agreed. the things i want from him cannot be bought. i decided then that if i cut him out of my life, just like he again offered me to do--i would prove him right about his belief that there is no such thing as love.
16) and in the course of a few days, during which i was digesting and thinking about our talk, he surprised me with a very extravagant gift--mind you, he had never bought me anything before like that. don't misunderstand me--he is always the perfect gentleman, opens every door and pulls every chair and pays for every dinner. but a gift that required thought or effort--never happened.
17) we had also travelled a few times together--shared a bed--and nothing sexual happened on those trips. so now, six months later, we have spent even more time together; we are closer than ever mentally, emotionally. and we take another extravagant trip together. he insists on the trip as a gift for me because, he says, he wants to do something nice for me to make me happy--because i do so much for him. mind you, i can afford to pay for my own trip, but he made all the arrangements. i realize it means a lot to him to do it, so i let him. but not without feeling guilty for it.
the girlfriend does not know i go on the trip with him. she is mad that she did not get to go actually. instead, he has another mutual male friend go on the trip with us, and he is the alibi. he planned for me to sleep in my own room.
18) he invited me into his room one night, but i failed him miserably and breached his trust, because i attempted to initiate sex the next morning. we talked a lot later, and he finally--after all these years--revealed to me that he does not enjoy sex. and he again stated, he does not want to ever get married or commit to me romantically. things clicked yet again! i finally realized that the relationship we have--it cannot involve sex because he has been so hurt by it; he does not equate love and sex (that I knew already) but that i was the one person he could rely on who didn't want him for sex (since we were together 99.99% of the time without it).
i feel like i was being tested. he told me, he invited me to his room because he trusted me, and then i betrayed it. how could i be so stupid? but at the end of all this, he has again said to me that if this relationship was going to hurt me more, than maybe we should not be friends anymore. of course, he said he wants to keep our friendship as deep as it is, and loving as it is, and trusting, but that is it.
so i am here. i have never cut anyone out of my life before. never. no matter what and i do not feel it is fair to either of us if i do. we both need each other and want to share each other's lives. but clearly we both have different boundaries and needs in mind.
i am here to seek thoughts; opinions; insight. what am i missing here in all this? or am i missing nothing and paying the price for being an optimist? for wanting to see only the good and teach him that there really is something good about love? and for wanting him to realize his value? and for wanting to keep this friendship in tact?
This is so long--I apologize---so I will end this in anticipation of some insight.
At the end of the day, I know he does care about me and has his own way of showing it. I like your idea on the board elsewhere that he and I should talk about what we both want and need and set boundaries together. Right now though, he doesn't want to talk anymore about this. He told me to let him know where he stands so he can protect me and himself. That is the first and closest he has ever come to admiting he is afraid of me.
