A confession that shooked my world

I never expected this to have ever happened in my lifetime again. Ever. But it did, and left me in an utter state of emotional shock and turmoil.

A girl that I hung out with as a friend,… confessed her feelings about me! I was in shock and disbelief, and yes I actually perhaps sensed little cues that we might get into a relationship but not this sudden! It was all done on text but anyways, TLDR, I wasn’t ready to pull any plugs yet, and I did tell her that I wasn’t ready…! I was emotionally destroyed because of that! But I did listen to my own intuition, read a few articles about such situations, and gave her my honest thought.

She was really nice and I enjoyed my time spent with her, but we had our differences. Differences that perhaps I couldn’t live with for a long-term intimate relationship…!

And man, it was so beautiful that she said that… because I’ve not have someone ever said something like that to me in real life! But yet, the hardest part is that I had to make it so clear to her so that I don’t give her false hopes and expectations…!

I once swore that I’ll never get into a relationship because of the horrors of my parent’s marriage and how it destroyed my sense of safety and emotional well-being. But now, I’m definitely more open than I was before, but I’m only certain that there are still many parts of trauma that are constantly holding me back from seeing the beauty of love and relationships!

Personally, as much as how life is all about experimenting and exploring, I believe that love and relationship is a sacred commitment and one that needs to be thought through and many times, requires the use of great gut feelings. It’s so subjective that it’s so scary. I always wished to have a great partner that creates greater meaning, fulfillment, and happiness in my life, but here I am, turning down one that I actually do have some feelings for…! (I mean then again, I’ve had far too many eye candies that were unrequited so… ouch…! They all hurt…!)

I’ve figured that it must’ve been really hard for her to muster the courage to confess to me and how much harder it would’ve hurt her for me to turn her down…!

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Such situations can be intense. Intense enough that in many cultures people getting married is arranged “objectively” based on cultural and financial measures, NOT subjective decisions! I personally prefer the scary freedom of making my own choices – including being rejected as a partner.

I don’t know her, or how she reacted. I will share that there are women (and men) who are really appreciative when we tell them where we are. It gives them enough information to navigate their world … and direct their desire elsewhere if it is unmeetable.

My partner said to me in our first private time together that she was not available for a lovership. It helped us to focus on how wonderful it was to be friends, to get to know each other, to support one another. While over many months life changed and our relationship deepened towards what it is today, that was not actually what either of us was “working towards.”

We don’t have to experiment beyond the depth or nakedness that we’re comfortable with… and still get a chance to explore how life would be with people who have certain characteristics, values, and more. At least that has been my approach, and a lot less scary than something that feels just “arbitrary.”

Love to you! I hope this is a welcome reply. If not, let me know so I can continue to recalibrate.

Rick

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Thank you Rick :slight_smile: Every bit of clarity provided is definitely something that I could use at this very delicate period of time…!

And yes! This is really helpful, and has helped me at crafting my words and perspective to let her know my thoughts and to at least help in reducing some of that pain and hurt that she’s perhaps feeling…! And likewise, though I know her as a friend, I’ll never know how she feels either, and I felt that it was only better for me to assume the same kind of emotional pain and hurt that she might be going through after hearing that I’ve turned her down…! Or at very least, I would want to foster an open communication environment where I could be there to reassure and comfort her whenever possible.

I hope she can see it that way as you described because feelings are so subjective and sometimes hard for us to put logicality into it! But whatever it is, I know that at least, I’m learning to honour what my intuition says too!

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I feel like I wanna come back to this and reopen perhaps my own self-reflection…

It’s been over a month since this event happened to me and I’m glad that things recovered back to normalcy. i.e. we still continue to stay as friends and things went back to what it was previously…!

But as things settle, I felt that I needed to answer my own calling of developing self-clarity. I’ve always pushed these painful feelings aside in hopes that things will resolve themselves but I feel like I just can’t avoid this forever, especially now with such a situation happening. I still really like her as a friend now but I don’t think I am clear about myself and all the negative trauma that has yet to be dealt with… So I couldn’t be sure how I feel about her yet…! I feel like I need to work on getting clear of myself. It still seems like I still can’t move past a lot of the horrors that has bestowed upon my parent’s marriage and that seemed to feel like it’s the ultimatum of what is going to happen on my own relationships too.

It still terrifies me to think about engaging in a relationship, but I hope with time and patience and inner work, things would, in the end, get clearer and I can trust myself in overcoming whatever challenges come my way in whatever relationship I choose to engage myself in!

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