“Jeremy told me that he loves me but he’s not IN love with me. I knew where this was going, and sure enough, I was right. The next thing he said was, ‘I want us to be friends, good friends.’ Well, the very LAST thing I want to be with him right now is his friend. I don’t ever want to see him again!”
Ellen was upset. Actually she was outraged, and hurt, and confused, and broken-hearted. And if you’ve ever been in Ellen’s shoes, you probably know how she felt. And if you’ve ever been in Jeremy’s shoes, you know what he felt, and perhaps had just as much difficulty articulating it as he did.
“I love you but I’m not IN love with you.” We have heard from so many people who were on either the sending or the receiving side of this message that we began to get curious about what was going on with them when they spoke those words. Some of the things that we heard them say about what they really meant but felt that they couldn’t say were:
