I [M24] was planning to tell my best friend [F23] of 4 years about my feelings for her. Tonight she told me she has decided to pursue religious sisterhood. Not sure what to do.

(names have been changed, obviously)

Context:

When I met Maria in college, we became fast friends. I was in a serious relationship with my girlfriend Lucy at the time, so there was never any kind of romantic energy between Maria and I when our friendship was first starting.

Maria and I met at a religious event at our college and since then, faith has always been a huge part of our friendship. I am a liberal who was raised with religion but by college I had distanced myself from the faith, content that it was not important in my life. Maria, on the other hand, was a conservative and one of the most devoutly faithful people I had ever met. We were instantly drawn to each other.

She is the primary reason I consider God to be such a major part of my life again, and she has told me that I have consistently challenged and shaped her viewpoints on major social issues in a way that has helped her become a more compassionate person. We are also both creative and artistic people with dreams of co-writing and co-directing movies someday.

Since graduating from college, Lucy and I have moved in together and our relationship was at an all time high when we first started. I was convinced that after I got my career started, the first thing I wanted to do was propose to Lucy.

As the year went on, though, it became clear to both Lucy and I that we wanted different things from life. I wanted to marry Lucy, but I was in no rush to start "settling down." I am so aware of how young I am, and I am in no rush to find the job I'll do or town I'll live in for the rest of my life. Lucy on the other hand, is extremely career focused, with financial stability being her primary drive.

My relationship with Lucy has been nothing but loving and supportive, but our life goals at the moment feel so incompatible, which doesn't feel fair for either of us. Since Lucy and I practically grew up together, our families are close, and we are facing a lot of pressure to get engaged. In spite of that, Lucy has told me multiple times that if I proposed to her, she doesn't know if she could say yes.

A little over a month ago, when hanging out with Maria, I realized that I had feelings for her. It was one of those big 'aha!' moments where I looked at our friendship and the way it has shaped me into who I am today and I realized that I fell for her because of how much I fell in love with the person I am around her.

The next day, I told Lucy that I wanted to talk about ending our relationship and Lucy told me that she was on the same page. I have not been single since I was 16 and Maria has been clear about her lack of interest in dating (anyone, not me specifically,) so I thought I would give myself time to emotionally move on from my relationship with Lucy and make sure that my feelings with Maria were genuine before I talked to her about them.

Maria called me a few days ago to tell me about a movie she wanted to audition for and we made plans for tonight. I was going to come over and help her make an audition tape. Yesterday she texted me that she decided she wasn't going to audition and that she had something to tell me. Tonight she dropped a bomb on me over dinner: She has decided to pursue religious sisterhood. We've talked about this in the past so I knew it was on her radar, but I was still completely caught off guard. Maria cried as she told me that she is tired of running from the call she feels to devote herself completely to God. I am the first person she has told, even before her parents.

I know this may sound crazy or silly to any non-religious people, and if she would have told me this even a year ago, it would've though it was crazy or silly too. But this last year she has touched me so deeply and profoundly by sharing her faith with me and inviting me deeper into my own relationship with God. Maria's relationship with God is truly something special, and if there is anybody who I can truly believe has heard the call, it's her.

When she finished telling me about her decision, I was stunned. I told her I loved her (it was clear that in this context I meant as a friend), supported her, and knew her well enough that if this was her decision it must have been an extremely difficult one that she did not take lightly. I also told her that I was going to need time to process this before we talked about it any further, as I was having trouble not making this about me and this decision was definitely not about me. She understood and it was not uncomfortable at all.

So now here I am, completely unsure what to do. Maria has made an incredibly difficult decision and told me how hard it is for her to mentally let go of the plans she had made for herself. I don't want to make it any more difficult. Although I was planning on telling Maria about my feelings for her, I wasn't planning on doing it so soon but I feel that if I am going to tell her, it needs to be before she goes any further down this road since that will only make it more difficult for her to hear.

I already told her that I support this decision but am struggling with it for selfish reasons and that I want a chance to talk about those with her once I've had some time to process. When we talk, I'm thinking that I should first present the obvious things I'm struggling to let go of (the freedom of our friendship, our dreams of making art together, and our plans of traveling the world together,) and then lead into my developing feelings for her. I don't think it would be a huge shock for her and I think it would give us an opportunity to mourn these things together so that I can move on and be a support on this new journey without looking back and thinking "what if?"

I'm nervous though, I don't know if it's worth adding these feelings to an already difficult situation since they are relatively new and I am still emotionally processing my breakup. But I also don't want to let these feelings sit unaddressed and I don't know if I'll ever get another chance.

Should I talk to her about them?

tl;dr: I recently developed feelings for my best friend of 4 years. I wasn't planning on addressing these feelings until I had emotionally recovered from a tough breakup. My best friend just told me she is joining a religious sisterhood so it feels like 'now or never' but I don't want to complicate her already intensely difficult and emotional decision. Do I tell her?

Submitted March 30, 2019 at 01:05AM by waterlilliesfornow https://ift.tt/2CO1SpP