Hi Meredith,

I am a single divorced man. My best friend “Roxy” helped me see the light and support me through the divorce process. For many years now we have had a relationship that goes well beyond friendship. We love each other deeply. The problem is that she is married. She and her husband have done counseling together and individually to make their relationship work, but nothing ever changes. She has said repeatedly that neither of their hearts are in it. She describes him as her “roommate.”

We have both expressed, countless times, that we want to be with each other. Last year I told her that I could no longer keep this up, and that in one year I would be moving on if things didn’t change for us, meaning that she start the divorce process. At the very end of the year she told her “roommate” that she didn’t have anything left to give and wanted a divorce. They told their immediate family the news. I was elated.

Then, only a few weeks later, she took it all back. She says she got scared and everything started to get real. Now she’s in the same cycle she’s been in for years: being unhappy and unfulfilled in a “disaster of a relationship,” as her counselor put it. I am devastated for me and for her. I told her I can’t be in her life and on that roller coaster anymore. So, not only have I lost the love of my life, but also my best friend. Since the devastation, she is still saying that I make her happy, she thinks about me all the time, and she wants me in her life. There’s always some little nugget from her that I construe as hope. I feel like I have been strung along for a long time and it is continuing. For example, previous to her backtracking, we had planned a getaway in July. Even as recently as a couple weeks ago when we spoke, I brought up how sad it was that we wouldn’t be doing that together and she said, “July is still pretty far away.” What?

This whole situation has been overwhelming for me, especially after having almost made it to the finish line together. Most recently, I have cut off all contact with her which is extremely hard. How do I REALLY move on and stop hoping that we’ll be together? I know we would have been perfect together. But now I feel like I’m wasting my time hoping when there is no real hope left.

– Lost, confused, hurt, but still in love