Love triangle confusion--help please!

[promise18]

To anybody who takes the time to read & respond, I appreciate it dearly.

 

My boyfriend and I have been together for two years, and we're having a bit of a situation. An old friend of mine that i haven't spoken to in 3 years just recently came back into my life, and so we've been hanging out a lot. My issue is that I'm afraid I may have developed/rekindled some feelings for him. He knows me extremely well and when we hang out he always takes me to some undiscovered spot full of natural beauty (something highly appealing to me) or on some random crazy car ride just to be driving. My boyfriend however, is a wonderful guy. He's funny and he would give you the shirt off his back. He gives me so much, but something has changed between us--even before my old friend came back into my life. I know he loves me like no other, and I still have feelings for him, but the adventures and conversations my old friend and I have are just so much more intrigueing. My current boyfriend is somewhat dull in the conversation area, and he recently told me he had no desire to continue attending college (a BIG nono to me, I'm a medical student with high regard to education). I'm stuck between two amazing people, and somewhat afraid to contemplate breaking off such an enduring relationship with my boyfriend, even though my friend and I may have more in common.

 

Any help would be SO much appreciated. I've lost so much sleep on this and gotten no where. I don't know what to do anymore.

 

Promise

[JoeWho]

Sounds like you have a tough decision to make.

 

I guess you should just ask yourself who you can see yourself with in the future.

 

Make your decision and be firm and honest with both guys.

[ghost69]

well, i'd say go for the guy that just came back into your life. if you feel he is best for you of course. but you need to let your bf know what is going on and let him go. let him find somebody that appreciates him the way he should be.

 

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[i1dr]

You are in a tough spot. Be carefull here to really look into your heart. This has to be ... unfortunately all about you and how you feel ... not something that is decided by the head. Feelings are not the domain of the mind ... except if you want to deny and pretend.

You made a mistake when you let this person back into your life. In a way when you strip away the bull excuses ... you were probably looking for something but not really expecting to find them That I think is the first question you need to figgure out. Why did you let him back in and what were you missing.

If it is all about feelings you have for this person that are "cosmic" and unexplainable - intrinsic in who he and you are ... you are going to have to be very cruel and walk away from the good man you are with right now to be true to yourself. In a way you already have.

But on the other hand if this is about novelty and all those feelings that come at the start of each relationship (and it almost always is!) then you need to put a cold hard stop to this. Complete no contact. The reason is that it is not about the new (old) guy but about yourself and a fix that nobody can give you except for a brief time.

 

Someone is going to get hurt here - you have let it go too far to escape that. The worst thing you can do is to leave the situation developing as it is in a natural way. That is the same as killing current BF slowly while draining your own self respect. YOur current BF stands no chance against the allure of fresh romance. But neither will this next one - for long.

 

If you stay in this tringle, it won't just be one man hurt and made small. It will be three people.

 

Good luck. Decide with your heart but follow through with your head.

[Cyberchick]

Hey there... It sounds like a difficult predicament to be in. It's hard to give my opinion without sounding judgemental. But in my opinion, love is a choice, and even though you find your boyfriend lacking in comparison to this other guy, I'd choose him. You've given 2 years of your life to him already, and that's really worth something, as far as I'm concerned. It might not be that happiest choice right now in light of what you told us about him ( you find him dull, he's not going back to school, etc. ), but at the end of the day, is love always supposed to make us feel happy or completely fulfilled in every way? You recognize his strengths and they seem like wonderful qualities to have in a partner, definitely worth hanging on to. Sure he has weaknesses, but unless he's betrayed your confidence or trust in some way, I haven't seen anything in your post about him that is a dealbreaker or can't be adjusted to. Not to marginalize your regard for higher education, of course --- it's important to me as well. But If he's not intending to go to school, is there something he'd like to pursue, some other way he wants to spend his time that's interesting for him? Instead of simply regarding his lack of desire to go back to school as " a big nono ", can you allow him to make his own choices, and find some way to support him? I guess there may always be someone else out there with who we may find more in common, is more attractive, etc., but I think you'll find in time that this new guy could lack cetain things you think are vital to have in a partner as well.

 

I say invest some time in your current relationship, because he's the person you have made a committment to. That's my 2 cents.

[Brooke657]

Triangles are sharp and pointy and the triangle is just a bad shape lol. Whichever way you choose to go with this you have to decide on or theother. Somebody will get hurt but hopefully it's not you.

[promise18]

cyberchick, i completely understand what you're saying, that's the reason i'm still with him. but at the same time...i forgot to mention, I'm 18. My boyfriend talks of marriage to me already--he's the only guy i've truly dated before, i've been with him since before I even turned 16. Is it possible that i'm tying myself down too early without getting to know other people? The thought of marriage already is scary to me, I'm eager to know what's out there, am I missing anything? How will I ever know? The school thing I can get over, but being an uneducated person with a person who places such a priority on education--is that not a lapse in values? There's so many factors that play into it....more than just the length of our relationship

[BeStrongBeHappy]

given that you are only 18, you might discover that neither of these guys is the one for you...

 

but what are all your goals in life, and which one seems to fit better with them? you can really like/love someone, but if you want/expect very different things in life, that can lead to trouble down the road, especially if you are young and will be changing a lot in the next 10 years...

 

the other suggestion is to be careful not to leap into one relationship from other... sometimes we choose the next relationship because they are the opposite of the last one... i.e., if one guy is a bit boring, you might think, i need an exciting, dynamic guy. then when you switch to a relationship with the exicting guy, you discover that also means he never wants to stay home and goes out partying all the time... so don't compare one person's positives against the other person's negatives, just try to evaluate whether one person or the other has what it takes to make a good relationship with you, exclusive of the other person, not in reaction to them.

[promise18]

Of course, I'm not necessarily out looking for "the one", and I think that's what gets mistranslated here. I also agree with the swinging from guy to guy thing. The new variable in this situation is that the guys are both really similiar, only a few distinct characteristics separate them: communication style, ambitions, and their "socializing" style...among others.

[Aleadragonhawk]

This isn't a path that most people would advise, but it's one that I think would work in this situation - try sitting down with your boyfriend and actually talking to him about the way that you've been feeling, and what in particular about your relationship you've found unsatisfying. This conversation might end up in the relationship ending, yes - or it might end up in you both deciding to work harder on the relationship that you have currently. Either way, I think that honesty about your emotions is really the best way to go. You're young, and it's never a good idea to "suffer in silence" because breaking up is seen as socially undesirable.

[ghost69]

i think you need to experience more. you need to talk with your bf about your feelings. if you do this, it will be easier down the road to talk to others about how you feel. also, maybe he feels that you are ready to move on and talks of marriage because he wants to keep you around. people that get married this young usually regret it.

 

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