I, A Married Man, Told A Married Woman I've Had A Crush On Her For Literally Half Our Lives Today
As the title says.
I'm 32, she's 31. We met in my sophomore and her freshman year of high school. We were both in the same tight-knit friend group. For a lot of that time, I dated her best friend and she dated my best friend. I always knew I liked her and wanted to be with her. Not that I didn't love my actual girlfriend, but she was always in the back of my mind whenever we all hung out together, which was basically all the time. But there was never a point in that whole time when both of us were available at the same time, so I did my damndest to compartmentalize those feelings and largely succeeded.
We all broke up or otherwise went our separate ways around the end of school, as you do. LO moved across the country, neither of us are big on socials, I didn't have any contact with her or think about her much at all for about a decade, although she would occasionally cross my mind, and weirdly my sex dreams.
I did reconnect with my ex after several years though, and we rebuilt a deep and unburdened platonic friendship that continues to this day. That's how I bumped into LO again a couple years ago, she was back in town for one of ex's parties. We were by far the last ones to go to bed that night. Had a one on one conversation about everything in our lives for hours. Then a year or so after that, I saw her again at ex's 30th birthday. Again, LO and I sat in a corner and talked one on one for most of the night, barely even interacting with anyone else. Notably, both of our LTRs, who are now our respective spouses, were not at either of those parties. I think we both gave subtle and maybe even not-so-subtle signals of interest throughout both times; but who's to say for sure, I could have just imagined them on her end.
After each time seeing each other in person, we texted for a very short time but the conversation quickly fizzled out. I can't be sure why that was either, but I think whatever her underlying feelings were, maybe we both just had the good sense to shut down in the sober light of day.
I've experienced limerence twice outside of this, both in the long time gap between parts one and two of this story. Both cases were very different from each other and this one in the details. They were more intense, contiguous, and with someone who was otherwise not involved in my life at all. One was deep and tied to a very traumatic time in my life, and the other was short-lived because I successfully recognized it and nipped it in the bud. I had not been thinking of the person I'm talking about here as an LO until today because it felt different than those times, but I think she is. If nothing else just because of the sheer longevity of these feelings, but also the ambiguous nature of our interactions (or my reading too much into them) and her complete and utter unavailability throughout all of it.
For the past few weeks I've been posting advice and testimonies on this sub as a success story, admittedly somewhat unashamedly and arrogantly at times, but through that I've also been unraveling my own story within myself; memories I hadn't thought of in years, connections I've never made before, etc. I've come to realize that all of my LOs share a lot of qualities that are not shared by any of my normal romantic interests/partners, and I think today I realized that the ex and LO of this story may have, to a certain extent, become the archetypes for LTR and LO in my mind all the way back in high school.
Anyway, with that clarity in mind, I decided to just get it off my chest and tell LO. I've heard that a definitive rejection can break limerence and I've never had a chance to experience that before, and she's barely a part of my life at all anymore, so I didn't have much to lose. Earlier today I told her my feelings in the briefest, most direct, most low-pressure, and kindest way I could think of.
I immediately had 10,000 regrets and anxieties about it, and it ate at me for hours, but now that the nerves have died down I think I'm at peace with it. I made some opening small talk so I know she's there, but she has yet to respond to my confession. If she never does, I think that's fine too. I've already learned to take silence as an answer as loud as any other. I'd hate to lose an old friendship with that much history, but I'd rather be able to close that chapter of the book at this point.
I'm cautiously optimistic that this is the last piece of the story that needed to be untangled, and that now I can carry on with my happy and fulfilling current and future family life unburdened by a strange and thorny past love life.