Maturity vs. Intensity of Love

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When you and someone you love end your relationship, do you remain friends with the person? Can you? Does it show that you're "mature" when you can remain friends with someone you love?

I don't think I would be able to stand looking at the person I love after the relationship ends. I can't stand the fact that he's right there, but I can't tell him I love him anymore because it's not my place. I don't think I can see him without remembering the wonderful times and the bad times, and wanting to cry. Is that the intensity of love showing itself, or does it mean I'm not as mature about forgiving and forgetting?

Just a thought (with NO connection to my RL, thank goodness =).

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000

Answers

I think, to remain friends with someone you love, you basically have to pull off this immense act of pretense because you can't possibly want just a platonic relationship with the person you love. But if that's the only way you can hold on to them, they you just play brave and be a friend. Inwardly though, you keep hoping they'll want things to become more. And then you'll come to a point where that person either finds someone else to love and moves on or you stop feeling the way you do. If it's the latter, friendship becomes easy. But if it's the former, I think that friendship becomes impossible.

I don't think this has to do with maturity really, just desperation to hold on to the person you love. You already know how much it kills me to not be able to say "I love you" when I want to.

Being "just friends" with the one you love is painful and more often than not, you don't make a very good friend, unless you have my tendency to stomach the pain of voluntarily giving up who you love so they may be happier.

I think, if someone was in love with me and our relationship ended, I wouldn't want him to torture himself by pretending he's okay being just my friend. Then again, if it's me who's in love and the relationship has ended, I'd hold on, even if I have to play the friend, because I can't bear letting go just yet.

It's the intensity of love, I think, not maturity that makes it impossible to be willing to settle for anything less than the fullest expression of your love for someone.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000


Well, I am friends, now, with almost every ex of mine - with the exception of Carrie, though we were friends for a time before I ended it all because she's a demon from hell.. heh. In the end, actually, some of my old flames have turned into the closest friends I have. But the only way to do this.. the ONLY way.. is to take time apart and let go of the past and start anew. There will always be a part of me that will love Bex and Allie, but as a memory, not as a fresh flame burning in my heart.

If you try to be friends right away, 99% of the time it will end up some huge mess because emotions are never logical or convenient, and can't be turned off by a simple light switch. It takes a long time for them to change or fade. The more you love them, the more time it takes. It took Bex and I a year, and Allie and I almost 2. It also depends on the circumstances of the end of the relationship as well, and what kind of closure you've had, which makes it easier (or harder) to heal.

I think pple often try to lie to themselves after a relationship, and pretend that the feelings no longer exist and they can carry on as if nothing happened. And this, they believe, is the "mature" thing to do. But it's not - it's naive. It inevitably ends up blowing up in everyone's faces, because you will still feel jealousy and anger and pain and a million other things.

The bottom line is that pple need time to heal on their own, time away fromt he source of the pain, and then they can see if anything in the future will work, or if they even want that. It also often helps you distance yourself fromt he things which are often blinding in a relationship, and you can sit back and kind of examine it and pick it apart, and that is when you begin to know if it had truely been love, or something less pure.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000


I'm trying to do that right now with this girl I still like SO very much. I just want to give her a big hug and kiss. But it's not allowed because we're only friends. We tried the friends thing right after we broke up but I couldn't bare it and had to stop contact. I cried soo much after each time I heard from her. Now that it is a couple months later, it's a lot easier. Plus she doesn't have a b/f anymore which is a lot easier on me for some reason. I want so much to be with her and have things like they were, but I also wanted and still want her to be happy. It's hard to tell what to do. But it is hard to be as good of a friend as I was before we started going out.

Josh

-- Anonymous, November 04, 2000


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