ADULT CONTENT: About relationships and me pulling my hair out over the last couple of weeks.
So, what happens when you're in love with two people, but don't realise? One heck of a mess is what! I am still in the middle of this mess, but this is how things are at the moment.
At about this time last year I signed up to a website called
Plenty Of Fish. It was shortly after Ian had decided he wanted a divorce, and I was feeling isolated, lonely, and panicked living where I do, so I was trying to find friends online. The only place I could actually find, that was not for sex hookups was that dating website, which has the option to seek friends. It's a horrible site. Despite spelling out in extreme detail that you only wish to find friends, you get a lot of guys coming on to you, or having a go at you for being on a dating website when you don't want to date, and I even had people have a go at me for being ill!!!!
Anyway, I made three friends on the site. T, C, and K. K is innocent in all of this, so we'll ignore him. I hated the site with a vengeance. C was the only person I was still talking to after a month or so, so when his profile vanished, I deleted my account. I was hurt. I thought we'd been getting on well and he'd just vanished without saying goodbye or anything. A couple of months down the line I had a message from him on a forum I belong to. I was shocked, delighted and confused all at the same time. He had my website, but he hadn't wanted to phone me to contact me, so using my website he'd found another way to contact me. So, we resumed a friendship on MSN.
Meanwhile, T and I became very good friends. We've talked pretty much every day for the last year. He's helped me with various things, including moving house. And I hope I've helped him with stuff too. He's been going through a nasty divorce, which has made me want to wrap him in cotton wool for months.
When G and I split up, my relationship with C became that of what people refer to as 'friends with benefits'. I don't like the term, and we didn't refer to it thus between ourselves. I was confused as to what he wanted, until he said to me that he didn't want a relationship. Having said that however, we then had an even more confusing conversation about babies. I didn't understand whether the entire conversation was a joke to him, or whether there was an element of seriousness to it. Various things he said and did thereafter lead me to believe that he most certainly was not interested in me in any kind of romantic way, so I retreated a little feeling hurt and rejected.
Meanwhile T and I were seeing more of each other. It was coincidence really. A lot of things happened in sequence that we had just happened to have planned to do together. We realised that we were enjoying each others company a huge amount. Things we'd have normally hated doing we were enjoying together. So, taking my heart in my hands I told him that I liked him a lot more than just friends. He reciprocated. There followed one of the most enjoyable weeks I can remember.
I thought it would be the adult and proper thing to do, to tell C that I was now with someone. In my mind I figured he'd be fine about it since he was not interested in a relationship with me. I was a little anxious however. So, since I have no internet access at home, I was sat at T's on my laptop, when I told C that I was seeing someone. And from that moment on, all hell broke loose.
From C's perspective: he had been giving me space. He wanted me to move in to my new place, see that I was capable of standing on my own two feet, and gain some confidence. He didn't know there was anyone else on the horizon, so didn't think he needed to rush any relationship. Meanwhile he was aware that I may well be pregnant with his sprog. So, when I told him that I was seeing someone he was shocked. His initial reaction was actually to say to me that if I tested positive to being pregnant, to please not go through with it (with a sad faced emoticon). Then he said that it'd be the end of our friendship. He said that my being with someone else would eliminate a huge dynamic of our friendship. He was referring to the flirty conversations and sex I presume.
T's reaction to C declaring his feelings was to say that if being with him was the wrong thing for me then he'd back away. I wanted to be with him though. C's reaction had completely taken me aback, so I was still in the comfort zone with T, but at the same time extremely shocked. I didn't know what to do. I wanted someone to come and sort out the horrible mess for me. I did not sleep at all Sunday night.
I actually do not remember Monday, but know I did not sleep that night either. Tuesday was C's birthday. He'd wanted to take me out for dinner. T made the point that if I went out for dinner with C that I'd have a lovely wonderful evening with him, enjoying his company in a relaxed yummy environment, that would make my decision for me. C actually agrees with him. This kind of suggests to me that they both think I'm rather shallow. It also indicates how fast they were expecting me to make this decision. At that point I had no intention of making the decision within a short time frame. T and I had plans to visit a friend of mine at the weekend. I had been presuming that that would still happen, and would help me in my decision making process.
As it happened I could not have gone anywhere with C on his birthday anyway. The stress from the two of them caused me a migraine, FM pain throughout my entire body, and I had the worst period pain I've had since I miscarried a few years ago. I was in so much pain that moving my fingers to text was agony, let alone the brightness of my phones screen ... yet there was no way I could not reply to them, as doing so would cause even further problems.
Wednesday morning T texted me asking if I would like him to take the afternoon off work. I had an appointment with my osteopath. Because I was in so much FM pain I was planning to ask him to give me acupuncture, which I then expected to leave me in a lot more pain before making all the pain miraculously vanish. I had explained this to C, as he'd asked me the day before, if I may go out that evening with him instead. So I explained it to T also. He said he wanted to be there for me in the good times and the bad times.
I was actually not in pain after the acupuncture, so I suggested to T that we go for a late lunch. And then I dragged him to Pets At Home because I considered it important to cuddle animals.
My new place is really weird. It has a hot air heating system. I have been sat for a month in my living room freezing my butt off whilst this thing expensively blows luke warm air at me. A little over a week ago I suddenly realised that for some reason all the warmth is being shot out of it backwards into my bedroom. So I started doing everything in there instead of the living room. So, when C or T came over, we would sit in my bedroom. This perhaps was not so wise in retrospect.
T and I were sat on my bed with the cat. I was stroking the cat affectionately, and said to T "I love my cat, can I keep her?". I then burst out crying. T of course was completely befuzzled by this. So I had to then start explaining that C had said to me the previous evening "Can I keep you?", and that saying such to the cat reminded me of C when I was not expecting it, catching me off guard, and thus causing a tear explosion.
As I was explaining this to T, a text arrived. T said it might be C. I said I knew it was and didn't need to check. Something I've not explained previously in my blog, because it has not previously been relevant, is that I am empathic. C also is empathic. Empathy generally means that you can understand what someone else is feeling. Being empathic means you can actually pick up on someone else's feelings in a kind of psychic manner. It causes me big problems to be honest. So, I didn't check the text because I knew it was from C without having to do so.
T became upset at this. He knew I was empathic, but he had not actually seen it like this. He was upset that C and I have such a link, that C could pick up on the fact I was crying and text me, and that I knew it was him without checking. He spiralled in distress telling me that I should be with C, as he and I would never have that kind of a connection. "It's C, Olana, it's always been C. It's so obvious that it's C!" They are quite possibly some of the most gut wrenching words I'll ever hear.
For someone you love and care for to be in such distress in front of you, saying words that are very obviously pushing you in the direction of someone else whom you also love and care for ... . I cannot express the anguish inside of me. I have never ever been in the position where no matter what I do I will hurt someone, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to prevent it.
As far as my memory serves T then turned to me and said "I'm hot. Take my trousers off!". I'm still rather confused over this. I didn't know how to take it, or what to feel, etc, so I did take them off. I then had a panic attack at him, throughout which I really can't remember much at all. As I was regaining awareness my phone rang. It was C. I was relieved when I saw his name on my screen, but he was phoning to tell me that my behaviour had been utterly despicable that day, so he was making my decision for me, removing himself from the equation, leaving me with T.
I broke down again, sobbing on my bed. T told me to call C back and ask him to come back to the house. He had heard a car roar away outside. I didn't want to call him back. As far as I am concerned people do not say things that they do not mean; he told me he was gone, I assumed he was gone and that a call from me would either be ignored or greeted with abuse. A few minutes later however, C phoned me back himself. I can't remember what he actually said, but I asked him to come back to the house. I told T to get dressed and basically pushed him out of the frontdoor while I sought my own clothes out.
C phoned a few minutes later asking if T had gone. I said he had. He told me that T was sat in his car at the end of my road. He had driven past T rather than turn down my road as he did not want T to know who he was. I started walking up the road to see whether it was T sat at the end of my road. As I did so I saw his car drive over the bridge and across the top of the road. I sat on a bollard at the end of the road and waited. He came back up the road again, turned into a side road, sat and stared at me. I waved. He roared his engine and drove away.
I found it alarming, as did C. I could not fathom why T was sat on my road after he had gone. I figured it was because he wanted to see who C was. He has subsequently told me that he wanted to make sure C actually got there, because I had been in such a state when he left. I believe him. C, however does not.
The result of all this rather teenager-esque activity is that I now have a boyfriend in C, and have had to ask T for space. I need to distance myself from him so that I can stop having such extreme feelings towards him. It is absolutely heart breaking to have to force myself to eliminate someone I love from my life, even if only for a short period of time. C doesn't trust him at all, and is hoping he will disappear forever. This is not my hope. I am hoping we can rebuild the friendship. I have a rather long journey of building trust with both of them again ahead of me.
