I am so conflicted and confused...

[Mezzaluna]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this but... So back in high school, I dated this guy who I had been friends with since early elementary.  We both don't remember how we met, but we do know we had a connection.  We were friends for years and over time, developed feelings for each other.  It was new and exciting and just absolutely strange to me at first.  As soon as I realized my feelings for him, I decided to make a move.  With the help of my friend's,(I'm really shy and they helped me approach him....kinda...) we talked and found out that the feelings were mutual between us.  So, we started dating.

 

Things went well at first, but then we broke up for the first time.  It had caught me completely by surprise and I was really confused.  I had done my best to be a good girlfriend and I was just really confused about the whole thing.  I couldn't keep him out of my thoughts for a while.  Not long after, he came back stating that he was sorry for breaking up with me and he still had feelings for me and wanted to get back together.  I said yes because I still cared for him.  Things seemed to go well at first, just like before, but after a little while, he wanted to take things further and I didn't.  He would pressure me a lot, bugging me about it until finally, I had enough and broke up with him.  I didn't want to, but I knew what was going on was not healthy or good in any way. (I also didn't know about my asexuality at the time and it made me feel abnormal that I didn't feel the way he felt)

 

I had to do it, but it was apparent that it really broke his heart.  He had asked once more if he was sure I didn't want to get together again and I said no.  He no longer bugged me about it after that.  Before the relationship and the break up, we were pretty close and talked a lot.  After, he slowly started to drift away.  He became more distant until finally, nothing.

 

Though it made me sad to lose such a good friend, I tried to move on with great difficulty.  It feels strange when I say it or write it down, but I really did love him and I know he loved me...at least, then he did.  We were both young and what he wanted was normal for a guy his age to want.  We were also inexperienced and throughout the 11 month long relationship, we had bad communication when it came to our feelings which didn't help either.  Now that time has passed, we know better of course.

 

Fast forward 2 years and on August 9th, I recieved a sudden and unexpected text from my best friend (I'm not much of a talker/texter a lot of the time) saying that he was back and wanted to talk to me.  In September 2018, he had been in a terrible accident that had caused him to lose his memory.  I was shocked to find this out and really conflicted.  After 2 years, I thought that I had gotten over him, but now that he was back those feelings returned.  Though I was unsure, I still texted him.

 

It was a little awkward at first, but soon enough we were talking comfortably over text.  He explained what had happened and it was not a joke or prank as I had kind of suspected.  While on the freeway, another car had bumped into him which caused his body to jump up and hit his head pretty hard on the roof.  After that, he couldn't remember anything before the accident.  He had spent months recovering and slowly regaining memories here and there, but he told me that he could not remember me at all.

 

It hurt hearing this from him..  I was very glad to see that he was okay, but we were childhood friends and all of a sudden, he could not remember me and all our memories together.  I offered to help him in any way that I could and after that we began texting everyday.  Wanting to take things slow as to not overwhelm him, I would tell him small stories about us and over time he slowly regained most of his memory.  He seems to remember everything now, even some childhood memories he had trouble remembering before.  He thanked me for helping him and apologized for the way he acted when we were dating.

 

We agreed we wanted to stay friends, but I still have feeling for him and my heart aches thinking about him.  He confuses me sometimes because he has hinted that he still loves me, but I'm not sure what to think.  I don't know what to do either.  I want to move on, but another part of me wants to hold on to the hope that maybe we could be together again.  I'm so confused... what should I do?

[Guest]

It's really hard to remain friends with someone you have feelings for and if he has feelings again too (hinted?) perhaps in the future things will become awkward. Although, there can still be love between friends. I feel like a total separation is the only solution when feelings are involved but I understand it's not that easy emotionally. I've had similar situations before and looking back it was better to walk away. Maybe things are different for you though. Maybe you can make the friendship work. Could you tell him nothing can ever happen between you two to make things clear?

[WanderingKate]

This is definitely a complicated situation, I'm sorry you're going through this

I think it may help to go through each of your options separately...

 

1) Try to build the friendship back up and remain just friends. 

This unfortunately is unlikely to work if you still have romantic feelings for him, which it sounds like you do, and he likely still has them for you too. In my experience, trying to remain friends when someone wants something more only leads to anger, frustration and heartbreak. 

 

2) Try to get back together and rekindle the romantic relationship. 

For this scenario to work out I do have one question- was he aware that you were asexual when you were dating before? Because if not, he may have seen your rejection of his sexual advances as a rejection of him, was hurt by this and thought you'd be better off with someone you're attracted to. If you want to try reforming a romantic relationship with him, you would need to be completely honest and upfront about your asexuality and then be accepting of whether he is comfortable dating an ace or not. There is a possibility this could work out, but keep in mind their is a definite chance that he may not be okay with an asexual relationship and that this won't work out 

 

3) Break communication completely and try to move on. 

This is probably the most difficult but also likely the best option. If you choose this route, it's probably easiest to unfollow him on social media so you don't have to see and be reminded of him, delete him from your phone so that you're not tempted to contact, and surround yourself with friends and family who love you. Even though moving on is hard, clinging to false hope and leading yourself on is even more painful in the end. 

 

Wishing you luck  

 

[Mezzaluna]

Thanks for the advice everyone!  I really appreciate it.

 

@Invisible Man - I had thought about doing that multiple times, but since he has come back, things have been going well and I feel like it would hurt the both of us more if I did that.  We've been doing our best to make it work between us as just friends and so far we've been successful.  I just feel like It's me who is the problem and it's just making me really confused.  I could tell him that nothing can ever happen between us, but I feel like I would be lying since a big part of me doesn't want that.

 

@Moonman - It's kinda what I'm trying to do right now, but It's been pretty difficult.  I'll probably keep trying though.

 

@WanderingKate - I definitely do not want leave a really good friend behind.  I don't have that many and the few I do have I tend to be very close to.  The last time I lost one due to some complicated circumstances, it took me a long time to get over it completely.  I feel like if I tried hard enough, we could make it work and build our friendship back up, which is what we've been doing so far.  I know for a fact that my romantic feelings for him are most likely not going to go away any time soon, but if they are going to only harm out current relationship as friends then I'm willing to put them aside.  If something does happen, then it happens.  When we first dated, he didn't know about my asexuality, but I didn't either at the time.  I didn't figure it out until about a month or two after we broke up the second time.  If something does happen, I'll be honest and tell him and if he's okay with that, great.  If not, then that's okay too.