I think that you are right, you cannot pretend that you have no feelings, or other feelings than those that you actually have, because it is not healthy for you, and it won't be healthy for the relationship, pretended friendhip with no other feelings.

I guess if you told her really why you need to work on your feelings, that it hurts you too much to pretend it is ok, by staying friends, you can at least speak of your feelings, the true ones, it is better than killing you by denying them, because it will sound fake anyway if you pretend that you are ok to give up the love and be just a friend to her.

She misses your friendhip, as a friend then she could be comprehensive and let you the right to feel comfortable.
You can be fair to her needs, but you have to be fair to your needs too, and she has to be fair also, you can't be a good friend if your needs are denied, and she can't be a good friend if she denies you to feel what you feel.

And you can't definitely push aside your feelings, you need to accept to feel them, and to deal with them. Explain her so she knows how you feel.

Well, I know just how you feel. My fiance and I split up nearly a month ago and I would like to be friends with him still as we started out as friends and have had many good times together. He split up with me and I still love him though. I've tried to push the feeling apart and just focus on thinking of him in a purely platonic way. However, I can't do this yet, so I've decided to remain distant until I can do this. You're right. It's not healthy to torture yourself being around someone and knowing that you can't have them. If your relationship as friends is strong, once you let go of the romantic feelings you can be friends again. I still want to have my ex in my life very much, but until I can get past my current feeling and think of him only as a friend. I must limit my contact so that I can let go and heal.

The pain is immense as this was the most serious relationship of my life, yet... however, I need to move on. I find that going out with friends really helps and being social really helps. It hasn't been long and sometimes I think "oh god, why do I still love him?" if this doesn't go away I'm just going to have to resign myself to feeling the way I feel about him forever and learn to deal with that. However, I think this is just part of the grieving process and eventually, there will be days, where I don't think of him at all in the old way. I can't wait to get there.

Thank you for letting me get this off my chest. Reading other people's experiences on this forum helps me and makes me feel that I'm not alone.

Good luck with your situation. I think you know deep down that you need some time away from her to heal or else you wouldn't have posted it. I hope you can find the strength to do the right thing. Believe me, I know how hard it can be when you still have felings for someone.

I see this "let's be friends" stuff EVERYWHERE. It's always easier for the person who has little to no more feelings left to push you into the friends category so soon, stay clear for now.

It's rather selfish, some people don't realise how hard left over emotions can be on someone...being friends makes things so much worse for you, you need to tell her that your left over feelings needs to be delt with before any more contact can happen.

You require recovery more than anything else right now, tell her that, and hopefully she will respect your needs before hers, and if she still doesn't let you off, well, she simply just doesn't deserve it.
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I see this "let's be friends" stuff EVERYWHERE. It's always easier for the person who has little to no more feelings left to push you into the friends category so soon, stay clear for now.

It's rather selfish, some people don't realise how hard left over emotions can be on someone...being friends makes things so much worse for you, you need to tell her that your left over feelings needs to be delt with before any more contact can happen.

You require recovery more than anything else right now, tell her that, and hopefully she will respect your needs before hers, and if she still doesn't let you off, well, she simply just doesn't deserve it.

Just my opinion...

I fell into this trap too - I ended the relationship but tried to stay friends with my ex-gf. I wasted a lot of time because "not letting go" kept me from developing new relationships.

If it's over, MOVE ON! It hurts, I know. You not only lose your girl, you lose a friend, which can feel just as bad.

5 months are already gone. It's either keeping you from meeting someone new, or if you do have a new girl - it's unfair to the girl you have now to be spending so much energy on your ex. Any mental energy spent on you ex should be spent on finding the person you should be with. Otherwise your ex will keep you from meeting someone new, and you will soon resent her and yourself for it. The problem is, if you don't let go of a doomed relationship, it will keep you from meeting that next girl. When you do meet that girl (the right girl), you will feel much better, and your sadness will quickly fade.

Moving on is healthy. If none of us ever moved on, we would all still be with our first girl/boyfriends. YIKES!!!!

I thank you all for responding....I kinda had an idea most of the comments would be to move on, and realize that remaining friends is holding myself back from healing. I am just having a hard time literally pulling away and letting her know that "NO, we cannot continue chatting online and sending emails to each other."

Part of me feels she wants to remain friends because she is not ready to really move on, nor willing to accept that we may never speak to or see each other again...and that is a horrible feeling for me as well. I guess we all like to fool ourselves into thinking that friendship is possible rather than risking never seeing that person again.

I have yet to respond to her email inquiring about keeping our friendship...I know what needs to get done, its just that finality that is sooooooooooo hard!


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I thank you all for responding....I kinda had an idea most of the comments would be to move on, and realize that remaining friends is holding myself back from healing. I am just having a hard time literally pulling away and letting her know that "NO, we cannot continue chatting online and sending emails to each other."

Part of me feels she wants to remain friends because she is not ready to really move on, nor willing to accept that we may never speak to or see each other again...and that is a horrible feeling for me as well. I guess we all like to fool ourselves into thinking that friendship is possible rather than risking never seeing that person again.

I hate yet to respond to her email inquiring about keeping our friendship...I know what needs to get done, its just that finality that is sooooooooooo hard!