My Voice: The Struggle

My very important friend and I had made a gigantic mistake and we had the very difficult task before us of figuring out how to keep the friendship we valued so much while limiting ourselves to respect the relationship he had with his girlfriend. For months, we tried many different variations of relating, hoping each time we could find something that would work for us.
The emotional ups and downs of the entire process were extremely difficult. We switched back and forth, never sure what would work but going through the distress only to find we'd hit another road block. We tried never seeing each other [except the two days a week we worked together], but still talking on the phone and texting everyday; we appreciated so much being able to share the details of our lives and discuss with someone so like-minded. We tried never speaking at all, only being "work acquaintances" then going our separate ways. We tried spending limited amounts of time together, in safe, controlled environments. We tried breaking all ties whatsoever, not even speaking at work -- he even contemplated quitting so we wouldn't have to ever see each other. But everything we tried, we realized it hurt us immensely to limit ourselves so much. With every attempt, we lost a different part of our relationship that we valued a great deal. In every instance, it negatively affected our overall friendshipship and it started affecting the relationship he had with his girlfriend -- the entire reason we were going through it all.

Though we both felt it, he expressed it much more than I did [because I believed it was my responsibility to put on a brave face and only cry when I was alone at night]: the strain, hurt and confusion were affecting how we lived our daily lives. We were miserable. We were unable to focus on and fully enjoy other things because a part of our minds were always on each other. We missed each other. We missed the friendship we had put so much of ourselves into. Every time we tried reconnecting, we were holding on to the tiniest bit of hope that things could work out. Every time we met a new difficulty and put distance between us again, we felt the pain of losing a loved one like it was fresh. A few times, our intense emotional distress and need to reconnect would lead us to come together physically, which led to us slipping up and sleeping together again. Each time that happened, we felt such unbearable guilt, frustration and pain. We felt guilty for wanting to be in each others' lives. We felt frustrated that we were being forced to separate. We felt sad. We felt confused. For me, I began feeling regretful and resentful.

In our trying to maintain/rebuild our friendship, we still tried to speak to one another and share as we'd been accustomed. In that, he spoke often of his relationship with his girlfriend and I began realizing that perhaps we had acted rashly and I had moved based on assumptions. Of course, the fact that she felt betrayed and her trust was broken led to a lot of incidents between them, but I began realizing there were a lot more deep-seated issues. There were problems in how they related. There were issues in their communication. And the fact that she had such an adamant stance towards not wanting to hear about me anymore increased their issues even more. I realized that the relationship I had sacrificed my friendship for didn't have as strong a foundation as I'd previously been led to believe. It wasn't as long-term as it had been portrayed -- only a couple months longer than he'd been seeing me -- and there hadn't been much investigating of true characters and compatibility as I had naturally assumed my friend would want and need. But I realized who he was with me wasn't the same as who he was with her. I began regretting the fact that I had made such a major decision based on what I perceived their relationship to be. I resented the fact that he and I were suffering such extreme and intense difficulty on a daily basis for the sake of a relationship that had no foundation other than caring for each other, in my opinion.

But the decisions had been made. There were strong feelings involved and there were promises and commitments that had to be stood by. There was no room to explore What Ifs. We continued pushing through, trying to figure out what was real, what was right, what was acceptable. We suffered with the hopes that whatever we did would be what was truly best for everyone involved and, at the end of it all, would be worth all the pain we were going through.