Need Help

So it goes like this. This girl that I've known for well over a year now, I've been in love with her, very deeply in love, despite that we've never actually met in person - since she lives in France and I in California, we've only talked, Skyped, and have faithfully been texting at least a few times every day, without fail, except for a few day-or-two-long gaps on vacation or after fights. We dated for a bit over a month a couple months after I got to know her and then broke up because of how badly my family reacted to my coming out. I finally became brave enough, despite my father's threats, to start talking to her again two months later, one year ago today. Though she had seemed very happy in the relationship (despite arguments and the inherent roughness of the road we chose to take) and assured me that she had no regrets afterward, she also said she no longer had feelings for me, and even kindly offered to give me space if I needed it to get over my feelings. Thinking I'd get over them fine on my own, and not wanting to let her go completely, I declined and we resumed our friendship.

Despite insisting that she had no feelings for me, she kept flirting with me in the months after that - we're talking bathroom towel pics, pressuring me to confess the nature of my stubbornly lingering feelings for her (and seeming satisfied when I did), telling me she'd be my first kiss if I came to see her in France, telling me how she missed me and kept dreaming about me, wanting to meet me when my family visited her city even though she knew how my father hated her, lots of phone calls, calling me cute/personal nicknames, the works - even a pickup line that she for some reason decided to make personally for me. She got a boyfriend in October who was seemingly great - her family loved him - but she had no feelings for him and broke up after two months. At the end of the relationship she confessed that she liked me better than him. She even told me she loved me, the magic three words, and it didn't sound like the way straight girlfriends throw it out - she's the exact opposite of the straight girlfriend type, not gushy or emotional at all generally - though to be honest our whole "friendship" dynamic has never seemed straight at all, so not much surprise there.

Despite this, when I asked her about this afterwards she insisted she only meant she appreciated me. After she ditched her boyfriend she suddenly grew noticeably much colder and more distant. I didn't understand why and to this day I still don't, but I have my theories. Anyway, after some tearful confrontations, during which the closest she could come to telling me she didn't have feelings for me was "I don't know," we resumed being friends, but I couldn't help but feel shaken, like something was different. February rolled around and we got close again, to the point where she'd text me in class, against the rules, or ask me while she was grocery shopping which type of soup she should get for lunch. We even started a roleplay - going back to our roots, since that's how we met - both of us playing girls, dating each other, and we got way into it. She started flirting with me again, calling me her "wifey" and pretending to propose to me, among other things. I was almost happy again.

Then she met this new guy, and started dating him, around mid-February, and suddenly it was like a switch went off. She was distant again, she refused to talk to me about her feelings for him or me or anything. The roleplay suddenly died and I felt it would be like cheating if I asked her to start it again. I tried to be normal as possible about her and him dating, and not act horrible and jealous, though to be fair I did ask her if he was a good kisser, to which she said only to stop asking things that would hurt me, since that was pointless and stupid. The first time they had a proper phone conversation she told me glowingly about how they'd talked about "everything" for two hours straight, then asked me if I was okay, because she didn't think I was. I lied and said I was fine, though two days later I broke down and admitted it hurt anyway.

Anyhow, since then it's been like this: her dating him, even though she really doesn't seem that into him, and me trying my best, and failing miserably, to keep my obvious jealousy under control. The first few months she wouldn't even talk about her sexuality with me and got very touchy whenever it was brought up, but not too long ago she admitted she could still be bisexual ("who knows?"). Though she doesn't hate her boyfriend, she really doesn't seem that...enthusiastic about him, as she never talks about him, or how great he is or anything. In fact one time she told me explicitly she can't tell him she loves him, even though he's told her so twice already, she feels like she'd be lying if she did. It's been this way with all her boyfriends; she's never fallen in love with a one of them. In fact as far as I can tell the only person she's ever said 'I love you' to is me, several times when we were dating and twice, last winter.

Now it's probably no surprise that I can't help but think, believe, hope even that she's closeted gay, though that might just be the wishful thinking of someone who's way over the deep end already. I mean, she actually came out as gay last summer, after we dated, and then in the fall she crushed on a girl in her area for mayyybe a week, then forgot her. On top of that her fandom choices and ships would suggest that she's gayer than a double rainbow (only ships women, only crushes on celebrity women, favorite shows all have lesbian leads, the works).

But the kicker is this: last December, her sister outed her to her family, while she still had a boyfriend. Her father was neutral but her mother wasn't happy with it and she's told me already how her mother isn't comfortable with her being gay, if she were gay. Which she isn't. Because she has a boyfriend.

Okay, I know that's unfair, but what else can I do except take what she says and does at face value, and respect her choices? Only that's exactly the problem because I can't help but feel like we had something, like we still do, only it's buried now so far beneath this mask of utter indifference, this forced straightness, that the old her, the her I loved best, only comes out at the rarest of times - like on my birthday, this month, when she asked me to tell her anything she could do for me as a gift, since she couldn't ship anything tangible, for how expensive that would've been. She's honestly so wonderful and my very best friend, but it's not just the jealousy that gets me, I feel like ever since getting outed in December she's been terrified of being herself, like she'll never be...gay again, even if it's the thing that makes her happiest in the end, and I'm just so terrified of losing her. I can't lose her, but I feel like maybe she's gone for good this time.

So all these feelings are coming together in me, my platonic love for her as well as my desire, and my jealousy, and my bitterness over everything that's happened, and my fear that she'll never be the same again, because of her careless sister, and society and everything. I promised myself and her that I would keep my jealousy in check, no matter what, and that I'd never, ever tell her boyfriend the truth about what we'd once been and how she'd once thought she was gay, partly because I knew it'd hurt her, partly because I knew it'd make him angry and that would end up hurting her too, partly because I'm afraid that it's really all in my head, I'm just another desperate lesbian with a completely unattainable straight crush, and if I told him, she'd find out and leave me in disgust. But the jealousy keeps coming out. I keep getting angry and upset at her at the littlest of things, and even though she takes it bravely, we both know it's because I'm still bitter over everything I haven't let go of yet, how I still want her and how I feel like she played with my heart and then left with no explanation, even if that's not true. But yesterday I actually told her boyfriend, not all of it, just how if he loves her, he should be ready to let her go, if he must, and...now they're both angry at me. Him for the obvious reasons (he's already been jealous of me and her for a long time - especially since she jokingly flirted with me one time in front of him, saying I preferred her over him and that we'd been screwing each other), but with her, she asked me to show her the screenshots of what I said to him, and she just read it over and asked me why I said it, and was honestly so calm about it, it's like she didn't even care that her boyfriend was upset...and it's horrible cause she's always this emotionless when I tell her anything serious, like whenever the fact of my feelings comes up, as it did yesterday, or a week ago, when of course she didn't care again, she just told me vaguely that "you'll have to get over being in love with me someday, nothing lasts forever". But anyway, after showing her the screenshots, I came back and told her how he was angry, to which she said only "that's understandable." So I felt like she was somehow making fun of me, and at the same time it was partly her fault, seeing how he wouldn't be so jealous if she didn't keep blatantly flirting with me, and how I wouldn't be so jealous if she hadn't played me for so long like she did, so I told her that, and she got angry, too. Now they're both angry at me. They've ignored me outright since yesterday.

I can't keep doing this. It's tearing me apart from the inside out, but more importantly, it's hurting her and fucking up their relationship. He already suspects she's gay and he's known I have feelings for her since a month or so ago. I keep hurting her like this, several times a month, and I can't bear to see that continue happening. I can't hurt him, either, because we've become friends in the months we've known each other. Please, I need help, of any sort - an explanation of what she's doing and why she's doing it, advice for how to continue, whatever you can give. Even telling me if it was ever real or not, if I'm right that she's a closet lesbian, explaining to me why she kept flirting with me and if it ever meant anything serious, that would help. If I have to leave her to stop this hurting, and if that'll hurt less than staying, despite how incredibly important she is to me, I'll do it. Anything to stop feeling like this twisted monster with blood on her hands who's slowly killing herself, too, from the inside out.

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tl;dr How do you deal with a horrible case of jealousy for your best friend, who's long distance, possibly closet gay, and has a boyfriend that she's not in love with?

 

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