Before I get into the actual part, I’d like to state one critical thing: I personally have a lot of issues with putting people in categories, meaning that everyone is either “good” or “bad”, my friend or someone who wants me to be harmed. This makes friendships, relationships and everything in between so much harder for me and also Leads to me just overthinking everything.
Additionally I’ve had really unstable friendships my entire life, this is one of th reasons why I hyper focus on one person and have basic friendships with other people.

Now to my problem:

Last year my life pretty much took as much hits as I was able to handle. My committed relationship of 1 year ended (due to distance and probably my psyche) and I unexpectedly lost a parent. Through all this I had Lisa (w19) as my fwb and that helped me a lot. I could talk to her about anything on my mind, sex and making out really contributed to my mental well being (probably even kept me pretty stable in that traumatic time) and overall I just wasn’t alone.

Lisa and I both finished school last year and moved away to full time jobs with about 6 hours between us. We strongly kept in touch, called and wrote a lot and I visited her at least once a month. During this time we had short phases where one had feelings for the other and we started talking about that in December last year and decided we want to try being in a relationship (but with a trial run to see if it works). That went on for about 6 weeks.

It didn’t work, because I wasn’t sure if I would ever catch real romantic feelings for her (however I always took longer for stuff like that) and I had a stressful month ahead of me and realistically told her that I wasn’t sure how much energy I could put into whatever we were having. It took for Lisa to say that she didn’t want this for us to go back to being fwbs. (Important to add that when I didn’t write Lisa that she forgot that I existed)

Now as we were only exclusive during our “relationship” she started a fwb with Tom (M23). Now due to my issues with friendships, sex being an emotional for me and borderline infidelity in my past relationship, I’m experiencing jealousy issues when Lisa is meeting Tom or when he is the topic of our conversation. I’ve asked Lisa to just not mention him to me as I still want to maintain what I have with her without making it harder for either of us. But after a few weeks of this she expressed that she didn’t feel comfortable about this as she feels like she’s lying to me when she’s with him.

And at this point I don’t know what to do. This is an unsolvable conflict of interest.

Now through all this I’ve entertained the possibility that I gained feelings for Lisa and actually want to try being in a relationship with her. On the other hand it could be healthier for me to break off contact with her and focus on my life, be alone for a while and have a more fitting relationship when the time is right.

Now I’m presented with 4 options.

1. Stay friends but without any closeness
2. Find a way in which our fwb works
3. Actively pursue her as a gf
4. Break off all communication

What should I do? Or am I even missing something?

TL;DR: 2022 was a traumatic year for me where Lisa helped me by being there, now after we tried being in a relationship we are back to being fwbs and I can’t handle not being her only fwb.

1 comment
  1. I think you’re going to be disappointed with her answer if you try to seek something exclusive again. You’ll probably also get jealous as a friend if she continues talking about Tom, or any of the next guys. Maybe disconnect for a bit and then ease back into friendship. Quick 4 transitioning into a slow 1.

    By the way, I like how you use W for woman instead of F for female for Lisa. That’s cool.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like