I am in love with me and my Partners’ best friend (all of us are 23m). What should I do?

For the sake of this story, my partner is named Luke, and our friend is named Michael.

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There’s a lot of context here. I feel that this is important to help understand my relationship up to this point and my feelings. I appreciate anyone who reads through and is able to help me.

**CW: self harm, abuse**

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My partner, Luke, and I have been in a serious relationship for nearly six years. It hasn’t always been amazing, as (and I understand this does not make someone a bad person by any means) he has Borderline Personality Disorder, and much of our relationship has suffered due to this. There have been many moments when Luke has been downright abusive to me, physically and emotionally. He used to hit me, and while it never hurt me because I am physically much larger (he’s 5’6″ and I’m 6’4″) it was something that I told him he needed to fix. He dislikes when I hang out with my friends independently of him, and gets frustrated with me when I talk to our mutual friends’ groupchat when he is unable to himself.

He has not been physically aggressive with me for years, although, he still is very quick to anger, and he argues with me almost every day. He has become much quicker to acknowledge when he’s being unfair or abusive or name calling, and is always able to admit anytime he’s at fault fairly quickly now, whereas he used to go a long time without apologizing. That’s not to say that I’m not at fault for anything here, as I do take a long time to clean up messes, I’m unorganized, and have ADHD so it’s hard for me to concentrate and listen as well as I think he needs me to.

Because of our history and frequency of arguments, etc, I apologize a lot more than I used to. It’s genuine when I do so, but it’s much more frequent and Luke gets upset when I apologize for what I do wrong. He’s upset (not at me) that I essentially have trauma responses to his abuse, and fears that we’ll never be able to overcome what he’s done, or that he’ll never change the way he thinks he needs to.

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In 2020, during the start of the pandemic, I moved from my apartment back in with my parents so I could live with them and not be alone during the pandemic. I also felt I needed some physical space from Luke during this time, and, while he was upset by this, he understood and generally respected my decision. As time went on, we communicated less, but still called every single night. I focused on collecting figures, spending time with my family, but still made time to see him at least once a week. He was unemployed at the time, and found a new mobile game he was obsessed with, which he sunk a lot of his time into. Through the game, he met one of our mutual best friends, Lauren (21f). She’s amazing. Luke also reconnected with his ex from 2013, Michael.

For a while, they would just play games all day. One day, Luke and I were talking, and he admitted that he was infatuated with Michael. This did hurt me but I appreciated his honesty and we began to work through it. Eventually, in Summer of 2020, I started staying with him for weeks at a time at his aunt’s apartment. The closeness helped him, he got over his infatuation with Michael, and at this point, the four of us were really good friends. I began playing the mobile game with them and chatting and calling in our gc every day.

In November of 2020, on Luke’s birthday, we moved into an apartment together and stayed there until December 20th, 2021. During this time, we had the most arguments. He was physically aggressive with me (pushing, hitting my arm or leg), had me make him breakfast and dinner every day, and making me do small things for him like handing him his vape, even if it was out of the way for me to do so, or if I was busy. These instances were extremely frequent to the point of me setting multiple boundaries with him about this after a confrontation. I also have been responsible for giving him rides anywhere he needs to go because he hasn’t gotten his driver’s license. However, he has valid reasons as to why he hasn’t gotten one.

Luke was institutionalized for a bit in September because his psychiatrist deemed him a danger to himself, but after a couple of weeks, he was back with me. I supported him with everything I had during this time, and still do. He also began going to therapy. We were very active in our gc, and became best friends with Michael and Lauren. So much so that in November of 2021, on Luke’s birthday, Lauren flew in from out of state to surprise him and she stayed with us for about a week. Michael wasn’t able to visit, he was too shy to meet us in person at the time. Michael did begin to make plans with all of us to visit Lauren in 2022 for her birthday and to save up.

When we moved out at the end of December, we were expecting to move into a new place with some of our other friends, though they weren’t able to cancel their lease so we just couch-surfed at their place for half a year, until May of 2022. While Luke and I had worked through the physical abuse and a lot of the other abusive behaviors, I got diagnosed with Depersonalization/Derealization disorder and Panic Disorder and day to day life got way more difficult for me. We also had no privacy as we were staying on our friend’s couch, and this really negatively affected both of our mental health. There was one bad argument, I don’t even remember what it was about, but Luke stood up in front of me and, to make me feel worse, cut himself *deep* in his outer forearm. He immediately apologized for doing it in front of me, and had his mom come to take him to his parent’s house. I think he went to the hospital on the way, as well.

In May, we moved out of our friends’ place and into Luke’s parents’ house. They have been kind enough to let us stay, and as emotionally unpredictable as they are, seem to be okay with us staying there for as long as we need to. We are still negatively affected by our living situation, and don’t have the means to go anywhere else for now. Luke especially is having a hard time, as his parents have given him a lot of trouble throughout his life. Things aren’t turbulent with them right now, just tense. But Luke does feel as though he’s mentally regressed in his progress.

At the beginning of our stay, Michael had been texting me privately asking for advice in regards to a guy he was talking with. He said he liked him, but was worried because this guy wasn’t respecting his pronouns or certain boundaries. We talked extensively, and while I thought they should maybe give it some more time, they began dating and I was very happy for him. He’s since asked me for more advice in regards to him, as well as some issues he’s had with some other people in his life. I love being there to listen to my friends, and if they need any help or advice, I’m more than glad to do my best to help them.

Michael and I get along VERY well. We have the same sense of humor, talk to each other effortlessly, and vibe better than anyone else in the gc really. He has a lot of qualities that I’ve been attracted to since we’ve met, but at this point in time, I wouldn’t have said I was in love with him. However, I had fantasized about dating him, and meeting him for the first time in more than a “friend” way.

Towards the end of the summer, I began feeling more cramped around Luke, and began to lie about obligations or long shifts at work that I didn’t have so that I could be with my siblings and parents at their house. I enjoy the alone time, it’s something I don’t get much of when I’m home with Luke. I don’t have much time to pursue my interests anymore and usually just work, come home, watch YouTube or TikToks or shows or movies with Luke, or maybe go out, and that’s it. I enjoy art, and playing video games, and while I understand a large part of growing up is sacrificing these privileges for my commitments and obligations, I’d at least like to find a balance for my mental wellbeing.

So, I’ve been forcing that time to happen by lying, going to my parents’, and drawing or playing games. I understand how selfish this is of me, especially to be doing this and not mention it to Luke, but I’m almost sure he’d be unwilling to compromise for my alone time and am scared that if I bring this issue forward to him, he’ll dismiss it and ignore it.

In December of 2022, we had our trip we had planned. This was my first time meeting Michael in person. I was absolutely smitten, and we hung out a lot We didn’t really hang out alone often, but we had a lot of conversations, he grabbed my hand when I asked him to dab me up as a joke and did this MULTIPLE times and each time I’m sure I blushed, we made a PB&J together for Luke while we were both drunk and definitely rubbed shoulders, and like, I understand none of this is any indication of him feeling any way towards me beyond friendliness, but I really really began to fall for him. It was so hard to say goodbye to both Michael and Lauren when the trip was over.

After the trip, I fell into a deep depression. But i haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since, and how much I just want to be next to him for as long as I can. It’s affected my day to day life.

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I want to just tell him how much I love him. But I know that, if I break up with Luke, that could damage our friend group. I’m also worried that if i try to initiate a breakup, Luke will lash out and not let me leave somehow, and coerce me to stay. If it does work, I’m leaving Luke in a situation he’s stuck in alone, with his parents who he doesn’t like. I also still love Luke very much, I’m just not sure it’s in the same way that I did in the beginning before all of the bad stuff happened.

If I tell Michael how I feel, just ask him to let me know how he feels, whether it’s the same or not at all, I burden him with that knowledge and potentially a secret, which is something he doesn’t need. He’s also in a committed relationship, and I also would 100%, if not hurt our friendship, complicate it indefinitely. If I don’t act, I’ll regret it forever. It’s eating me up inside, and the urge to just tell Michael how I feel is just growing stronger and stronger, and it almost feels like an inevitability.

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**TL;DR** \- I love my best friend, who is also my BFs best friend and ex. I wanna tell my friend, but am worried how it will affect my other friends and my BF’s lives.

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What should I do? I need serious help. Thank you again for reading this, and for your replies if you choose to make any.