I’m in Love with My Friend Who’s Taken

Are you harboring a secret crush on your friend? When the two of you are together, do you finish each other's sentences, make each other laugh, and you feel like you could tell him anything? Well, almost anything. You've never let him know how you really feel - that you are very attracted to him. Besides, he already has a girlfriend, maybe one that you like and don't want to hurt.

But let's consider something for a moment - the act of telling him you're in love with him. Sound scary? Then let's see what is really holding you back.

When you're falling in love with a friend, it's especially hard to admit it because you don't know what will happen. You risk losing your friendship. Or if he's taken, you also risk breaking up a couple who has history together. There are no easy answers.

Even though the best idea seems to be to stay the course - keep your friendship going, pretend that you don't have feelings for him, and go about your daily routine - after a while, it will start to wear you down. Because feelings don't just go away, especially when they are never spoken aloud. They just grow bigger, along with the silence, until it becomes overwhelming.

Please keep in mind: he will sense that you love him. Feelings between friends are more transparent than you think, no matter how much you try to hide them.

While it might seem impossible, I think you owe it to yourself to be honest about your feelings, to risk losing the friendship.

One of several things could happen: the feeling isn't mutual and he rejects you and cuts off the friendship, or he could be sneaky and ask to start seeing you behind his girlfriend's back (don't do this please), or he could admit his attraction and break it off with his girlfriend to get together with you. And while you don't know what he might choose, and that makes you feel powerless in the situation, you are actually the one with the power here. You are freeing yourself from the crush and a friendship that isn't serving you, no matter what he chooses. You want him as a boyfriend, not a friend. If he chooses to let you go, he's done you a favor. He's allowed you to grieve and move on to someone who will love you.

It's important to remember that in the long run, it's better to make a choice than to keep staying the course, flirting and getting hurt when he goes home to his girlfriend. If you really want to try a relationship together, you must both leave the friendship behind.

If the friendship is strong, it will resume in time. But first, you need to acknowledge your feelings and heal your heart. The problem isn't that he has a girlfriend, it's that neither of you are being honest with each other.