I don't know the best way to explain this situation, but I'll give some background. My family and another family were very close growing up and around 8 years old, I became best friends with their son, J. My younger sister became friends with their daughter, F. We would all hang out together while our parents had parties and it was a very fond part of all of our childhoods.
I stayed close with J all throughout high school and even in college he would come visit. After college, he would come visit me and my friends in Nashville until eventually, he decided to move here. He's very likable and became fast friends with my roommates who also happen to be my closest friends.
Soon after F (J's sister) decides to attend grad school here and she moves here too. At this point, I am in a long term relationship with this girl A which was going great and I loved her, but long distance was getting harder and she didnt want to move to me and I wasn't ready to leave along with personality differences.
Anyway during the time that F moved we would all hang out together and A and F even became friends and our group friendship with my roommates J, F, and A was really fun.
My close friend and roommate D who has become inseparable from J starts sleeping with his sister. They start drunkenly hooking up after nights out and even sometimes staying in when we all want to go out together. This is ok in the beginning, but F eventually starts to want more from D and he is notorious for having girls on a rotation and is pretty emotionally immature and is saying one thing to F and doing another as well as talking to other girls.
This causes a rift in our groups friendship because F and D are in this weird toxic relationship and its all anyone is talking about and we all wished it would end. I was especially vocal because I thought D was being insensitive to J and F.
F and me talked about this privately on occasion and I was there for her. D and F relationship eventually ends and everything settles down. At the same time my other roommate P expresses that he likes F and we all kind of suspected this. I have even asked F about it and she recoiled at the idea and said they could never be anything more than friends. So at one point P came to me and asked what he should do about his feelings and I told him to move on and that it probably wouldn't work out, but I couldn't just tell him Fran said that so I came up with other excuses "you don't want to do that, look what happened with her and Dennis?"
My relationship with A is declining and it's extremely sad because I loved her so much. I've never met anyone like her and we were so in sync with each other, but we were fighting a lot and I couldn't see a future where I was willing to put up with that forever. I end my relationship with A and I am devasted.
I start to wonder why I cared so much why D was hurting F. I start to look at F differently and realize how attracted I am to her. And about 3 months later I confess my feelings to F. Then we go out to get drinks and talk and she says shes always crushed on me and this is so exciting for her. I admit that I have had a crush on her too and it's only gotten stronger recently. Shes ready to jump into this head over heels, but I am hesistant and even wrote to myself in my journal "bottom line, do not do this right now you could just be lonely and vulnerable from breakup with A."
So we start sleeping together that night. We are sneaking around. It's fun, but I don't like that I am going behind J's back so I ask him to go out for drinks and I tell him. He hi-fives me and said he knew this would happen someday but he also says you know if you hurt her I am going to side with her. In my mind, how could I possibly hurt F I care about her so much!
Well me and F are full blown at this point. Doing everything together spending all our time with each other. P is pissed because he thinks I intentionally misled him, J doesn't like how PDA we are, and D probably feels weird about this. So they all take issue and now me and F are ostracized from the group. Which forces us closer together because we only have each other. We are essentially living together and it feels like things are getting serious fast. She wants to go on trips together. I feel so much pressure because I know her family so well. It feels like we completely skipped the getting to know you phase of falling in love because we know everything about each other.
But all the while I am half in my head thinking how did we get here? I am filled with guilt and shame because I am not fully over my ex and F starts to find things of hers in my apartment. So I box it all up and promise that I am going to send it to A to be rid of it. I don't probably because deep down I don't want to let go. At his point it has been about 8 months since I broke up with A but I am feeling like I never fully grieved or processed it because 3 months later I was in a relationship with F.
So I can't take the guilt and shame anymore and I break up with F. This is absolutely devastating to both of us. She had fallen in love. I do love her but I could never allow myself to love her like I loved A because it was too soon. But just knowing that I hurt her hurts so much and it's all I think about.
Now, she's returned to the friend group and I am left with pretty much nothing. It feels like I have lost all my friendships. We all moved out as roommates during me and F's relationship so I live alone now. Luckily I have my family to talk to, but I really wish I had friends right now. I hope so badly that me and F can salvage our friendship, but idk if that would be possible. She was a fantastic partner so maybe someday it could work, but for right now I am in therapy, trying to reflect on everything, but extremely lonely and depressed. But typing it out helped I guess.
Does anyone have any advice or thoughts on the situation?
