In a massive dilemma and I have no control over it. So fed up.

[Milliemooxo]

Hey guys, apologies if this is too long but I'll try my best to keep it short.

Basically, I have been seeing a guy for 3 and a half years with a 6 month break inbetween. But..(i know this is really bad and people will instantly judge me) he has a girlfriend.

He is somebody I've known a long time, we have mutual friends etc, and when it first happened he said he was on a break. I got too caught up and basically couldn't say no when he got back with his gf. She once found out and it ended for a good few months until we saw each other again and took things from where they left off. A few weeks ago he said he loved me and I said it back. Since then, he has been overly sweet to me and promising to see me more often etc but he hasn't mentioned leaving her. I don't think he ever will. They are engaged and live together but I just can't say bye to him because my feelings are too strong, even though I know I'm being a mug.

However.....a few weeks ago I met a guy. Again, someone I've known for a while and he is a friend of my brothers. We kissed and started texting and then we slept together. He asked me out but cancelled saying we could rearrange...he hasn't. He takes ages to text back sometimes but then other nights he can text non-stop and make me feel great. He came to my house at the weekend and we slept together again, but on sunday and yesterday his texts were really short and tbh made me feel a bit rubbish. I have also just found out that he kissed a girl I know a fortnight ago. I really like him but have no idea where it's going and again, I just feel used.

I want this guy to take me out and then I can say to the other guy that it is over, there's no way I could carry it on. But I also feel guilty that I've slept with someone else, even though it's not me in the r'ship. I'm in such a pickle and i feel my happiness is depending on the choices that these two men make.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Everybody else meets someone, gets taken out, it's all hunky dory and that's that! I can't speak to my friends about this and I feel a bit stupid to be honest. I just want to know where I stand but I'm not one to send a serious txt/phone call as the guys themselves just aren't like that.

I'm so stuck. I keep having bad night sweats and throwing up due to the heartache it's causing.

Maybe ask him out for more of a picnic boating walk in the countryside or art gallery type wholesome date, then a night time drinking sexy type date.

I might bite the bullet and ask him - if he makes an excuse or says no I simply won't bother again but if i dont ask then i will never know. then ill tell my brother! haha kidding.

Namechanged for this.

Was in a similar situation to you years and years ago. Don't end up being me as I wasted years of my life loving men who didn't want me for anything more than sex because I thought something was better than nothing.

Like you I had a loving family, good friends, job but I had massive self esteem issues developed from feeling fat and ugly and being incredibly shy.

Kids at school used to ask me out as a joke so they could laugh at me. I thought no man would ever take any notice of me and I would die a virgin. When I was in my early twenties I knew a man through work who took an interest in me, he was married. He made a pass at me and I was so desperate to get rid of my virginity and flattered that anyone would want me I said yes. I fell for him and we had a very lengthy affair.

He treated me like shit for the first couple of years and I felt guilty as fuck about his wife. Despite that my self esteem improved from knowing that a man did actually find me attractive, even if was only for sex. I did end up shagging another man concurrently for a while who again used me for sex (they knew about each other). So I see a lot of similarities in your circumstances.

I'm not remotely proud of what I did and I do still have self esteem issues about my appearance and still struggling to meet someone interesting who wants to actually take me out.

But please don't end up being me, you're young and have your whole life ahead of you. I would have loved to have got married and had a family but I'm mid forties now and it's passed me by. I went on dates hoping that I'd meet a man who I could have a proper relationship with so I could end the affair. Because I had feelings involved it stopped me from making more effort and getting out and about more. If I'd have had no-one I would have been more receptive to meeting someone and tried harder but I didn't.

Be stronger than I was at your age and stop seeing both of these men and put your efforts into meeting someone who loves and values you instead. Previous posters have said it's much better to be alone than in a bad relationship and they so right.

Feel free to PM me.

You do have control. First you can ditch the complete waster who has been string you and his girlfriend along. As for the other one. That doesn't sound very promising at all so I wouldn't put any faith into this developing into a more meaningful relationship. So it's gong nowhere. So he's a waste of time too. As long as you keep focusing on these two losers you won't give yourself a chance to meet somebody decent.

Beleive it or not, I am a nice person lol

Well...shagging someone else's boyfriend for nearly four years is not very nice. Would you like it, if you were her?

Don't get into the mindset that all this is 'happening' to you and you are just an innocent party who is being taken advantage of by the nasty men. It is just as much your doing as theirs. You have to be and feel responsible for your own actions.

No one ever tries to flirt with me more than once.

I know it is. I understand it's totally my own fault with guy no.1 and i should have said no from day one and especially when i found they'd got back together, but its guy no.2 bothering me the most as i get mixed feelings from him and it's confusing me, but no, i totally accept my role too.

It may well be guy number 2 bothering you most (although he sounds like he isn't really interested, tbh), but do the decent thing and end all contact with number 1. Just imagine you were his girlfriend and how awful it would be to find out he'd been shagging someone for the last 3+ years.

OP, it bothers me that you have interpreted some posts on this thread as calling you a 'slag' (horrible word). I just wanted to say: Mumsnet relationships is pretty liberal when it comes to sex. No-one thinks the less of you for sleeping with a couple of men! What most people are concerned about when they are asking where you learned about relationships is the fact that your model seems to be very passive, to wait around for a guy to ask you instead of taking some control. It doesn't have to be that way, especially in this day and age, and thank goodness for that!

Honestly, if you get the confidence to lift up your head a little bit higher, I reckon you'll find a great number of men are checking you out and looking for a date.

Also, every single time I have seen someone be the 'other woman' in an affair, it has been because at heart they didn't feel like they were worthy of a full relationship with someone. Every. Time. You need to figure out why you feel so bad about yourself. You've been through a lot with your Mum dying, and maybe a bit of counselling would help you to feel like you are allowed to live life to the full?

You know, it's not like these are the last two men on earth and your only two to choose from. If they were, it still might be better to go it alone. One actually has someone else he is more committed to, though she is wasting her time and doesnt even know what a loser she has. The other one doesnt sound interested really. Guys that want to be around you for you actually make an effort to do so, and he can't be bothered. All your going on about how it might be something, it could be something...no really, if it was going to be something it would be something. Right now, you seem more focussed on landing a man than having a life. As a result, you are seeing the sort of men who will make you miserable. The guy who keeps you on the side will probably never change his mind and choose you first, and if he does he is pretty likely to keep someone else on the side. The one who can't really be bothered to keep in touch will never get any better at that, even if you marry.

So many people giving you good advice: live with yourself and see who you are. Think about the life you want, and do what you need to make that happen. Along the way, you will meet men with a much better chance of fitting into and facilitating that life. It's the better way.

You really need to stop making your personal worth about what guy you may or may not have.

what about you. You. As an individual. As a woman. Forget about what bloke you may or may not have. Men will come and go. Your identity is not tied up to some bloke. You are not validated by whose penis you hang off

You act like your choices are this man or that man and your thoughts are what does this man think and what does that man feel and what man am I going to have and what man wants me and what man this that or the other

Well, it doesn't have to be like that.

Who are you? All men drop off the face of the earth tomorrow - who are you

You need to stop seeing yourself as an extra appendage a man has and focus on yourself.

Oh, and please do not think of yourself as a 'slag', that's such a horrible word. Women buy into this misogynistic crap and it's so sad. The issue is not how much sex you have, it is how little you value yourself and how you do not appear to thing you are someone of worth. You are. We all are. You need to be compassionate to yourself. You need to see you are worth too much to allow yourself to be treated badly.

Think about it. This first chap, this 4 year waste of your time - while shagging you he got down on bended knee to another woman, looked her in the eye, declared his love for her and said I want you to be my wife.

How dare he! You really need to be angry about that. Is that what you want? To be the one good enough to fuck but not good enough to build a life with?

All these people who are trying to help you, one could be the girlfriend of the guy you've been shagging for four years.

It isn't nice behaviour so can't comment on whether you are nice really but you need to end it with guy one, stop obsessing about guy two and spend some time alone to actually realise you don't need a man.

Great post Fenella.

I agree, what a total wanker guy 1 is.

Forget any men for a moment and have a think about what you want for yourself. Do you want someone who wants to take you out and have a proper relationship with? If so you need to dump both these men. One has a girlfriend but has had you on the side for 3/4 years? They aren't even married, they've split up and got back together in that time.You ate just sex to him.The later man is a fuck buddy because those were the boundaries laid down at the beginning. You need to work on your self esteem and not look to men to boost it.Dump both men, they ARE using you.

Forgot to add, you really are in complete control here, you alone can decide to continue the situation as it is or stop it today.

Young one, you need to understand clearly that men's interest in sleeping with you doesn't automatically mean they care are interested in you or want a relationship with you. Which these 2 chancers have proven.Look for love elsewhere and with a decent man.Dump, chalk both up to experience and go and buy yourself some lovely bright flowers x

Start with ending things with guy number 1 - you might try telling him you've met someone else and while he might be happy having 2 relationships at once, you're not, and you pick new bloke, have a nice life and you'd like him to stop all contact, if he contacts you again, you will forward messages to his girlfriend and let her know about just how long he's been cheating on her - thta you don't want to do that, so assume he'll be leaving you alone. Burn that bridge - stop yourself from going backwards.

Guy 2 - I'd just leave it. See if he asks you out.

It's ok to be completely on your own. But the priority is getting guy 1 to accept it's over. You might find he won't want you to go, mainly because up to now it's been on his terms, but threaten to tell his GF and you might well find he accepts it's over and when faced with really risking his primary relationship, he can walk away from you.