hehrerh Posted January 3, 2014 Posted January 3, 2014 This is a complicated story, and it has a lot of ins and outs. There are 3 girls that are a part of my current situation. No. Not all at once. Let me explain. The first girl was my first serious girlfriend. We met at a party during college, hit it off, and the next thing I knew, I was driving an hour and a half up to her every weekend to be with her. Life was great: making breakfasts in the morning, going out at night, socializing with our friends, double dates, and spending the weeks talking about the next time we would get to see each other. One day, she told me that she had made arrangements to spend a semester (fall of 2012) working for Disney World as part of their "Disney College Program". She encouraged me to do the same, despite hesitation on my part. See, the plans were months away and I feared that something could happen to our relationship before then. Furthermore, if I did not go, then I feared that our relationship would not be able to survive the distance. In the end, I did agree to go on the program with her. By the time my flight was set to leave for Orlando, however, our relationship had run its course. This made the first month or so of the program very difficult, as everything I did reminded me of her - after all, it was because of her that I was in Disney World at all. How could I enjoy what we planned to do as a team? It all felt very empty. After the first month of the program, I got a text from my ex asking why I hated her. Because of the isolation from my support group, which was 1500 miles away, and all of the other things that go into living in a new place that was supposed to be a lifetime memory shared with what was supposed to be my future wife (silly me), I was elated to hear from her. We made plans to get coffee, and picked up right where we left off. Love was new, life was fresh, and we were very happy. For about a week. After our second honeymoon phase, we remembered all of the unavoidable incompatibilities that we were unable to fix in the first place. All was not for naught, however, because it provided the closure that was sorely lacking from our mutual breakup months before (the relationship had grown stale - run its course). This is important, because it made me realize how to identify the warning signs that indicate that I will not be marrying a woman. After our second break up, I recovered for about a month. After this, I was ready to hit up the bars and go mingle again (I'm in my early 20's! I should have this type of elasticity!). A co-worker and I went to the bar, and realized that we were failures in the bar scene (especially in buff, tan, Florida). After a few hours of fear of speaking to strange women, and a few failed attempts, we decided to pack it in. In the parking lot, however, my friend made a valiant stand. He said that we would go in there and meet a girl, so help him God. Fueled by his passion, we went back into the bar. Incredibly, we met a PAIR of women, and hit it off instantly. It turned out that the girls were ALSO part of the same college program that we were on, and that we had an incredible amount in common. This girl (girl 2 - a southern belle from Kentucky) brought out all of the synergies that I knew that I wanted to share with a girl - and she did it in less than a two month span. (we had to go back to our respective states at the beginning of January). I knew that I was falling deeply in love with her, but was resistant to stay with her after the program's end. In my eyes, a long-term relationship was the exact OPPOSITE of what I needed - after all, I blamed a large portion of the failures of my relationship with girl 1 on the large distance between us. On top of this, I had been in only one serious relationship before. Although I figured that it would take a long time to find a girl that is right for me based on what went right and what went wrong in my first relationship, I found what I was looking for right away. This made me think that I could find the same girl, or a better girl, just as easy in my home town. I would not have to deal with distance, and I would possibly find a better girl. Despite girl 2's incredible protest and insistence that we could make it work and that we were great for each other, I pressed forward with my decision: After Disney's College Program was over, we would have to go our separate ways. -Disclaimer, the following is truly a low point in my life, and I know that I am a gigantic ******* for doing this. I can't take it back, and I will never do anything like this again. I probably will never get the chance to recover from this, but I can't talk to anyone but an anonymous internet forum about this in length. Plus it is essential to my problem- After the program ended, girl 2 and I talked on the phone occasionally - as friends. In the first month of 2013, I began talking to and mingling with a new girl - girl 3. I was more physically attracted to girl 3 than girl 2, and was just getting to know her. After a while, it appeared imminent that we would be in a relationship. While all this was going on, girl 2 decided that she absolutely wanted to come up to see me during spring break (all the way from Kentucky to Michigan - almost an entire day's drive). Despite here insistence, I stood strong. I did not WANT to fall in love with her again, and I knew that it could happen if she came to see me - I was falling in love with a rational person who might have all the same qualities that I loved in girl 2, but minus all of the distance! In the end, I made it very clear that she (girl 2) could come and visit me on the condition that it would be just as friends. She accepted full-heartedly, and came for a 3 day weekend. The arrangement was that she could stay in my room and that I would stay on the couch. As if that's how it ended up playing out. Within an hour of her arrival, the love was back. We not only shared the bed, but we shared walks through my city (which she loved), shared beers at my favorite bar, shared my friends, and she embraced it all with very open arms. And then she left And then the fear came back. I couldn't possibly do another long-distance relationship. I couldn't possibly live my mid-20s tied to girls living in other states. How could I live a normal life like this? So despite her crying, my own tears, and our mutual lack of understanding (she demanded answers, and I literally had to make them up - I had to hurt her to get her away), I told her over the phone that we could not be together. She erased me from her life. Erased my number. Erased my facebook. Erased it all. And so I went with girl 3. Girl 3 and I have been dating for seven months, and if I were to draw a graph of our interest in each other, it grew hand in hand over the first 5 months. Over the last two however, I have started noticing things that I do not want to see in the woman that I eventually marry - something worth considering at this stage in our relationship. She doesn't want or even like kids, she supports abortion, has no political opinions, and while she is a social wallflower (like girl 2), she is a bars and 21+ wallflower, where girl 2 is a family, friends, loving social wallflower. I cannot marry girl 3. And she is so in love with me, and I genuinely do like her. On top of all this, over the course of the last 4 months, I have been checking in on girl 2 more and more often, as I realize more and more that she very well could have been the love of my life that I never gave the chance to. I had to create a secondary Facebook (god no, not for contact), but just to see how her life is going. I feel terrible doing this, because I know that this may as well be akin to cheating on girl 3 (who has no idea that I do this). Recently, however, I noticed that girl 2 unblocked me from Facebook. I believe that she would give me another shot if I truly explained to her all of the reasons that I behaved the way I did - as I said, I lied hard to her to break her heart and get her to WANT to leave me. She would never have let us be apart based on the sole reason of my fears of distance and selfish visions of what a relationship should be like - going on double dates with her and my friends, enjoying my city, and spending every waking hour together the way we did at Disney. But to even start all of this - if I should pursue girl 2 at all - I have to end things with girl 3. She has no idea about any of this, and thinks we are doing perfectly fine. She isn't stupid, and she isn't bad in any way. We just don't talk about the future, and I don't think she realizes how inconsolable I view our differences to be. I lay awake at night agonizing about this. I just gave her a great Christmas, got her super thoughtful gifts, and probably made her love me more than she had ever loved me before. I did these things because I really do like her and like being around her, and also because of insane guilt about how I'm handling my situation with girl 2. I don't know how to approach girl 3 to tell her how I really feel, and I don't know to what extent I should mention girl 2 (if I ended up with girl 2 in the end, she would find out anyway through mutual friends and Facebook). It's a terrible thing, any advice would help. I'm a proud person, and I consider myself fairly competent in relationships and in communication with women, but I really don't even know how to approach this at all. Thanks Again.
Author hehrerh Posted January 5, 2014 Author Posted January 5, 2014 If I could get any response, I'd really appreciate it... I know it's long, but I need a fresh set of eyes on this one bad.
Author hehrerh Posted January 6, 2014 Author Posted January 6, 2014 I'll only bump this one more time, whether or not it's in the rules. I'll go forward on my own if I can't get any advice. I understand that it's long, so I understand why nobody has replied.
donelurking Posted January 6, 2014 Posted January 6, 2014 just go with your heart man. if girl 3 has red flags for a future relationship, let her go before she falls more and more in love. if you plan to try and give another shot with girl 2, you better make damn sure you truly plan to give it a shot, so you do not crush her again. personally, i think you need to be single as the last two years you've been relationship hopping. take a few months away from all relationships and be on your own before you keep hopping from girl to girl. plus you didn't think you could marry girl 2, so you ended it. now you want her back. you don't think you can marry girl 3, so you are going to end it. what if it is a repeat of your situation with girl 2 all over again?
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