I’ll try and keep things short but relevant. I (31f) got married over the weekend to my husband Steve (33m), we’ve been together 5 years. It was a destination wedding and it was awesome, best day of our lives. We got home yesterday and I started sending a couple pictures to people that weren’t able to make it or who weren’t invited.
I have a friend Matt (28m) who I’ve known for 3-4years now. We chat pretty much daily – memes and random stuff but I’d say we are close. Texted him the same couple pictures that I’ve sent others. He replied congrats and how lucky Steve was. And then he said that I was the most beautiful bride he’s ever seen and that he loves me and that he was blocking me because it’s the right thing to do.
I was kind of in shock. I sent a text quickly back but he had already blocked me. I didn’t even get to really say goodbye and now I have this empty space in my heart where my good friend used to be and it hurts!
Clearly he doesn’t want me to go around his boundaries and I want to respect that. What am I supposed to do? Just let go of it all? How do you even do that?
TL;DR – good friend says he loves me and then blocks me after I get married leaving me sad and confused
45 comments
A little unconventional, but doubtlessly honorable.
This is probably for the best, as while it may have been platonic on your end, it wasn’t on his. Matt was probably in love with you and in denial about your relationship until he saw the wedding photos and got depressed or something.
Seems to me that Matt probably believes his blocking you is a gift or favor. Removing his presence from your marriage, as he knows he isn’t in it for friendship alone.
He’s your friend you talk to every day and you did not invite him to your wedding? PLUS he LOVES YOU! He is deeply hurt. He wanted to be the husband.
First remember that you can’t be responsible for how another person feels about you. Second, respect that he blocked you and leave him to whatever he’s dealing with. If he wants to talk to you, he knows how to. If you circumvent the block and show him this will get your attention then you encourage behaviour that’ll make things tough for you in future.
Clearly, he’s struggling with his emotions and thinks this is what he needs. Likewise, you are allowed to grieve the loss of this friendship – but the best thing you can do is confide in someone you trust who is disconnected from him and your husband so that you can be honest about your feelings. That will help find a way past this eventually, even if it takes some time.
Leave him alone and move on. That’s all you can do.
It sucks you lost a friend but this for the best. This guy had romantic feelings for you. Keeping someone with romantic feelings for you as a friend would do untold damage to your marriage in the long run. The moment he confessed those feelings your friendship was over. He did the honorable thing and pulled off the bandaid. Accept it and move on.
He didn’t block you because of a wedding.
He blocked you because of YOUR wedding and the fact that he’s in love with you. He realized he can’t be friends with you and watch you live your life with another man.
Let him have his space and enjoy your first few months of being married. And if you struggle to deal, get some therapy.
Your beautiful and he has self control. He respects the marriage. I think he secretly liked you.
Losing a friend is always hard but he did this out of respect for you. Give him time and let him come to grips with the new reality, hopefully he’ll come to realize that he still needs to be your friend even if he can’t be your partner in life.
I would talk to your husband about it. Hiding this from him would be a huge mistake. If he finds out another way he’ll think you’re keeping your options open in case the marriage doesn’t work out. Just explain you had no idea and even if you had found out before you still would have married who you did.
IMO he probably should have said something earlier but he did the right thing.
He doesn’t want to hurt himself by being near someone he wants that he can’t have and he doesn’t want to hurt you or your husband by orbiting around.
What he did is the honorable thing to do.
I’m sorry for your loss, and all I can advise is not to be hard on yourself, or on him. Opposite-sex friendships can be golden, but they can also stray from the platonic path whether you (or your friend) want it to do that or not. Sometimes they take that turn before you realize. A wedding would certainly be a moment of realization, not only that his friendship with you has strayed from the path, but that the road it’s taken him on has just dead-ended.
It’s good that he explained how he felt before blocking you so you at least knew why he did it. I think he did the right thing. Did he really show no signs of being in love with you before this?
You had him in the friend zone and he likely wanted more and fell for you.
While the loss of the friendship may hurt he respected you and your new husband enough to let the friendship go.
Let it be. Perhaps he will come around one day and you can accept him as a friend again if you so choose.
Congrats on the nuptials. Wishing you the best.
Accept that he drew a reasonable and respectful boundary and move on.
This is simple! He obviously had feelings for you more that a simple friendship. He blocked you and that’s the end of that.
Yeah I’ll echo the sentiments of everyone else. He has feelings for you and the thought of an ongoing friendship while you are happily married is too much for him to cope with so he cut it off.
Not defending or condoning the action but I think this is what happened.
Dude has romantic feelings for you. He’s trying to respect your relationship by going no contact, because he feels like he won’t be able to just be friends with you.
Gotta let that friendship go. Sorry.
Focus on your husband rather than care about your this “good friend”. It’s clear that he likes you and doesn’t want you to get married. If you don’t want to ruin your marriage, then stop caring about a person who isn’t a part of your life.
You should probably talk to a counselor or therapist to deal with your emotions. I imagine you are going through a kind of grieving process which is totally normal.
There’s nothing you can do about Matt. He made his choice, and you’ll have to live with it. Letting go and moving on will take time. You are going to hurt. Again, therapy/counseling can help here.
Now, this is just my opinion, but maybe this can help you. Matt was your “friend” but he never wanted to be just friends. He was likely harboring these feelings for you from the start of your relationship. It’s possible he only got close to you because he wanted to be with you. But when you got married, it killed any possibility of you getting together. Maybe he was in denial about his feelings until now, or maybe he was always hoping you’d leave Steve for him. Either way, he decided to end the friendship because he couldn’t be with you. Not knowing more than what you wrote, it’s hard to say the degree to which your friendship was genuine. I hope it was, but there are lots of men who only befriend women they think they have a chance with, and end those relationships when it turns out there is no chance.
Let him go.
You thought he was a friend, he actually thought he was getting somewhere. Happens, guys friendzone themselves time to time.
Going separate ways is the best, you don’t wanna ruin your marriage and he cannot be around you.
You need to respect his boundaries even if it’s hard for you. I have gone through this w/ someone that was my best friend for so many years and I still miss him. But he was honest, and even though you can’t control how someone feels you obviously care about him.. so you have to do your best to understand that he just can’t be in your life right now.
Sounds like he wasn’t an actual friend and you just move on and grieve the person you thought he was. Seems like the best thing to do for both of you is to move on.
I think your “friend” is being selfish. He should wish you well and distance himself. That is the honourable thing to do. Sending you this message is jarring and not appropriate. It’s not your problem that he loves you. I think it was dramatic and it has taken away from a very important event in your life.
Grieve the friendship and don’t reconnect with this guy. He needs to move on and let go. It’s certainly not his fault he’s in love with you but I think it’s important not to contact him again. I think he might have a hard time not trying to connect with you with romantic motives during hard times in your marriage and life.
I have a similar situation where my “friend” has since “moved on”. Wife and kids. But we did reconnect. It presented situations where he told me I’m the one that got away and he’d leave his wife for me. It was so disappointing all over again..
I’m sorry this happened to you.
Yes let it go. He’s in love with you, or at least thinks he is. You don’t need that in your life. Your husband DEFINITELY doesn’t need that in your life. Let him go and enjoy the honeymoon phase!
Congrats by the way!
Let him go. I know it hurts. But this guy sounds like he’s been holding torch for you, hoping you will see him as more than a friend, and has based his friendship with you on that. Now that he’s realised finally, that you relationship is real and it’s never going to happen with him, he’s decided he can’t be friends with you. This isn’t on you at all. You are not responsible for what he feels.
Spend time with your husband and the friends who value your friendship. I disagree with those saying that Matt is being respectful. He hurt you, his supposed friend, and decided the friendship wasn’t worth it, and have you no recourse. He’s hurting and maybe he wanted you hurting and thinking about him.
Everyone is definitely hating on the friend but he did the mature and right thing. Some people have feelings for people and he’s drew the line and You need to move on.
Let it go. He clearly doesn’t want to be your friend. He wanted to be your partner.
Clearly he thought more of you than just a friend and you just married another man.
Aww it hurts so bad to lose a friend. But it sounds like his feelings were more than friend feelings. I’m sorry. It’s best to let it go.
He did the right thing by blocking but I got stuck on the part where you sent pictures of your wedding to people that weren’t invited??? Weird
My gf has a friend who I absolutely know for a fact is in love with her, it’s not healthy, just let him go.
So he was into you and is keeping away in order to heal.
Also, why are you sending people you didn’t invite photos of your wedding? I guarantee they do not care about a wedding in which they didn’t make the cut.
Matt had a big thing for you OP. It is what it is. Maybe he’ll come around but it might actually be better for all concerned if he doesn’t. Congratulations and good luck. ❤️
Give those people time and space. If you believe that they were on a good friends level of friendship with you, then they’ll come back some day. Just not now or in a year.
I got a best lady friend that I had to distance myself from because I had feelings for her. I knew she wasn’t going to have feelings for me. So, I pushed myself away for that important time away from them. It lasted about a year before I got under someone else, broken up, and was in a better space, when I reconnected with her. By that time, she was with someone and I respect people in relationships.
So, give him time and let him do his thing.
You were obviously oblivious to the fact he was into you which is kind of a red flag anyway but leave him alone he was good enough to block an inappropriate relationship
Respect his wishes. Don’t use him. Congratulations on your marriage, you committed to someone else and you need to show your old friend and your new husband that respect.
In a way he was wrong to dump this on you. He could have put distance between you more gracefully.
At least you know why he disappeared on you.
He blocked you because he knows he can’t be the friend he knows you deserve, and he probably doesn’t want to feel a little dagger in his heart every time you two talk. Or maybe he’s being a baby because he didn’t get what he wanted.
Oh well. Move on.
Matt’s an alcoholic and you’re a bottle of wine. What’s the best thing a bottle of wine can do? Stay away.
He is in love with you! Respect that he blocked you and didn’t decide to throw bad vibes around your new and beautiful marriage! It’s okay to mourn the loss of a good friendship but you gotta let it go. Maybe just accept that he isn’t going to be a part of this new journey you are heading into.
Happened with me when I got in relationship with my current partner 7 years back 🙂
Also, congratulations on your wedding 💃
Move on n focus on your husband
This man was in love with you and wanted to be with you. He was just waiting that guy out to see if it failed. Once he saw you got married. No point to keep following you because he now has 0 chance. So… admitting the feelings.. I love u. And then knowing it’s wrong to love you the way he does when you’re married and blocking you.
He was never a friend. He only wanted you romantically and kept hanging around you hoping you’d eventually get with him. I know it hurts, but you are way better off not having someone like that in your life. He showed you who he is finally and that is someone who isn’t willing to just be friends with you because he never had any interest in you as a friend.
Lol sounds like he’s had feelings for you and understands you’re no longer available. I’d be a bit shocked if you truly had no idea of this.
Anyway, you should tell your husband. Losing a friend is tough.
That’s exactly what you have to do – let go of it all and move on.
It will take time, I wish you luck.
Hi OP, I can provide insight here.
I was ‘best friends’ with this chick for years and years. We were super close, but just friends. I knew that I liked her, but I didn’t want to ruin a good thing. We lived in different cities, she dates guy, and I think eh whatever. Time goes on and she called me and asked me to be an usher in her wedding. I realized that I couldn’t say yes to her, because I’d be hurting myself and doing a disservice and dishonesty to her, so I told her I wouldn’t be able to do it. When she asked why, I dodged the question and she figured out something was up.
We didn’t speak again for nearly a year and a half, and when we did she told me that my reaction got her to thinking about different things and a few months later she decided to end the engagement.
We’ve been married 11 years and I got lucky as fuck because it almost never happened.
That being said, your friend didn’t get lucky. So rewrite my ending to match his, put yourself in his shoes and try to respect his wishes while appreciating his honesty. It sounds like you genuinely have good people in your life and I’m sorry about the loss of your friend.