FWB mellowing into Friendship; anyone else deal with this too?

[InkAndComb]

Losing a friends with benefits situation always brings me down a bit; I feel like the knee-jerk reaction is to assume jealous or secret romantic feels, which I know can happen, but...

I feel like it's usually my ego and self-esteem that are suffering, not my feelings. You know?

I get a lot of confidence and validation from having a partner that likes to play and finds me attractive; this can be found, in other forms, elsewhere. And I know you should reach into yourself, find your own beauty, etc etc, but I feel like denying that a big part of finding ourselves attractive is the response of others is a little silly?

To lose that potential source of friendly banter and flattery, of satisfying sexual activity with no replacement (dating or otherwise), makes me a bit sad. Like I'm mourning the loss of something, but not in a "break up" level type of way.

It's especially unfortunate when it's not an issue of just fizzling out but someone else being more desireable (and this being blatantly expressed as "she meets all my personal preferences"). Hard to keep the wind in your sails after that, haha.

Has anyone else felt this too? I'm still doing my own thing, but I can't deny it's bringing me down a bit. The prospect of the future monthes of nothing going on in bed or otherwise, and staying positive and exercising and stuff, is also kind of daunting. Bleh.

[Hirundo Bos]

It's been many years since my one and only FWB mellowed into a friendship, and I don't remember most of my feelings at the time, except that I took it much better than with romantic breakups up till then... but I'm not surprised to see it registers as a loss. Nor to see that the benefits of a friendship with benefits extends to more than just the physical satisfaction. The levels of intensity that sexual chemistry brings, the banter that you mention, the not having to search, and most certainly the validation of having some you're turned on by being turned on by you! So yeah, I don't think it has to be jealousy to be bleh...

[InkAndComb]

Thanks, I appreciate the understanding.

It's hard to describe to a lot of my friends, and honestly the nails in the coffin (Towards the lust, etc) were hammered in pretty recently.

I was actually really enjoying the friendship; we shifted to platonic bros, but closer in a sense, pretty easily.

And he valued a lot of my insight, romantically and stuff. He was a good source for me as well, as a guy. Our demeanor ended up being a lot more like siblings, which I found interesting; I was worried I'd get "feels" in the sense of love, but the feels I caught were more like what I get from good friends.

Things recently went south, but not because of the FWB status.

I think what hurts is losing the friendship, and the ease of being around each other physically (I have a lot of anxiety, so since I'd already been so vulnerable, lounging around playing videogames and stuff didn't have the "oh god am I sitting weird? Am I talking too much? Should I cross my legs? AHHH" feel to it that I get a lot of the time).

I never thought I'd get an awesome friendship, and helping to encourage him pursue the new love of his life was actually kind of comforting? I thought I'd be more bummed about stuff, but it was sort of...cathartic; seeing how he acted with a romantic prospect, and how cute it got, reminded me that I could get the same.

Now I'm just left mourning a friendship that imploded because of derp, not even for the things I thought a FWB/friendship-that-grew-quickly would suffer from. And it sucks.

Ah well...some people are only around for a phase of your life, I guess. I still have fond memories. And I still appreciated the friendship I had while it lasted.

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