Two years ago, June* met the love of her life. Now, aged 25, she’s at his wedding watching him marry someone else.
The groom, Lewis*, is everything June imagined her future husband would be; they’ve become best friends. ‘I’m attracted to him and he’s my favourite person to spend time with,’ she said.
There’s just the small matter of Lewis’ bride, whom he’s been dating since before June met him and, despite her best efforts, she can’t accept that he’s going to be happy with someone that isn’t her.
‘I’m not as far gone in my “getting over him” journey as I thought I would be by now. I’ve tried, trust me, to date and distract myself from him and find my real person for the past two years, but I’ve had zero luck,’ June said.
‘Every person I’ve dated just made me realise more and more how great [Lewis] is.’
When June and 26-year-old Lewis first met, he was dating his bride-to-be long distance, so June spent a lot of time with him alone at his apartment. They became close, talked every day and hung out multiple times a week.
Taking to Reddit to share her predicament, June said things had always been platonic, though she wished it had been different.
She wrote: ‘Nothing ever crossed the line, we’ve never kissed and are not usually overly touchy. But a few months after we met, I started to develop very strong feelings for him. I never told him, though our friends could pick up on it and would tell him to be less flirty and less close with me. He never did.’
It wasn’t until last year, when Lewis got engaged to his long-distance girlfriend, that June realised just how in love with him she was.
‘His fiance is wonderful, and I have no reason to believe she’s not the girl for him. I just cannot picture myself happy at this juncture with anyone that isn’t him and it just feels like this is it for me,’ she said.
‘I’m young, so I understand that that sounds silly. But I’ve never been in a relationship and this… is the closest I have ever been to one.
‘I kept telling myself they would break up before this weekend happens, mostly because of the pressure of long distance (which i always felt bad about) but they’ve made it.’
June added that part of her is very happy for them, but the other part can’t bear that she’s ‘losing the one person I felt really loved me’.
‘He’s been my number one support for some really tough stuff in the last couple years. We’ve shared so much joy and so much sorrow,’ she said. ‘He’ll always check in on me regardless of how busy and insane his life his (even this weekend at his wedding…) and he will always cheer me up with a joke.’
Now, at Lewis’ wedding, she feels ‘incredibly lonely’ and is desperate to know if she’ll be able to get over him.
‘I worry I will do whoever I date next a disservice with how I see this man as the perfect guy for me,’ she said. ‘I’m scared no one will ever compare… What do I do?’
This feeling of romantic regret at weddings isn’t uncommon but as psychotherapist Lucy Beresford told Metro, guests rarely jump on the opportunity to say ‘I object!’ on cue.
Weddings can be emotional occasions, she said, not helped by the fact that we’re socially conditioned to see romantic pairings as something ‘that ought to happen’.
‘Whether that’s true in reality for many people is beside the point,’ said Lucy. ‘We are very imitative creatures, and when we see a couple standing at the altar, a part of our brain can easily slip into imagining what this would feel like if it was us standing there.’
So, should June ever reveal her feelings to Lewis? According to Lucy, June may have left it too late.
‘I had a client who was about to get married and, two days before the wedding, her colleague confessed his feelings for her,’ Lucy said.
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‘She felt that the timing was awful. That if he had given her more time, she could have reflected more carefully, and maybe – not certainly, but maybe – made a different choice.
‘As it was, she felt conflicted on her wedding day and it unsettled the early years of her marriage deeply.
‘However, I always believe it is important to own your truth. How would you feel if, 20 years down the line, you met the person you adore and told them how you had felt back in the day, and they said ‘I wish I had known at the time, things would have been different.’”
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