I've been dealing with a hard realization recently. I've been slowly coming to the conclusion that my ex and I will never likely be anything more than friends. It's been a long struggle, and a lot of thinking was involved. Basically, at this point, she's pretty much said that all she can be is a friend at this point, and in my conclusion, she and I are compatible in most ways, however, because of everything going on in both of our lives(me with my moderate anxiety, and her with what I believe is likely depression which has been going on for exactly a year)that most likely, we'll only ever be really good friends with a potential possibility of being able to be close or best friends later on after the dust settles. It took me up until a recent anxiety episode I had about our friendship and where it stood(and the fact that lately she's been too busy to really talk and hang out as a friend) to realize that she does care about me quite a bit, however, because of things going on in her life, she doesn't have the energy to help me through things like she did before we dated and even during. I've been so scared of losing her even as a friend, and have even told her that I'd be fine with friendship as well, because she's such a great person all around when she is there. I also feel that finally after this whole on and off relationship, that my feelings have been waning finally. I like her, but I'm not entirely entirely sure if I want to put our friendship which has been so damaged the past year through the ringer again. And plus, I think she seems more content with friendship with me. So, I felt it was best for me to finally push my feelings aside, accept that I do love and care about her, but it's probably more as a very concerned friend, than a girlfriend. It's been really hard to be there the past year with her, as she sometimes periodically withdraws from me, but I've managed. She's better somewhat than she was a year ago, but still sometimes seems so withdrawn. And plus, having dated briefly changed the nature of how we interact with each other, and I realize now since my anxiety episode recently with her about frequency of contact(I just think it was because I was lonely at the time, I haven't been out a whole lot this summer, and so I've been stuck and having barely anyone to talk to, and plus I miss our friendship where we talked more often and interacted more, I do realize she's busy, I'm pretty busy too as it's my second to last semester in university and I have a lot that I need to do in the next eight weeks). I just don't know if our friendship could withstand if one or both of us ever decided to pursue. We ended things positively, on the condition that we'd wait and discuss when one or both of us was ready to talk about it. Right now, at this point I've been taking the advice I got here and have been periodically not talking to her as much. I feel I might have been slightly dependent, in the fact that I was so used to us talking all the time, while dating and while as friends. I've at this point also elected to give her space somewhat, although I feel we don't need a lot of it, I just feel that I need to reestablish the boundaries. Meanwhile, I've been working on myself, trying to eat better and take better care of myself, taking up interests I haven't really made time for recently, and spending time with family and catching up with two old friends of mine that I used to be closer to. I felt that if I backed off, and that if I approached her periodically in a way that's not coming off too strong, that she'll start feeling comfortable around me more and know that I just want us to be friends and be able to be closer again. I think she is, I think it's just me having trouble readjusting to us being just friends as this was my first real relationship and my first with a girl. So I guess I just need time
