Friend or is he?

Hello and welcome to Fluther.
I am much like your friend. Other people text me first. I don’t initiate the first text unless I need an answer to a question. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t think of them as friends. I just don’t make the first contacts.
However, it does sound as if your friendship with him is over. Perhaps because friends usually do not discuss their friendship status and maybe because you brought it up on a few occasions you made him feel weird about it. Or perhaps it was because most of your texts were about yourself and your issues. Ask yourself if you were as good of a friend to him as he was to you.
Since it has been so long, I think I would let it go and just remember that you have to be a friend to have a friend. Don’t use them as just a sounding board to your problems.

I agree, indeed he must have felt awkward.

By the way I think you didn’t really read my in betweens, I didn’t use him, I did put alot of energy in this friendship, I said that’s how I used to be initially (when I initially got to know him)
I don’t use people

Welcome to Fluther.

A couple of observations:

1. You always initiated, not he.
2. He respected the boundary of you being his friend’s wife, He would have no business initiating with you.
3. You only reached out to him when you needed him. Despite your denial of this, that is exactly what “using him” is.
4. You seem to have developed an emotional affair with him. That is when someone becomes emotionally dependent on someone outside of the marriage.
5. Your actions put him in an awkward position.

My advice to you is to stop reaching out to him, stop communicating with him unless he reaches out to you.. And just realize you have avoided making a mess of your marriage and break the whole thing off.

Does you husband know of the extent of your communication with his friend?

Reached only in the begining like that, I wasn’t using him during the entire course of my friendship like that.

I would have rather appreciated if you asked me first rather than stating what I had for someone

Emotional affair, I didn’t have any emotional affair with him(I don’t know what made you say this) I just told him because when ever I tell my husband about it, it pushed him into deep worries and would feel very sad for him, I just did cause he is my husbands best friend so he knows the boundary and will stay with limits.

And by the way i wouldn’t have brought any mess to my marriage at any time because my husband literally knew every text I wrote him, sometimes it’s who I ask if it’s how I had to write this.

I have once spoke about my entire life to a stranger on during my flight journey and felt so much relief (I would rather share my worries with an unknown who has no emotional effect on it than telling someone who cares about me alot and starts worrying about something that hurts me.

I just wanted to clear that to you.

It’s like you saying you have an emotional affair with your psychiatrist because you go share with him your moodswings when you have a bad time.

I think you are probably over sharing with him. Dial it back.

There seems to be a lot of unbalance in this relationship. I am not sure why you felt the need to have such a close friendship with your husband’s best friend. It seems a little puzzling especially if he is also married.

Men don’t often feel like texting as much as women. I think that you were expecting too much and were acting very one-sided in your friendship efforts. You admit that you would contact him only when you were down and not in between. It sounds like you were using him. You ask why couldn’t he just contact you to ask how you were doing. I would turn that around and ask why couldn’t you just contact him to ask how he was doing. Why did it always have to be when you needed your mood lifted?

I think that you threatening to end the friendship was childish. I don’t blame him for feeling like he wants to keep some distance after you tried to resume things. Once bitten, twice shy.

Frankly, if I were him, I would only do the minimum necessary because you were my best friend’s wife. Otherwise, I would avoid you.

@marinelife thanks, I like how you talked about your opinion on how you would have behaved.

That’s why because he was my husbands best friend. How does it even matter if he was married or not, I wasn’t trying for something else here.

It’s clear that he wants more distance from you and I think it would be better for you and your marriage if there were more distance. Maybe think of trying to get from other friends what you got from the friendship with him and don’t make a drama of ending this, but decrease your involvement with him. This is something I have had to learn to do a few times in my life. And I would be asking myself what am I not getting from my husband that I need another man as such a close friend? Not that it isn’t fine to have many close friends of either sex but this one sounds like you needed him too much.

I just don’t understand why many people talk about jeopardizing my marriage. I have few gf who are as dependant on me. Is the gender differences the only cause.

I have had only one other guy friend from college, he was depressed and had family issues and he rang me up as and when he needed as a support system. I never thought anything about it.

My brother was my best male friend, he got married and then everything changed for the obvious reasons, he got so distant and I missed him so much.

Infact this guy friend I am talking about, I have at many instances told him how much he fills up the void of not having my brother. When I had this strongly brotherly urge for him I have no idea why I get so many opinions on emotional affair.

Umm…My wife used to text other guys or “friends” as she called them and she ended up cheating.
I used to talk to another woman online, I didn’t cheat, but I started to like talking to her more than my wife and that’s possibly how we drifted apart in the first place and led to her cheating.
I guess I’m trying to say that these opposite sex “friendships” can lead to problems.
Maybe you should try to connect with your husband more and if that’s not filling your needs consider splitting up BEFORE anyone cheats.
Being cheated on by a spouse is hell especially if you have children.
That was my experience with opposite sex friendships outside the marriage, but I hope it works out for you.
Good luck.

Welcome to Fluther.
Guess what. I am going to tell you what everybody else missed.
Fluther is your place.
Don’t be angry with your friend. He was a giving person, and allowed you to use him in the way you have. He was your compassionate listener when you needed one. It was not a responsibility he asked for.
So, now here you are, wanting a way to air your feelings. That is exactly what we do here. We share, we gripe, we ask questions, even the embarrassing kind. We check up on each other.
You can almost always find someone who disagrees with you here, but that is okay. That gives you exposure to fresh perspective. You can also almost always find somebody here who will agree with you.
Let your husband’s friend be HIS friend. You hang out here, and find some friends.

Welcome to Fluther.

Yeah, it sounded like it had a potential for problems there. Perhaps he is simply being respectful of his best friend, your husband. Let it go.

I think it’s very odd that you had such an intimate relationship with your husband’s best friend (even if it wasn’t physical) but you can’t see how that was an emotional affair.

I also find it weird that you only texted/talked with your husband’s friend when you were feeling down, and not just casually. You depended on this man to give you some sort of needed emotional high, and when you didn’t need it, you didn’t ecen talk to him. The whole thing is weird and very unusual to me. You were creating the recipe for a disaster in your marriage.

Is there some reason you chose to seek out your husband’s friend, instead of directing your intimate conversations to your husband?

The man was your husband’s friend. You were treating that man like a boyfriend, even though you weren’t (yet) having a physical relationship.

I suspect the the man kind of knew what was going on, maybe realized that it was not a good idea, and might destroy his friend’s marriage, and that is why he backed away from you.

Perhaps your friend felt your relationship with him was beginning to overstep boundaries he wasn’t prepared to cross. Even if you didn’t see him in a romantic way, perhaps he felt there was potential for things to go too far. Maybe he is attracted to you even if he hasn’t shown that to you. I agree with those who have said back away and let him have his space. I’d let sleeping dogs lie.