Why You Can’t Be ‘Just Friends’ With Someone You Saw Forever With

We’ve all been there. We’ve all ended or detached from a relationship that we still ultimately had good intentions for, or even was potentially hopeful for a future friendship with or for things to just go back to the way they used to be before letting go was ever a topic of discussion.

I’m the girl that wants to keep all relationships light, even when not interested in them anymore or when life is forcing me to not be. I like peace. I selfishly like to know there isn’t bad blood between me and another mind, especially one I’ve held. I like to keep doors open, I like to let the good stuff remain.

One thing I’ve learned over the course of my life is that I believe in the power of time. I believe in resilience. I believe in being able to hug someone and still hold true to your boundaries or to the change your relationship has endured. I believe in the sting settling and being able to come together more collectively.

One thing I’ve recently learned however is, I don’t think you realize just how much your reality has changed until you try to treat it like it hasn’t. You can’t be just friends with someone you saw forever with because the forever that you committed yourself to in your head doesn’t entail a story of ‘just being friends’.

You can’t accept fragments of something that you loved with the wholeness of yourself.

Out of all of the things that you can undermine in the world, the hope you created to live inside of the version of your life that results in happiness and home isn’t one of them.

Mourning something that didn’t happen yet is one of the most raw forms of grief you can feel because you have no clarity around the pain you’re even hurting over. You don’t even know what it looks like, you don’t even know what it could have looked like.

When you see forever with someone you see parts of them in your life that you can never unsee, even parts of yourself. You’ve seen how multifaceted and beautiful your relationship can be and it makes you unable to let anything less suffice.

You can’t be ‘just friends’ with someone you saw forever with until you’ve accepted a life that doesn’t even consist of their friendship at all. You have to not want it anymore, you have to rewire your need for it. You have to allow your life to be full without it. You have to want more for yourself.

If you try to be ‘just friends’ with someone you saw forever with, you’re going to spend forever wishing you were spending your whole life being more than ‘just friends’.