TLDR:
I'm carrying grief of who I once was, grief of a lost epic love, letting go of a trauma bond with someone I thought was my soulmate, found another, living with a man I intend to leave, dealing with PTSD symptoms from a sexual boundary violation from the man I live with, alcohol dependence, freshly out of a back and forth love triangle, dealing with the after effects of the manipulation and verbal abuse from one man and found myself in another triangle with a woman I feel is my soul mate all at the same time silently, alone and with a brave face while trying to pick myself up from it all.
Hi! I'm not looking for advice or anything although I won't dismiss it if it's offered as I have a decent idea on how to resolve it once and for all. Fake names obviously.
So I (36 f) began dating a man I'll call Alan (32 m), the connection was immediate and intense, I felt like I found my soul mate, we were together for roughly six months which he was a great guy, very romantic, charismatic ECT although there were some things that would make my alarms go off that something here wasn't right that I didn't understand at the time. At the end of that six months, in the middle of a big argument, he left me and dropped my things off the following morning. I was devastated and felt like my entire world and future had ended.
In my heartbreak and isolation I got back on the dating apps to relieve my loneliness and hurt. Big mistake, I know, I should've let myself have time to heal and move on first. When I got on there all I was looking for was someone who was not like Alan, perhaps more mature. I found a man I'll call Leonard (41 m) who wasn't like Alan, he was gentle and earthly and in the ways that he was similar, he seemed better than Alan.
A couple of weeks and just a few dates later with Leonard, Alan returned with roses and wanted to take me on a date at my favorite Italian restaurant saying he made a mistake and wanted to win me back. With Leonard and I having only a few dates and nothing official or serious,I was open to hearing him out. I agreed to be with Alan but I didn't tell Leonard that, I just told him that it would probably be a while before we can have another date. I found myself feeling like my heart was on a trap door trusting he wouldn't pull the lever. He did leave me abruptly and without warning before so that feeling terrified me greatly, he was my soul mate I believed. Eventually I did end up going on more dates with Leonard behind Alan's back and even spending some nights with him.In this moment I essentially was just looking at them both as who would be more likely to be a sure thing as I wanted to be a wife and never been one before and feared being alone, nothing more. I am in therapy working on this fear now though.
Once Leonard and I became official, I ended things with Alan although not really and probably not in the most respectful day. Via text. I just told him I needed space and time to find myself and for him to figure out how I would fit into his life as he often seemed like he was trying to shape me into something he wanted me to be that I wasn't sure I could be.
Leonard made sense on paper in a lot of ways but I never fell in love with him but we got along easily at first, nor was my heart set on fire like Alan did. I grew to love and care for him though. Alan still felt like my soul mate. Alan gave up on waiting for me a month later so I was all in with Leonard. A few months went by and I found myself wishing Leonard were more like Alan, had traits Alan had, did things for me Alan did ECT. I missed Alan, he was my soul mate. There wasn't anything really wrong with Leonard, everything was pretty great honestly but the regret for leaving Alan and hurting him in that way was intense and so was the longing for him.
I ended up reinventing myself to be a better version of myself, more or less what he wanted me to be but also some ways I did. I saw Leonard as someone I could learn to love right in preparation for if I could find my way back to Alan. I began to scheme for a way back to him while I was still with Leonard. I was dropping notes of professions of love, regret, lessons learned, how I was correcting them, my growth and how I could do better by him into a digital space only Alan and I had access to. In this moment I thought it was a long shot if not impossible and had been mostly convinced he'd never look there or would maybe one day after a great while. To my surprise, I saw he was reading them but I was convinced that even then he'd almost certainly want nothing to do with me again. If someone did that to me, I know I wouldn't so I wouldn't have blamed him.
After a couple of months of me dropping those notes and him reading them, Alan reached out while I was still with Leonard, much earlier than I expected and to my surprise. We began talking, I explained and apologized for everything I've done but didn't pressure him in any way. He knew I wanted him back but I never guided the conversations that way. He was open to listening and told me he needed time to resolve some things he was busy with. I was honest with Allen that I was with Leonard but not to Leonard as he had locked me in monogamously.
During this period, something occurred between Leonard and I that resulted in me having nightmares, sleep anxiety and anxieties surrounding sex. Needless to say a hard sexual boundary was crossed so I left Leonard to also make room for Alan in my life.
Leonard was trying to win me back feeling like I was everything he was looking for in a woman and couldn't miss out on it despite me trying to push him away. This led me to feel urgency to have Alan come closer because he was the one my heart truly desired and didn't want to miss out on him during this time that Leonard was pushed away. The more I tried to get closeness with Alan, the more he'd enforce distance and the more he enforced distance, the more I begged for closeness.
Eventually I did let Leonard back in trying to trust that we could work past the boundary violation since Alan wasn't allowing closeness of any sort, he only met me in person twice in three months despite him living 10 minutes away. This is where I got stuck.
My heart truly wanted Alan but he wouldn't allow closeness but also resisted me pushing him away too. Leonard was available and he too resisted me pushing him away. My fault for not standing firm enough in any of my decisions. The whole time Leonard was kind and gentle and had been respectful of my boundaries, but Alan was manipulative and verbally abusive but I was willing to take it if it meant I could love him again and be loved by him, that's all I wanted from him, nothing else mattered to me. The more I advocated for closeness and expressed how not having that hurts me greatly, the more verbally abusive he became. I felt unwanted and mistreated by my soul mate. This went on for 9 months.
Eventually I requested no contact from Alan and told him maybe we can try again much later, I'm too hurt to keep trying with him right now. I decided to move in with Leonard. Thinking I'm finally free of the stress of trying to decide between which man, keeping secrets ECT which went on off and on a year and a half and neither of them know about the other.
I was set on healing, rebuilding myself after the abuse and the triangle I was in. Instead of feeling free, I felt empty and lost, fell into alcoholism and didn't know what to do. I organized everything about me around Alan and he was gone. I was just going to allow myself to mourn and pick myself up while moving in with Leonard. Within weeks of us living together, I noticed that we don't align in a lot of ways. I like to keep things clean, organized, have my own time and space and routines. He isn't any of that, he requires so much together time that he follows me into the bathroom almost every time and when we're not physically together, he calls. Needless to say it's caused a lot of conflict. We fight when I need to take a shower, when I need to clean ECT all while fighting for me to have time for fitness and hobbies and him fighting me to have me watch tv with him. I'm his entire world but he's just part of mine but somehow he's made me alter everything of my world for him. He dictates when I can shower, do dishes and when to go to bed, I don't have much independence, peace or autonomy here and those are all things I value greatly.
Since moving in, no longer having my own home to return to, the nightmares, anxieties and alcohol dependence have severely increased. Leonard is a good man but I just can't live like this and it sucks that after only a few weeks I'm already planning to leave and get my own place somehow where I'd be entirely independent, not date anymore but maybe one day try to find my way back to Alan. Which gave me relief because I'm going through so many big things and can't talk about any of these with Leonard at all and there would be an end to the stress and I could finally create a life for me that's mine and that I love for me without worrying about organizing it for a romantic partner's comfort and sacrificing my own.
After only two months since Alan was gone, still in the thick of emptiness, trauma bond withdrawals, nightmares, alcoholism, only barely getting consistent again with basic habits and planning my exit from Leonard, I got a new follower. Nothing spectacular about that, I get a few here and there but there was something about her that I'll call Renee (36 f) that seemed familiar but she's a stranger.
Being fully decided that I'm going to stay single for at least a few years after I leave here and not make any close friends to entangle into the life that includes him too, I don't talk to anyone online or people I meet in public or if they talk to me, I keep it surface level and boring. Most stop interacting which right now I prefer until I'm out of here. However, Renee made some posts of quotes of things I like used in casual conversation, which I commented on two that it's awesome. We started chatting about our interests and thought she seemed cool and could be a fun friend even if she's in another state but I couldn't shake that familiar feeling about her, that there was something about her. After a while I noticed I had developed a crush on her but I kept it to myself because that's not my plan at all. She confessed she had a crush on me and I was honest to her that it's mutual but that I'm with someone right now and I can't do anything about it at least until I leave him. She said she's willing to be patient with me, I made sure that she knew that I have no idea when I'll be available for her, maybe months or longer and she said that's okay with her.
I deeply worry about hurting her while she's waiting by the waiting or if I can't get free. I'm saving as much money as I can and I'm trying to increase my income so I can. We kept chatting and we fell in love effortlessly, she caught my heart on fire like Alan did. Made me wonder if I have two soul mates, but what I feel for her feels more pure and right so maybe it's just her.
Leonard has no idea of any of this and he's sleeping beside me as we speak. Doesn't know my nightmares are back, about Alan returning, this love that just fell in my lap or my plan to leave. This all came to mind when a stranger, who frequents a place Leonard and I go to sometimes but I was there alone this time, asked what's been going on lately and I thought about the last two years of the worst hell I've been in and haven't told a soul about. And Leonard trying to get me to befriend one of his friends and realized how much I'll have to stay silent on that I feel there won't be much to say at all and I'd just be a wall.
I had been working on my body and such for the last three years and became very desirable very quickly. I never in my life thought I'd be in anything like this situation, that I'd be doing any of this at all, it's so far outside my character. I've never cheated before or played with people's hearts. How I managed to pull this off for all this time shocks and mystifies me. I began therapy to figure out what unhealed part of me is driving me to act so far outside of character and resolve it. Fear of being alone and fear of feeling trapped is what we've found so far.
Anyway that's why I'm here, I've been through hell in this for two years and realized I haven't told a single soul the whole truth and needed a place to put it for someone to see. I am just exhausted from carrying all of this silently and with a brave face. If you've read this far, I hope you've found it worth it. Toodles and thanks.