I (m30) love them (m29, m24) both and can’t find a way out

Hi. I’ve been in a situation for several years now, and it has just gotten worse and worse. I’m on my last desperate attempts now, and I need to know if anyone has been in a similar situation or if anyone would share what they would do. My brain is in a war with itself, and I can’t take it much more. Sorry for messy writing, I’m very tired. And sorry for long post.

**TL;DR:** I love and care deeply about two persons, and it can’t be like that, but whatever I do feels wrong. Now I’m deeply depressed in a corner and don’t know what to do. I’ve tried to take action, but it really hasn’t helped.

**TL:**

I met my partner when I was about 18, not long after coming out of a depression because of my sexuality etc. We became best friends quickly then, and entered a relationship with each other. We’ve been together for 11 years now. We had a solid relationship, I never thought about breaking up, and neither did he. Our connection is deep, it feels like we’ve grown up together and share something essential. I can share though, that we probably never had the most passionate relationship.

However, a little over 4 years ago, I became friends with a boy. We (he’s m24 now, let’s call him “B”) really liked each other and connected deeply. I was in a weird place then – the relationship with my partner (“A”) had perhaps become a bit stale (7 year mark..), burnout at work, my father suddenly died. My partner (A) also had some problems, and I tried to cheer him up all the time and encourage him etc, but that was also tiring after many years. This all made me feel down and made me distance myself, which I feel bad for, but I was tired. Eventually B and I fell in love with each other. However, A and I lived together, nothing was really wrong with the relationship, we also cared deeply about each other. I told B early on that I didn’t want to break up with my partner, but he still kept thinking I would, because he thought we were more right for each other. And he really wanted to be with me. We continued to speak, spend time with each other as friends, and our bond eventually got deeper and deeper. A short time after falling in love with B, I really didn’t know what to do. I’ve been in love twice in my life. My brain started going into overdrive already years ago, trying to analyse the situation to figure out what was the right thing to do. But it felt absolutely impossible to break it off with either of them.

It eventually developed into something of a relationship on the side with B, although we mostly chatted (he doesn’t live in my city). I was not able to cut out B – he felt very important to me, special, I was (still am) in love, and it feels impossible to be just friends. However, it also felt impossible to break it off with A, as I still felt and feel like explained in the second paragraph. This made me more and more tired and stressed, and eventually depressed. B became more convinced that I would end things with A, move out etc, and that possible reality grew for me too, as I was still strongly in love with B, and probably distanced myself from A.

I started going to a therapist a year ago, trying to get help getting clarity and advice. I told my partner (A) that I had fallen in love with B, and that B was also in love with me, about the same time as I started going to therapy. But I formulated it to A as though I didn’t want to go any further with it. I wanted to lose feelings for B. I might add that A also fell in love/infatuation with someone else some years earlier – but that other person was straight, it wasn’t as serious etc (A said it was just fun chasing it, he didn’t want to leave me). However, I couldn’t stop talking with B every day through Snapchat and FaceTime when I was alone – we were still in love with each other, still cared deeply for each other. B still believed I was planning to end it with A. I still didn’t know what to do.

I’ve been going about 25 times to the therapist now. He keeps repeating “you just need to pick one and decide, and you’ll feel better”, without saying much else of use. I’ve been saying it doesn’t make sense to me, nothing seems right, everything feels impossible. I feel deeply for both. So, at the start of the summer, 7 months ago now, I tried to do something. My partner (A) and I had some conflicts, amplified by my situation, and my partner suggested we might had to break up as we might not be compatible anymore. *That felt completely wrong.* When breaking up with A became a reality, it collapsed completely for me – the day after our “break up”, I was just complete anxiety and darkness. So we decided that: no, we’ll stay together. So I told B that he had to move on, that I don’t feel like I can break it off with A even though I love you (B) too, and even though things are a bit rough around some edges now with A.

However, after a few days, I started getting overwhelming anxiety and absolute dread 24/7 plus a serious depression. I was in complete panic over cutting it off with B – we cared so deeply about each other, I couldn’t stand the thought of not being with him. I couldn’t stand him moving on, honestly, and I still struggle with it. Neither of us wanted to end things. I slept for 4 hours each night for 2-3 months, couldn’t function at all (still can’t), my brain kept on feeling like everything was wrong. B still had hope, he asked me how I was doing, still wanted to be with me. I told him we needed to take a break speaking to each other, that I was doing really bad. *And this is an important issue*: A told me that if I was feeling so down because I had cut if off with B, then screw me. So, as I tried to distance myself from B, I told A that it there are several reasons for that I feel so bad, including the issues we (A and me) have had, and that life in general has been a bit rough and demanding lately (it has). I couldn’t tell him how down I was for cutting out B. I was prescribed anti-psychotic medication and eventually antidepressant medication.

I kept feeling really, really down while continuing to live with A, and he was suggesting I move into an apartment by myself for some time. My brain continued in panic wondering what was the correct thing to do, going back and forth. I wrote pros-cons list, meditated hours upon hours, read books, told my best friends and closest family. Most people (except therapist) suggested I move to an apartment by myself, but that felt like a first step of breaking up with A, so I tried to resist. I eventually agreed, although A and I are still together, because A thought it was tiresome that I was depressed and felt like I didn’t get better with him. The worst anxiety and lack of sleep improved before I moved out, but still very depressed. I tried hard to be as good as I could with A, it felt horrible to move out from him, I still tried to not speak with B. A still didn’t know that B was the main reason for while I was struggling so bad – I tried to say it, but he was about to get really mad and likely to end it all with me when I tried to speak of it, so I couldn’t. At the same time, he keeps asking/demanding of me why I’m so depressed and tired. So I feel pushed into a corner by him and still unable to tell him, and still trying to cut off B so things can get better with A.

B kept sending me a message now and then through the autumn asking how I was doing, hoping I would move out by myself, hoping it would still be us. At the same time, he told me he had been trying to date (and sleep with) others, but how it felt wrong. This added greatly to my depression and anxiety, although I know it “shouldn’t”. So I did move out to an apartment by myself, because A thinks that it necessary for me to feel better, and because he got tired of seeing me depressed. When I was about to move out, I was very much against it, felt it was completely wrong to move out from A, and my brain took a break from screaming “you love B!!”. However, as soon as I moved in by myself, the chaos and confusion crawled back in, my subconsciousness telling me “oh, you moved out, almost as if you broke up with A, so you should speak with B again now!”. But then if I think “ok, then, maybe it’s over with A, I do love B after all”, it all switches around. Whatever stance I take, it feels torturingly wrong.

So… The day after I moved into the apartment for myself, and sat there alone, I wrote B and said we need to talk on FaceTime, and you won’t like it, but you need to respect me. I cried till I almost passed out, while I told him he must not write to me again, not call me again, to move on without me. I felt like I needed to try this – I had been so much against moving out from A, I still love him, we didn’t break up, I just had to live alone for a while – so it felt like the only option I had, and the action I needed to take to feel better, was to do this. To end it more properly with B.

That’s two months ago now. Barely spoken with him for 7 months, and really drew a line two months ago. I cried so extremely much that night I think my body went from 60% to 20% water. AND THEN, the next day, it was like I hadn’t done it. It’s still chaos. I’ve been with A now and then, and it feels wrong, and then right for a couple of hours, and then again it feels like I’ve done the wrong thing. I’ve become more depressed, my brain just won’t stop, my head hurts so much I want to drug myself into oblivion, my subconsciousness will never give me a break. I cry several times a day. My head wont stop considering the options, it’s like I haven’t really made a choice, or that the choice I did was wrong. I have massive anxiety over the fact that he is trying to move on, and I feel terrible knowing that he is probably very sad as well. I obviously need to get B out of my head to be able to feel as before with A, but what if I can’t do either of those.

My brain keeps trying to figure out what is what. Am I just overattached to A, while my heart really is with B? But my heart is also with A, and we’re best friends, things were good, although not passionate. I’m so attracted to B, I want to take care of him, I feel more relaxed with him, but I’m also not sure it would stay as good. And we don’t share the same humor or understanding as much as I do with A. Or did. It felt like it was meant to last for life with A, but have I broken my own feelings now? Can I return to how it was before with A, after falling in love (in a different way?) with B? What if I did break it up, and then things got bad or not as it was before with A, and then I regret everything and can’t take it. I struggle with feeling attraction to A often. My brain keeps going like this, even though I have tried to decide to not leave A for B.

A keeps asking me why I’m not feeling better. He’s impatient, sometimes annoyed and even a bit angry with me when I’m feeling down. I’m trying to be my best when I’m around him, being close to him, making him dinner etc. He got a bit mad because I didn’t enthusiastically enough answer “yes” when he asked if I wanted to go to a concert with him. I have been on sick leave for several months, not able to work because of this, going to the grocery store or just talking feels overwhelming now, I’m completely broken down and unbearably tired, so the thought of going to a concert scares the shit out of me. When I feel like he is tired and wants me to be by myself when I’m feeling down, it obviously makes it all much worse for me. I sometimes feel a bit better when I’ve been with A for several days (and I’ve told him that), but he still thinks I need to be by myself. This all pushes me away when I try the opposite.

I’ve also spent quite a lot of money going to a private clinic getting ketamine infusions (a dissociative psychedelic drug) to ease suicidal thoughts, depression, and in hopes it could help think more clearly and flexibly (psychedelics have that effect often). But I can feel I need several more injections for it to help symptoms more, and it’s expensive as hell, really heavy, and doesn’t really remove the complete chaos that whatever I do, it is completely wrong.

I can’t stand this much more. I wish I never fell in love with someone else, and I wish A knew more of what I’m going through because I’m trying to stay with him, that I want to restore what was, and not leave for someone else. But then I feel like I can’t tell why I’m so down and tired that I’m close to giving up, because he probably wouldn’t want to be with me anymore if he knew I was this depressed over someone else. At the same time he’s angry because I don’t have good reasons for my depression and how broken I now am, which gives me more anxiety.

I’m otherwise a stable, non-neurotic, calm person. But this has thrown me into a complete chaos, it feels like torture, and I’m trying to take action. I’m really trying. I’m writing this after sitting in silence for 6 hours while my brain is pounding painfully. Every day is like this. What would you do? What did you do, if you’ve experienced something similar, or know someone who did? No need to judge, I’m judging myself enough already for everything, and I’m trying my best.