Is my friend interested in her marriage... or me?
Dear Mookychick,
Help me make sense of this!!!! Two years ago I told my friend I had feelings for her that went deeper than friendship. (We are both females) She said she was SHOCKED when I told her. Although I don't think she was shocked at all.
Keep in mind we live 1300 miles apart and she is in an unhappy marriage and has been for about 8 years, she has been married for 37 years and got married to get out of the house and away from her step-dad. (nothing sexual there, he was just mean). She is 55 years old and I am 48.
Anyway at that time 2 years ago she denied feeling the same way towards me. We email often and just last week she flew up here to spend the week with me on vacation, left her husband home. During our time together that week she told me she had fallen out of love with her husband some time ago and she wished she would win the lottery so she could buy a summer home in the town I live so we could be closer. She also has told me if she was younger she would leave his hind-end in a heartbeat.
We drank some wine and I told her I don't let myself get to tipsy anymore because I am a big flirt, but she kept saying to me through the week, hey let's get shit-faced, let's get a matching tattoo to commerate our vacation together. Now why would she want me to get shit-faced when I told her I get flirty?? And why would she want us to get matching tattoo's? She also touched me a lot, putting her hand on my knee during a time when we had someone take our picture together, grabbing my arm etc. and I caught her looking at my legs and eyeing me up.
She told me she didn't want to go back home and that we should have taken 2 weeks of vacation instead of one but if we did take 2 weeks vacation she wouldn't go back home.
She called me a few days after she got home and back to work, she said she told her coworkers she had to pee and then called me while she was in the bathroom. She mentioned again we should have taken two weeks of vacation and she missed me a lot and couldn't wait to see me again and get together again. What I don't understand is first, why would she spend a week with me, tell me how unhappy she is in her marriage, touch me a lot and sometimes even in a baby tone of voice tell me how much she was going to miss me if she KNOWS how I feel about her?
She knows my feelings are stronger than friendship so WHY this behavior. Am I over-reacting to her actions or is she into me but can't or won't admit it??? Sometimes I think she likes the fact that I am in love with her and she wants me to be. Where do I go from here? I do believe she is in love with me. Having said that, the whole marriage thing she is involved in makes it impossible for her to admit her feelings to herself, much less me.
If I make myself less available to her and let her know I am going out and having fun with other friends of mine I wonder if it will push her into revealing her true feelings for me. One way or another I need to know and I know she won't tell me even if I ask her straight out. I wonder if maybe she starts to feel like she is losing me if she will step it up so to speak and tell me how she really feels.
Help!
Love, Anonymous Me xxx
The Mookychick answer to your problem
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Debs says...
Hmmm. This is a bit of a pickle. Unfortunately, I don't think your friend shares your feelings. I feel that she's behaved the way she did because her marriage is not going well and she's responding to the love and affection you've shown her. There may also be a desire to experiment on her part, looking at it as a chance to do so before it's too late.
I understand that this is possibly not what you were wanting to hear. However, it could be that your feelings from your friend could be preventing you from meeting someone else, someone better.
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Magda says...
Your friend means well and is no doubt telling herself she isn't sure what she thinks. But I believe that after a week's vacation there should have been an emotional conversation, not just lots of nice flirty touching. That makes me think she is seeing you as a good friend, something potential on a physical level, and an outlet for her difficulties with her marriage. I think she's getting more out of this than you are, and I'm not convinced she has much more to give.
Why is she saying she'd like a 2 week vacation next time? I think the key word here is 'vacation'. Whatever you offer - and it sounds like she is more interested in the physical than emotional potential - is a vacation, a holiday from a grim reality, a respite. But aren't you more interested in finding the real thing?
Under these circumstances it may well be worth going and having fun with other friends of yours - for real. It may get her to sort her feelings and/or priorities out. Most importantly, it means you're not twiddling your thumbs for something that doesn't sound likely to happen.
