[brighteyes089]

I suppose I should start from the beginning… When I was a kid I lived down the road from a boy who was my best friend and who always wanted to be more than friends. We drifted apart throughout the years, due to the fact that I didn’t want more than friendship. Years went by. We graduated from HS, I went off to college, and he joined the military… Fast forward to today. We’re engaged to be married. We got back in touch a few years ago, but never got serious due to the distance and the fact that we had both started families. When we both happened to be single, we got close again, fell in love, and, after a while, got serious. Just a few months later, we were engaged. He’s currently overseas and we plan to marry when he comes home, and spend the rest of our lives together. I could picture every aspect of our life together so perfectly. It was like a fairy tale… So to keep myself busy while he’s gone, I have a weekly girls night with a close friend. We go to the same bar, have the same drinks, talk to the same people every week. Everyone knows I’m engaged and how in love I am with my fiance, and everyone is all for us being together… There’s just one problem. My fiance has had his leave delayed twice now, due to drunken misconduct on international grounds, meaning our wedding has had to be postponed twice. He’s currently in “jail” and I won’t get to speak with him for an entire month. I’m pretty sure its a given that I’m angry at him for his bad decisions overseas, but I still want to marry the man. I still want to be with him for the rest of my life… Here’s where it gets really complicated. I’m attracted to one of my bar buddies. It wasn’t a big deal until it was brought to my attention that he is attracted to me as well. We’ve become good friends over the past few months and have so much in common. We can talk for hours. In fact, we have. Mostly we talk about my situation with my fiance. It’s nice to get a man’s opinion about everything. He’s never hit on me and I’ve never hit on him, but the attraction is there. And the more my fiance does to ruin things, and the more time I’m here waiting for him, the harder it gets to fight my feelings for my bar buddy. I’ve tried to stay away from him, but he’s become my comfort zone through all of this; and at the same time, the thing I fear most. I don’t know if what I feel for my bar buddy is simply me longing for a connection and closeness, or if there’s something really there. I don’t know if I should get married if I’m having feelings for another man. I don’t know if I should chose one or the other, or neither of them. I’ve started second-guessing my love for my fiance, whereas before I was so sure. There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that I wanted to be with him. I’ve been back and forth in my mind for weeks now, debating on what the right thing for me is; what I am supposed to do; who I am supposed to be with. I’ve cried and cried. I’ve taken my frustration out on the people closest to me. I know I can’t make any decisions until I see my fiance again, but I need to have some sort of answers right now. Please, please help lead me in the right direction to make a decision. I’m desperate.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

The real problem is the fact that your fiance is in jail for bad behavior in the military. This has got to be giving you pause. The fact that it’s happened [i]twice[/i] seems to indicate that this could become part of a pattern, where your fiance has trouble controlling his own behavior. And because he’s your fiance, his behavior is affecting you. If you had children, it would be affecting them, too. 😕

My advice is to stop hanging out at the bar and stop connecting with your fiance’s buddy. Clear your head and decide if you really want to marry your fiance or not. Make that decision without any distractions from this other guy. If you don’t want to marry your fiance, then take care of business without involving a third party. If you end the engagement and stop dating your fiance, THEN you can connect with this other guy. But not now.

If you DO want to marry your fiance, then stop hanging out at the bar where this other guy that you’re attracted to is. If you don’t want to have any contact with him, it’s easy to do. The decision is yours. 😉 You don’t have to be there and give him the message that you’re interested in him if you don’t want to.

The other point is that just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean that you have to act on the feelings you have. Even married people are attracted to others outside their marriage — but they don’t act on it. Behavior is a choice. Every day.

I hope that helps. Let me know how things go, and please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 🙂

[brighteyes089]

I went out this weekend (just read your reply today) and I saw my bar buddy again. I planned on telling him that we can’t spend time alone together anymore and I was going to focus on my relationship with my fiance. That didn’t happen (I really wish I had read your reply sooner). We ended up having a very intimate night together, but didn’t have sex.

The next day I did a lot of thinking. I talked to my mom & my best friend, and I decided that I will have to end the engagement with my fiance, stay here in my hometown, and focus on myself and my daughter. I realized that if I moved out of state with him, I wouldn’t be happy, and I would be lying to him. It wouldn’t be fair for either of us. I felt like I had it all figured out. And I realized that if I really loved my fiance, I would have never made the choices I made and let the previous night happen. Plain and simple.

My bar buddy asked me to have dinner with him last night, and I figured it would be fine. Nothing would happen, it would just be dinner and conversation, then I would go home. It didn’t happen that way. We had dinner and talked for a while, and things heated up again. This time we did have sex. Afterward I felt different. Not about my bar buddy, but about myself. I was ashamed of myself, and disgusted with myself, the instant it was over. I went home and went to bed.

Today, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what I did to my fiance. How much I’ve betrayed him in such a short amount of time. I haven’t spoken much at all to anyone today. I can’t even look in the mirror. And I think I took the longest shower of my life. I look at the ring on my finger and I instantly want to break down and cry.

And today, I can’t help but think that being with my fiance, marrying him and sharing life together would have been the best thing I could have ever done. I now know that there’s absolutely no fixing anything between us anymore. I know when he gets home I have to tell him what I did, as much as it will hurt him. He deserves to know. I still know that I don’t want to move away with him and marry him, but I didn’t want it to end this way. I can only hope that he’ll forgive me one day.

I wonder why I’m so torn between these two men. For a few days I’ll only think about my fiance and our future, and then for a few days I’ll think about my bar buddy and what could be, and then for a few days I think that I just need to be alone and figure out my own life. And the cycle repeats itself. I think I have things figured out, and then I rethink it all and change my mind. I feel like my head won’t stop spinning. Is there some sort of psychological reason why my feelings and actions are all over the place? Why I can’t make up my mind? Why I find it so easy to betray the man I promised to spend the rest of my life with? What should I do now? Now that I’ve screwed things up even worse….

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I’m going to repeat my advice to you — I hope you’ll take it! 😉

[quote]My advice is to stop hanging out at the bar and stop connecting with your fiance’s buddy. Clear your head and decide if you really want to marry your fiance or not. Make that decision without any distractions from this other guy. If you don’t want to marry your fiance, then take care of business without involving a third party. If you end the engagement and stop dating your fiance, THEN you can connect with this other guy. But not now.

If you DO want to marry your fiance, then stop hanging out at the bar where this other guy that you’re attracted to is. If you don’t want to have any contact with him, it’s easy to do. The decision is yours. You don’t have to be there and give him the message that you’re interested in him if you don’t want to.

The other point is that just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean that you have to act on the feelings you have. Even married people are attracted to others outside their marriage — but they don’t act on it. Behavior is a choice. Every day. [/quote]

[Member]

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