Hey lads and lasses,
I need some help here.
Backstory: I grew up in a stoic family. Emotions were seen as a weakness. That said, I didn't have any real intimacy issues when I was young, I had my share of gfs and I had no problem with dancing, kissing or anything.
Then, when I was 16, I started having sleeping issues. We're talking about nightmares within nightmares (inception-style) that went several layers deep. After 4-5 iterations, when waking up I'd be unaware if I was living in reality. After 6-7 iterations, it'd take me the entire morning to get my head straight. After 8+ iterations, I'd come home unsure if I was awake. I had sleep paralysis too, but that was something I learnt to deal with. Fuck, I even preferred it to the alternative.
I slowly spiralled down into a depression (at the time undiagnosed) but as I considered it a weakness I thougt I had to fix it own and needless to say it just got worse. Point being I slowly started fucking up, worse and worse, and after a year I had to double a year at school because of it. I couldn't bear any kind of intimacy anymore, I'd literally freeze and withdraw as soon as someone touched me. It’s only very recently I kind of overcame it.
So I left for a boarding school and met this amazing girl. It wasn't healthy but I immediately got way too attached to her. She was the only light in my life at this point, and would always come sit next to me on the sofa and it meant a lot.
Of course, life isn't a fairy tale so I kind of pushed her away as I did my other best friends. Difference being, she wouldn't let me.
Somewhere along the way of being stuck between reality and nightmares, I started believing I was in a traumatic train accident and lost the love of my life. I don't know why, or how, but I can tell you it fucked me up as I'd have constant flashes and even hallucinations during the day, and I started believing it. I told it to her like it was the truth. Because at the time I believed it was. Then we did some digging around and it was impossible for me to have been there.
I completely shamed her trust by doing so, even if she keeps saying I didn't. Further spiralling down my depression, I started becoming highly suicidal and she was basically the only one hat kept me going. She literally saved my life. I confessed my feelings to her at one point, and she seemed uncomfortable with it. I don't know, she looked me dead in the eyes and asked me if I had feelings for her. Now, I'm a terrible liar and she sees through pretty much all lies of everyone.
But that day, what came to my mind was (1) That she would take distance from me if I said yes, (2) That she deserves better, a lot better, and that I wasn't capable of making her happy and (3) That I wanted this woman in my life no matter what.
So I looked her dead in the eye and coldly lied that I used to, but that they were gone by then.
But the difficulty of suppressing my feelings -even if they were partly suppressed due to the sleep deprivation- and the guilt of having hurt her - even unintentionally -was too much.
Every knife I saw, I could see myself and had to step mysel from sticking it in my neck. Every rope I saw, every heighth I faced ... I had to fight it. You get the message. I spent 6 months in the hospital after failing my civil engineering studies due to my sleeping issues.
After that, everything turned for the better and I reconnected with a lot of my former friends, but due to being medicated in the hospital I got fat too. So I had a lot to rebuild. Especially those intimacy issues.
So we’re gonna skip-forward 12 years, we kind of became best friends although we hadn’t seen each other all that often because we both started working, she was still studying an additional degree at the same time, and she bought a house that needed a lot of work done. I did help her a bit with that, of course.
But in december my sleeping issues were less, and I started dreaming about a life with her, even with kids. I was completely overwhelmed as I’d spent years deprived of proper sleep. My libido also shot up ... a lot.
She introduced me to fitness, and has kind of been my personal coach, and we’ve basically been seeing each other 3 times a week, even if it’s a 1-hour drive. She told me she’s been dating people but hasn’t had a relationship since 6 years ago, and that she’s kind of feeling a bit of pressure to find a partner as we’re both 30 by now. She constantly pushes me to date people through Bumble and Tinder too.
The guy she’s currently dating asked if he could come along to a show we were going to see. She didn’t reply to him as she thought it would be awkward to have him meet her friends at the 4th date. I told her he was absolutely welcome.
And now we get to the core of the issue. So we’re there, having fun, he’s an overall pretty decent guy, and I start really getting bothered by how clingy he was. Like, way more bothered than I should be. Because I want her to be happy. Above everything. And I don’t believe I have what it takes to make her happy. But I don’t think he has it either, and I don’t think he’s close to being good enough for her either.
At the end, one of our friends joked about going home crying, and I kind of overdid it with “yay let’s all go home and cry”. She immediately picked up on it, and I know she will interrogate me about it next time we go to the fitness.
The issue here is we’re going to Morocco next month, with 3 in a room, everything booked, and I really don’t want to make things awkward. But honestly, it’s eating me alive currently.
So I want your advice: Should I tell her about how much I’m currently struggling with my feelings about her? Should I wait untill after our vacation? Or should I just forget about it alltogether? I do want to keep this woman in my life.
Tried to give as much information as I could, but probably forgot a few things