While I can't speak for him, there may be a little part in my story relevant to his feelings (and yours too). I met a girl back in 2014 and very quickly we became the best of friends. I pretty much fell in love with her right when I saw her for the first time, but when I found out that she was already in a serious relationship I voluntarily chose to be her friend. We used to spend hours talking every single night before we fell asleep and basically we both became closer than anybody else in our lives, just in like the first three months.

Over the last two years however, things started getting too complicated for us, fighting all the time for small issues. Communication started becoming rare and we met each other just around five times in those two years, even though we stayed just five miles away from each other. From people who knew every aspect of the other person's life and every little thing going on in every hour of the day, we now text each other briefly twice a month.

The thing is that even three and a half years after falling in love with someone I knew I could never be with, I'm still in love with her. So to me, I don't know how likely it is that he's got feelings for this other woman, but it seems very possible, even after three years. (Please do note that I scored an 88 for OCD in the sanity test, so I don't know if people normally feel the same way.)

Also while I don't want to break up any friendships, what I've realized is that trying to stay happy with a friendship when I wanted a relationship wasn't maybe a good idea. It made it hard for me to try to stay happy (because I knew I wanted more) and it never gave me the kind of closure you get after a breakup, so I never moved on.

The things I said weren't any recommendations I made to you. I just shared my experience so that you may get a little clarity.