My life with a DBR love

When I was in high school I met this guy. He is Puerto Rican and at the time I thought he was the sexiest man walking the halls lol.  We did become friends and still are to this day.  Being around him, talking to him and learning about him I fell in love with him so long ago.  He was very intelligent, funny, sweet, sexy, and always respected me.  He showed me things no other man at the time showed me, or even thought about.

It wasn't until I started really looking at the dynamics of our relationship that I realized he was a DBR.  Not in the sense that he was disrespectful and had a lot of other women or played games and all the other usual traits of a DBR.  He was a thug. He was a gangsta.  He'd lived most of his life affiliated with the Crips and ran the lifestyle of a street hood.  Never did he bring his life around me, he loved me enough not to taint me that way.  I also realized he had a very damaged view of himself.  When we got close (that moment when friendship turns to something more but not quite bf/gf status) he's always said "I'm no good for you mama."  I always brushed it off and would tell him all the good qualities I saw in him (because truth be told he does have a lot).  What I saw was the man that would do anything for his family, the man that cared more for his family and friends more than he cared for himself.  I saw the creative poet and writer, the man that made me laugh with his silly antics.  I saw the man that made love to me as if I was special to him.  I saw the man that had respect and admiration for me.  When I felt I couldn't do something or wasn't good enough for something he was the one that always told me otherwise.  I saw the man I loved and dreamed of having a family with one day.  All he saw in himself was the gangsta, the drug dealer, the man the did horrible things in his past that he couldn't get away from.  It always broke my heart to hear him talk about himself, and I thought if I loved him enough he would eventually see what I saw in him.  I figured if I loved him enough he would do better, he would see that someone cared about him, that someone would miss him deeply if he died.

Recently I had a conversation with him and as much as I wanted to fight it everything just came rushing back to me.  I know now that the family I'd dreamed of for so long with him won't happen.  What's really messing with my head is that for ten years we've been friends, I've constantly told him how much I loved him, how I wanted to be with him and I'd take care of him the way the other hood rat females he ends up with never could.  He told me something (which I won't disclose) that seriously broke my heart as if he'd said he never wanted to see me again.  That wasn't what he said, it wasn't anything in that context, the impact of what he told me had pretty much the same effect though.  And then for the first time since I'd met him he told me he loves me.  I'd waited so long for him to say that to me.  I hate that he finally admits it right after he tells me such devastating news.  He loves me, I believe him for the fact that he's never lied to me.  I know he wouldn't play with my emotions like that and being who he is he wouldn't admit something like that unless he genuinely felt it.  The sad thing is we can't do anything about it now.  Part of me still wants to fight and be with him.  But I feel a bigger part of me saying it's way past time to move on.  There's nothing I can do for him.  I feel so disloyal and guilty for having to move on.  Now is a time he needs me more than anything and I want to be his rescuer but I can't.  I can't save him from this.

I will always love him.  He's the only one that's gotten in my heart.  All I've known for ten years is him.  Now I have to find a way to deal with the fact that my love and I will never be together with the life I'd imagined.