Boyfriend back, no longer wants relationship! Posted November 30th, 2007 in Dr Thatslife Advice

 Erica, 18 from Manassas writes…

“Recently my boyfriend broke up with me. He and I had been together nearly a year, and when he came home from college, he decides that he doesn’t want to get into a major relationship, wants to see other people, even though before he left for college, he told me he wanted to be with me, and make things work, and that he’d be happy if this was forever. And now I have to try to go back to how things were before we got together…just talking and being friends even though we’ve been through so much together…and he told me he wants casual sex, and I don’t know how to deal with it. I mean, how can I just go back to being friends…?”

 Dr Thatslife has this to say…

I would have to say something during his trip to college rerouted his “life maps”. One minute he is saying “forever with you will make me happy”, the next he is saying, “look, maybe we should just take it easy, ill go scope around and maybe pop in for a quick ’service’ every once and a while.”

Just friends mode can be pretty hardcore on a partner after a year together. Especially the one at the receiving end of the news. So your first question to yourself should be whether you can emotionally handle this change in the dynamics of your relationship. If you think that you will be able to sort it out somehow in your mind, that’s fine. However, if you think its going to be difficult, you might want to start exploring the field yourself. Otherwise, you are just going to be sitting there looking for any and all signs of him showing renewed interest in a full on relationship. This scenario sucks, he has told you his intentions so you will just be wasting your time and driving yourself nuts.

If you have got past that point, lets actually answer your question… How do you become his friend after being so intimate with him? You really need to emotionally detach yourself from him. See him on a less regular basis; look around for your own relationship - further proving he is just a friend; do things that friends, not lovers, would do together; don’t get yourself into situations that will provoke “intimate relationship feelings”.

Very importantly, casual sex won’t work. If you think that you can have sex with him, and keep saying in your mind “he’s just a friend” you are wrong. That is the killer every time, thinking that you can have that very intimate act of love making, and still keeping things as “just friends”. Unless of course you are someone who thinks their comfortable with casual sex and know that it will not create a bond between you and your partner. Removing the sex part of the equation will also help sift out if that is actually what he is holding on to you for. Sounds pretty shitty eh? But if someone comes back from being away for a while and says they just want to be friends because they are looking around, but still want to have casual sex… that could be all they are looking for. This also means he can have multiple partners, which creates its own interesting little problems of its own. Really think this one through carefully Erica.

That’s unfortunately life!