my ex 19M still hooks up with me 18F, while talking to someone new
im currently in a rough position right now and the worst part is —i know it's all my fault.
me, 18F, have been in a long term relationship with 19M. we've been together for almost 3 years. we are each other's first in sooo many ways. however, since last year we've broken up due to many reasons. my ex then decided to court me again, and despite how hard it was for me to cave in, i eventually did. we never labelled the relationship anything, he always reassured me that the answer should only come from me and he'd never ask me the question, "can i be your boyfriend?" so that i wouldn't get pressured to answer it.
but earlier this year, we encountered significant bumps in the road —if not, literal landslides. i had a friend, 18M, who i confused to have romantic feelings for. no, i will not justify this action. i've felt guilty ever since and once i started recognizing what i 'thought' i felt, i immediately told him and asked for space to figure it out. but to him, he saw it as a sign i was breaking the 'courtship'. now, i say 'courtship' because to everyone, it is one but to us it's kind of more than that. we blurred some lines, hooked up a few times and became intimate with each other despite knowing relationship had not been labelled yet. i was meaning to say yes, but i was afraid. so i never got to.
for the past few months since we had that conversation, it has been going downhill for the both of us. i became distant, out of the guilt i felt for even thinking of feeling that way for a person other than him, and as i got busy with school (i was a graduating student), it kinda flew off my mind. i know, it's my fault. i always thought i could put school first before that because we only had 3 months left, i needed to finish with a really good ranking amongst the graduates to be able to apply for scholarships. so, i put things off and he kept chasing me, thinking i didn't want us anymore. to be fair on his part, i really was being avoidant and kept dodging uncomfortable conversations. it came to a point where he'd asked me "do you still want to be with me?" and due to fear and the guilt eating me i'd say something, "i do love you, but relationships aren't for me right now, i have school and college coming up."
for the time, it must've seemed like the logical answer but looking at it now, i probably just needed a quick answer because i couldn't answer it honestly yet. he took it as a sign i was calling it quits, and decided he was going to accept it.
there are so many other things at play lmao. we had common friends, a few of them i opened up to and i eventually found out everything i'd say to them, they'd tell him and they'd talk bad things about me. which, at first i accepted because i was wrong too, but it was a different level of disrespect i couldn't tolerate. i was completely isolated at the time (during those times), i only ever woke up to go to school and do well, schoolwork. i was basically living by. and if i forgot to mention, we were doing long-distance at this time due to him being a college student and me, still a graduating one. our friends were in the same city as me and they were the ones i thought i could count on in trying to navigate things. but clearly, i had been wrong because while i cried to them, they aired it all out to him. i always had a feeling his grip on our friends was tighter than mine, and i always had a gut feeling even a month before i did find out, that yes, things were that way for \*our\* friends. i cut them all off because it became obvious at that point that they were \*his\* friends, not mine.
but enough of that, we eventually did have an uncomfortable conversation and he told me i was emotionally cheating on him. he is right, i was. we might not have been together, but we were tangled into something emotional and while labels would've made things official, our feelings did make it real.
we still talk now, but now we're kind of in a tight spot. he came home a little over a month ago. we still hook up from time to time, had sex for the first time even. he calls it being casual with me, saying its for the love of the game but i recently found out he's talking to someone new (a friend he met in college), his "organic encounter" but tells me it's nothing serious. but it doesn't feel like that to me. im not really used to the whole casual dynamic. he is my first boyfriend, first love, first of so many things and being casual with someone who is literally everything to me —not my cup of tea. he told me he'd never come back (to me and the "us" we has) but every time he kisses me, and touches me, it doesn't feel that way. he always hurries to say, "this is just casual" and sometimes, i feel like he only says that so he won't feel guilty, given he already said what his intentions are with me and won't be responsible of whatever i feel out of it since like he said\\\*, "its just casual".\\\*
i don't really know what to do now. he's very fully aware i want to fix things between us, and im at a point in life where im deep in depression, and struggling to find reason to wake up everyday and get up. i've lost so many friends, the academic burnt out and neglect i did to my body during the school year finally catching up on me. its been tough. i needed to get this off my chest since i can't really talk to anyone abt this bc for every time we hook up, he always says "this stays between us, okay?" he made me pinky promise over it but im so confused, so lost. how do u kiss someone and not feel anything?
i love him so much, it breaks my heart this is how we are now and i know —it's all on me.