How do you make yourself stop loving someone?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

The specifics of the relationship are such:

This guy and I are friends, and have been for a long, long time.

We have, in the past, fooled around quite a bit but we have not had sex with each other.

Said guy and I have been very clear with one another…he isn’t interested in anything other than friendship, I would like more than that but I rather enjoy what we have now and I don’t feel like throwing our friendship away because I can’t get myself to let go of the fact that I love him.

My heart keeps telling me to wait it out and that he may come around to feeling for me what I feel for him.

My head keeps telling me my heart is an idiot and I should get past it.

I am totally on board with listening to my head but that has been extremely difficult. How do you make yourself fall out of love? Is it even possible?

The only other time I have been in love with someone we had been together a while, eventually getting engaged, and then when we broke up it took months before I was able to truly put it all behind me and I was only able to do that because I hadn’t seen or heard from him (and he had been a huge asshole…that also helped.)

This unrequited love of a friend thing is much harder to work around. Anybody else ever have to do this? Were you able to still be their friend after all was said and done?

#2

Your choices are just to deal with it as is or break off all contact and be done with it.

A lot of people will tell you to break off all contact but that is no fun. It isn’t like he is heroine. Eventually everything will run its course one way or another anyway. I see no reasons for drastic measures unless he is married or doing something destructive to you.

#3

Nothing destructive at all, not married. Nothing wrong at all really. He seems to like me enough to hang out and we have seen eachother naked and neither one of us ran screaming into the night. Just not that into me I guess, which hurts because I love him very much, but I don’t want to lose someone this awesome as a friend if I can help it.

#4

Anything you do to address this will just make it worse. There isn’t much downside unless either he or you are in a relationship and this is causing a problem. This is a problem with married people or when one of the parties is causing harm other than general emotional grief but that doesn’t seem to apply here. It is just a cartoon case of someone ever in chase of another and there is nothing wrong with that. I advise you not to have any deep talks about it or set odd rules. That will just screw things up. Just have your game and change it later if it needs to change.

#5

Best of luck. I’m in something of a similar situation and though my unrequited love and I live about eight hundred miles apart and only see each other maybe once or twice a year, I still sympathize all too well.

I actually just wrote her a letter a couple weeks ago telling her just how much she’s meant to me (she knows I like her and it’s returned to a point but I do not think she knows just how much) and how I’ve done my best to ignore it in an attempt to further quell and I believe she should have gotten the package it was included in today. I really don’t know what to expect, though I can say putting it all out there in hopes that it would help me get over her didn’t work at all and I’m just going to go back to smacking myself everytime I find myself thinking about her too often.

#6

I have been in the situation myself. More than once. What helped me was telling myself that loving someone includes giving them the freedom to not love you back. Wishing them the best even if their best scenario doesn’t include you. It’s difficult- some people can handle being just friends and some people can’t. Don’t spend all of your time with him, and do date others as much as you can.

#7

I think your head is being a bit harsh, but it’s right.

Time and distance. Alice is right…sometimes, you have to love someone enough to know you’re not the one for them.

This isn’t your guy. Let him go in your heart, and make room for Your Guy, whoever he may be.

#8

I think the tough truth is that until you find someone who you can love reciprocally, then you won’t be able to stop loving this guy. Love can be a force of nature, both in the positive and negative regards. It has been the root of much of my trouble sometimes, so I sympathize.

Good luck, I’m wishing you strength.

PS: don’t take this as an excuse to go out and get a fling with the intentions of flaunting it in front of “the guy”. Reason being that as soon as he see’s how desireable you are then he’ll want you. That’s just a despicable level of dishonesty to everyone.

Have patience, it will come in time, in one form or another.

#9

How much time do you spend with this guy? My point being - you aren’t going to find Mr. Right if you are spending all of your available time with Mr. Friend. Spending a lot of time with this guy, feeling the way you do, is only self-abuse. I am not at all advising you to cut off the friendship, but you do need to get away from it a bit because it is only hurting you in the long run. Try to find an activity Mr. Friend doesn’t enjoy and won’t participate in, and make yourself do that at least twice a month. Don’t just be by yourself, that will only make you lonely and that isn’t the point of this exercise. You need to meet more people and see what happens. Someone special may have already noticed you but thought you were involved with Mr Friend.

#10

You can’t make yourself stop loving someone, but you can certainly re-direct your energies towards something else. Limit your exposure to this person and focus on who you CAN have, not who you can’t.

#11

Allow me to ask, how long have you not dated anyone else? what about him?

The reason I ask is that if both of you have gone for years without dating anyone else and leaning on each other, well, let’s be optimists and say that that is a strong sign of this relationship going its own strange way into a more formal relationship.

#12

I’ve actually been in a situation fairly similar to this before. In fact, it’s not quite over yet. I met this girl in the beginning of my sophomore year of high school (her freshman year). Within a couple months of meeting her, I developed a semi-strong crush on her. After several more months, I managed to suppress those feelings. Bad idea. At the beginning of the next year, I managed to convince myself that another girl liked me, and developed a small crush on her. A couple of my friends, including the first girl, with whom I was good friends, found out for me that Girl 2 liked me as a friend, but nothing more. That disappointment unlocked the feelings I had for the first girl, to the point that I actually fell in love with her. Since it was quite clear that she didn’t feel the same way, it became quite painful to be around her, and I told her in March of that school year that I would do my best not be around her anymore, and she understood.

Near the end of my senior year, she got fed up with this, when I was hanging out with a mutual friend and got up when she came by. She told me (and I don’t remember exactly what she said) that this was stupid and that if I wanted to talk to this mutual friend, she would leave instead. I left anyway, and thought about it for a while. I decided that since my method wasn’t really doing any good, I’d try hers. I went back and talked to both of them for the remainder of lunch.

I still love her, and she still doesn’t love me, but we’re still friends.

#13

You think he’s awesome as a friend because you want him to be more.

Walk away and find other guys. It’ll take awhile, possibly years, but you’ll find someone better in time.

The important thing is to walk away. Look, it’s harsh, but it’s the treatment that works.

#14

I don’t think this happens too often. If he’s not that into you now, he won’t suddenly become into you later, after all that’s happened between you. I don’t want to be harsh, but don’t kid yourself about this-- he’s getting all your love and affection and not returning it, so it’s a loss situation for you. And that’s not going to change until your feelings for him change.

It wouldn’t be wrong at all for you to take a break from seeing him for as long as you need to. In fact, it might be the only way for you to get over him. It’ll be painful at first, but after a while, you’ll get perspective on it and you’ll feel better. Then, maybe, you can be friends with him again. Or maybe you won’t want to. But I think you owe it to yourself to walk away, at least temporarily.

#15

Didn’t you just move to NYC?

There must be a hundred things you can do to take your mind off this. If not, it should start to feel better in a few months…I know it’s hard, believe me, but it will pass.

#16

The best way to get over the old one is to get under a new one.

#17

I hope this works out for you, especially since I’m in a similar situation.

Right now, I’m avoiding him like the plague and he hasn’t called to check on me, though he does suffer from social anxiety issues. Maybe out of sight, out of mind is a good thing for me temporarily, but I don’t want to cut off all communication. It’s better to have a piece of him than none at all, IMHO.

It’s a bitch, isn’t it? :frowning:

#18

Oh, yeah, rebound sex. That’s healthy. :dubious:

#19

It is indeed a bitch. I did just move, all the way across the country, and it is helping, but it is slooooooow going. It is kind of like in the movie The Holiday, the Kate Winslet-Guy Who isnt Jack Black relationship. I think it is almost harder now because I don’t know ANYONE here (except the people I work with and that is a crowd I am not overly fond of) so much of my time is spent by myself. I know it will get better as time goes on but I want to make it better NOW. Sigh. We are friends, we talk and email and he is trying to plan a trip to come see me (which will only exacerbate things, I know) though I don’t physically see him every day. I’m trying to meet more people so I am not so attached to those I left behind but that is taking more time than I anticipated.

#20

I know you think it’s better to have some than none, but at least for me, it was much less painful not to be around her at all than to see her occasionally. If you isolate yourself completely, it will be much less time until the pain goes away.