Beautiful story, I wholeheartedly agree - I had a similar experience with the man I
ended up marrying. Placed him in the fiend zone real early then after 10 yrs of searching for Mr Right I realise he was there all along, I had even sub consciously started looking for men who had the same character traits as my best friend but with the physical traits I was looking for...failed. Then I asked God to bring me my soulmate, cause I was failing miserably at finding him on my own. God showed me my best friend.
..after telling him about a particularly bad recent breakup his response this time was not one of encouragement and support, instead, he was happy and he said it. I was mad because he was finding happiness in my pain, it was then that he confessed his feelings for me. Long story short we married a year later. We just celebrated our 3 yr married anniversary and our 13 yrs of friendship.
God is good and always on time