You do have feelings, plenty of them, and the best thing that could happen for you is for this girl to ignore your proposition. There is no way she will take you up on it, but there’s a good chance that she’ll lose any remaining affection or respect that she had for you.
No, I think FWB can work - if you’re friends. You can be exes if you both came to the “you know what, we sucked as a couple but the sex was awesome” conclusion. Not when it’s this fresh, though.
And her desire to protect your feelings probably means something like “you claim to be OK but I’m sure you’re going to flake out and get clingy, and I don’t want to risk that for anything.” Maybe it means “I’ve already got my eye on some dude, and you’ll get in the way.” Or maybe it means something worse. But I don’t think you want to press that point.
Sorry but you have it all wrong. FWBs are intended for only people who don’t have–and don’t expect to have–deep emotional feelings for that other person and are perfectly fine with keeping things below the level of a real, committed relationship. “Perfectly fine” is not where you are right now. You could get no further from that point if you tried.
You’ve already violated the first rule of FWB by having the desire for more from that other person than they want from you. Just ask yourself, if she called tonight and said that she wants to get back with you, you’d be crying and falling over yourself saying yes. A person who can handle a FWB would be more detached than that. Even if they decided to say yes to a real relationship with their FWB, that decision would be based on a rational assessment of where the two of them were at in their relationship, not pure emotional need.
I’m pretty accepting of FWBs in general, but its clearly contraindicated in your case. I’m not even sure you could really handle just being platonic friends with her at this point. But sexual friends? You’re deluding yourself if you think this scheme could help wean you off of her.
“You aint gonna learn what you dont want to know”… JPB
No, I’ve had FWB’s relationships that have worked. Because it was two horny people with little interest between them in anything but a FWB relationship. But this isn’t why they were invented. They were invented because two people who don’t want to date each other EVER with any intention of any sort of future other than ‘Thursday if nothing else comes up’ enjoy each others company and mutual sex. The moment one of them feels anything more about Thursday not happening than you would if a friend called you up and said they weren’t going to make it to the movie you were going to see - you are too invested.
#1 is the best outcome you can hope for. It’s ripping the bandaid off.
#2 will leave you checking your email every 2 hours for the next couple of weeks, and then for months getting all nervous every time you see that there is a new email.
#4 just isn’t going to happen. Because of your ended relationship, and your feelings for her, it’s way to late for a FWB to work.
#3 or #5 are the worst case scenarios. They are like poking at that sore spot, until it can’t heal right.
Here is to hoping she has more sense then you, and is kind enough to turn you down.
You sound just like a guy who I used to date who said the almost same thing to me when I turned down a FWB arrangement with him. It pissed me off. Why shouldn’t she be concerned? Wouldn’t you feel bad if she was completely indifferent of your feelings?
You can’t date someone for a month and not care, at least somewhat, about doing things that further their pain. You may think you’ll be able to be Mr. Stoic, but it would just be an act and of course she’ll know it. Her experience with you as a FWB will therefore be a downer to her because she’ll be feeling sorry for you.
You all may be right, but this is really fresh and I can’t let go completely of my entire brain as of this time yesterday. I’m beginning to deal, and I actually feel that this sense of a faint hope of retaining a part of the relationship helps me absorb the truth. Even 20 hours of buffeting, and hope, seems to have allowed me to cope a little better. I know that she’s not going to go for a FWB thing at this point (early this morning, there was a real chance ,in my mind, that she might write me back, saying, “OK, what the hell, I don’t think this will work, but I’ll give it a shot”–at this point, not so much.) The FWB thing itself would have bought me a few days or weeks of thinking, “OK this can;t go on for too much longer, but it’s nice to be with her for a few more days,” while I was absorbing the blow. Maybe it’s just me, but the awful part is the suddenness–at 8:35 PM last night, I thought I had a great GF and a pretty sweet life; at 8:36 I felt like I’d had a train hit me. I’m still trying to get my mind around that sudden change, and I’m a little better now, but only a little. I’m hoping next week, I’ll be a little more philosophical, and next month I’ll start to recover, but it’s going to take time. I know this, and whatever gets me through the bad days and nights is good.
Well, maybe not heroin.
Ah, maybe in a perfect world! It works occasionally, often when two people try to date briefly but realize there’s nothing there except good sex, and one person being more emotionally invested than the next i usually what ruins it.
Hope you work through this in a healthy way, and ain’t it the truth that romantic advice is easy to dispense, hard to take (even when it’s you giving it to yourself).
Ah, I will just say this. I have had the kind of relationship that started off romantic and with great sex.
And I have had relationships with great sex where I really didn’t even much like the guy, outside of bed. (Long story. Not here.)
In the romantic ones, as soon as the romance was gone, the sex was…not that great anymore.Once that feeling was gone, I just couldn’t get it back. I think there are songs about this.
But I never said that to the guy.
So it would be my guess that your proposal wouldn’t work. Because she’s not telling you everything.
And not trying to set up a FWB thing with her.
Sorry, as a slew of people have said, FWB only works if both people are equally emotionally detached from the situation – a good FWB arrangement is actually a really rare thing, IME. (I was seeing a guy up in NYC very sporadically there for a while … damn, that was some good sex … reminiscent smile) You’re in no position to offer her that with any honesty, and I’m guessing, knowing you, that she’s a really smart woman, and thus way too savvy to fall for it [even if she were willing to consider a FWB in other circumstances, which it doesn’t sound like she is].
Sorry – wish I had some useful advice for how to get through the upcoming days and nights – just keep on keepin’ on and don’t do anything stupid.
In my experience, women who do a total 180 like that are either have their eye on someone else or are boning that someone else already, especially when you get the “I’m not feeling what you feel” speech followed by the quick shitcan.
Is she under 30?
Has she had a previous tendency to date losers?
Is she the one who asked for exclusivity in the relationship?
Did she break up with anyone less than two months before you started dating?
Answer two of those in the affirmative, and I’ll damn near guarantee you she’s seeing somebody.
I know all about that.
As others have said, this is a bad idea. I am having all kinds of stupid thoughts about my ex right now. It is ripping me up every time I think any of these thoughts because I know they ain’t ever gonna come true. Not only because she doesn’t want me back but because even if she did I could never trust her again. Getting back with an ex if she isn’t interested in a serious relationship is just going to extend the heart ache.
Slee
Seconded. And sending a hug your way.
This has less than a snowball’s chance in a really hot place of working out, even if she says yes. Just by your writing, it’s pretty clear that it would be more hurtful to you than helpful.
I hope things get better for you. And check your e-mail once in a while.
Well, folks, it’s unanimous–she concurs with your position, though she did say that she DID have a problem with FWB relationships generally–tried 'em, didn’t work for her, made her feel cheap, used, degraded etc. I guess it’s time for me to stop asking “Why?” and just accept that there are some things you don’t get to find out. Still seems a little extreme to me to go from the Monogamous LT Model to nothing at all, without trying “Dude, can you dial your freaking expectations down a bit? Else I’m outta here” first, but maybe that’s going to remain a mystery to me.
I appreciate all the sympathy here. That (plus a few shrink appointments) are going to help me a lot.
Bummer. Well, at least you can’t say you didn’t give it your best shot.
I try to think of these broken hearts as training for the real thing. We’ve got stuff we’ve got to learn before we’re ready. But when it’s time, we’ll find what we need.
Or something like that.
Good luck man! We’ve got bright futures ahead of us, just gotta wait for the hurt to stop. It will. At least, I hope so!
4 "No"s.
I think it’s for the best that she turned down your FWB request, PRR. You would have just ended up getting hurt more in the end. It’s going to be a tough month or so for you but you’ll bounce back. We all do.
Slee-I followed the K saga from the beginning and was skeptical about her from the get go. She sounded like a head case and you’re better off without her. I know that’s not what you want to hear-sorry.
Yeah, Sven, I (and you) have the slim consolation of saying “I didn’t just go ‘OK, see ya’ but I fought my best to keep her/him/it.” Don’t know if anyone has ever prevailed in that particular fight, but at least we won’t kicking our own asses in the months to come “I shoulda refused to accept it, and maybe I could have talked her/him/it outta the breakup, yeah, that’s the ticket…” All we lost was pride, dignity, self-respect, the respect of our exes, the esteem of the Teeming Millions, and a whole lot of hours of sleep. Big deal, right?
Many years ago I broke someone’s heart, and she agreed to FWB. I said “look, this has no emotional component” and she concurred verbally - but her heart didn’t. I ended up breaking her heart all over again, only much worse.