Devia

Very true, thank you!

That's such a good point! A word is meaningless without intent. I'm sure he "feels" it from me regardless of the words I say, as I feel such from him as well. Thank you for the well wishes.

You're right, thank you, and I'm trying very hard to do that!

As the title says, I'm in a very surprising situation for myself. I wasn't looking for anything. I'm going through a 3-part major surgical operation and was planning on just being alone through it all. A couple years ago I realized I was putting too much emphasis on my self-value based on whether or not I was in a relationship. Fortunately I grew past that, and see myself as a whole, awesome person completely on my own. But then 2 weeks before my first surgery, I had an amazing date with a person I met through mutual friends a year ago. 3 months later...and I'm not even sure how to process these feelings. I'm almost 38 years old, and I don't think I've ever felt this way about someone before. When we're around each other, I feel so relaxed and comfortable. When I see him, no matter my mood, it always manages to get better. We can just chill around one another and be happy doing nothing. But we also enjoy being active like going on bike rides and hikes. I still get butterflies in my stomach when I think about him. And our sex life is still great...even better than it was at first really, because we communicate what we like. He talks about me in the long term, about things we'll do in the future once I recover. Fun things we can do next summer - how we'll get into great shape together. He says such sweet things to me without even trying - it's the small things that mean the most to me. We're both independent people who also get excited about spending time with each other, and he's always coming up with the next thing to do together. I'm not used to this. I'm used to being the rebound from someone's ex-wife or long-term relationship. I'm used to being put down, made to feel stupid and inferior to someone. I'm used to being a sex object for a person who could never view me as someone they would ever be serious about. I'm used to being hidden. Am I in love? Or am I just infatuated with the idea of someone treating me differently? I don't actually know how to tell. I never have. Do I love him? Do I say it to him? Or is it too soon, and I should just chill out? I keep feeling the words when we're around each other, but they never come out. I know we mutually care about each other, but I'm not used to things going this well in a relationship, and it's scary. Rejection sucks, and I've had a lot of it. I can take it, but with this person, if I tell him I'm in love with him and get rejected it would extra hurt. I guess it's not like he's going to go away if I don't say it right now...so maybe that's the right way to go. I just hope I'm not blind to red flags like I have been in the past.

No, you absolutely have every right to feel this way. This situation absolutely sucks, and I'm so sorry you're going through this. I hope that in the end something good will come out of this whole thing and you'll be able to see the silver lining in it all someday down the road. This is not your fault. It's a bad situation.

I don't want to have anything at all to do with you. You are poison to me because you bring out the worst in me. All of those awful, hurtful things you have said to me are not normally who I am and you only look for the bad things in me. If that's really who I was then I wouldn't have any friends but I do and they care about me. I am better than to allow someone like you to turn me into a bad person. Please never initiate any non work-related conversation with me ever again.