Which One Should She Choose?

Then we broke up again, for about a week… then got back together. Then a few months later, I ended up pregnant again… I blamed him, partially wrongly but I did, under poor guidance I tried to use herbs to terminate and ended up very sick and he had to take me to another clinic. We kind of broke up and I expressed how important to me it was that we get past the whole pregnancy thing before we put any energy into working things out between us.

We were together just trying to take it easy and not argue since there was a lot of emotion involved at the time, I being angry and hurt and he just not understanding anything. So shortly after we broke up again, and this time when the week was up, I did not call him and he called me asking if we could get together to talk (like we always did) and I said no. He was angry and we stopped talking…This was about a year and a half from the start.

I dated here and there, casually but after about four months met a man, we will call him JOE and was swept off my feet… this guy really took me for a loop and for the first time I thought everything I went through in life made sense. Joe is an alcoholic and so was the man that raised me. He had insecurities I thought I knew how to help him through. He is nine years my senoir and has only loved two women before me. He would go back and forth between saying how he could not believe he found me to trying to convince me that he wasnt good enough…I probably should have listened, but I regress.

He does not like to do any of the things I do, hiking concerts movies, on and on. We dated for about 8 months, it was very intense and weeks seemed like months. I grew tired of the whole charade of proving myself to him and finally left him.

Shortly after I ended up hanging out with the first boyfriend Tom and before too long we found ourselves dating again. He was reserved but we were together and it felt so right, but in the back of my mind I had this other guy Joe in my thoughts…it just felt very unresolved and I wondered if I had made the right choice ending it the way it did. So then Tom and I moved in together and on the day of move in he says to me I will be surprised if you make it through the lease… my heart broke and I was crushed by this disbelief. It really meant something to me that we ended up together after everything and that just really sent me into a tail spin.

I started thinking of the other guy Joe more, giving those thoughts energy and yet in my heart trying to push it away. Tom and I living together ended in nasty arguments, me sleeping on the couch, etc. I know now in retrospect that I was listening to the wrong friends advice at the time (she was a bitter woman who did not want a friend to be happy if she wasnt, now that she is in love I rarely even see her) and not being honest with my unresolved feelings and my own inability to give in to love and commitment.

So Tom and I broke our lease early, went our seperate ways, I living couch to couch at the time. Then at a mutual friends going away party Tom and I saw each other and could not resist the desire to be together. The next week or two was wonderful, we communicated about things that happened what we wanted etc. I woke one morning next to him and panicked, scared and not sure of what was happening.

That night I went to a local hang out and after months of just missing each other, Joe and I ran into each other and ended up in each others arms. I cut Tom off and began dating Joe again. Tom was really upset and then to top it off his old roomate moved in with me to my new place. Joe is really a sweet guy with horrible issues, he loves me very much, thinks I am wonderful and wants to marry me.

I have been feeling over the past couple months that although I love Joe its just not right, he has hurt me in ways that I am not sure of how to forgive (saying things when he is drunk, failing at follow though on promises, going back and forth with his decisions in where the relationship is or where it should be) he came up with the idea of moving in then said he wasnt ready then moved in ‘temporarily’ and that was my bad I know to let that happen.

A few weeks ago at a mutual friends Birthday, Tom and I saw each other although did not say much verbally, we played frisbee which was always something special we did together…counting how many times we could toss it before missing a catch. He even gave me tips with out being condesending which is a big thing that I hate when people do, anyhow I noticed… later that day after I was home he sent me a text message recalling a memory of something we did…

I told Joe about seeing Tom. So now Joe and I are having problems all along and then Tom is around again. The other night I invited him out to play some pool, wanting to see him and talk to him. We ended up at his place sitting in my hammock he accidentally got from the move out and saying things that were how we really felt… we are so comfortable together, we keep coming together, the reasons we break up are stupid, maybe it was all because we were so young.

He is 22 now and I am 24 and yes that is still young, but really we are at that point where we want to try to have a real relationship. We ended up making love and the next day I told Joe he should stay at a friends for a couple days, I needed some space.

I told Tom the same thing (I think he knows about Joe) and although he was guarded while we were talking I could hear his love in his voice… Joe stayed away for a couple days and then we went to a close friends wedding (he the best man) and bonded and ended the night making love. The day after the wedding (yesterday) we were sitting at my place and he said he had to leave, he was uncomfortable and we talked and cried and he says that this is just one of those lulls in a relationship, he loves me so much. He is staying at a friends for the next couple weeks, giving me space.

I want this time alone, and I am trying to not make any plans in my head about the future with either… I cant help feeling that Tom and I would have a wonderful relationship, buy a truck together and a boat, go hiking play in the park go to concerts, laugh and enjoy life. But with Joe I feel I am losing a genuine love that even in my heart I know is not right for me I am having a hard time letting go of cause I fear I may regret it later and I am not sure we even would have dated again if the end before was not so unresolved…