But you're suggesting we stop being friends anyway.

Telling him that you need some time to just focus on yourself is a lot better overall in my eyes and won't hurt your friendship permanently.

How did that happen? How did you feel? If you don't mind telling me.

Actually, it happened twice. Once was a similar situation to yours: we were friends for a really long time (were in the same class in grammar school) until he admitted having feelings for me...I had a bf at the time who already suspected my friend having a crush on me.... so yeah, the situation was just weird. I felt overwhelmed and I was quite angry with him for having me put in such a difficult situation. It might have helped him to relieve his conscience, but I just had to work out how to deal with my bf and having to see him every day.... I mean I didn't want to lead him on or anything and I didn't want to disrespect my bf either.

The second situation was with an ex. We broke up since he lost his feelings for me, but we got over it and became really good friends. He was dating other girls, having fun, I was aupairing abroad. At one point, I met someone else and from then on he got a bit weird. When I was back, I met him to catch up and he gave me a letter when we parted ways..... he was telling me that he was still in love with me, but understood that I probably didn't feel the same way yada yada.... again, quite a selfish act.

In both cases, it would have been a lot easier to just say that they have to work through something or need some time or whatever....