- Joined
- Aug 20, 2022
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My story
In My FeelsIt was a girls’ night out. I had been single for three years after my divorce, and I wasn’t looking for anything — not even a hookup. Most of the night my attention was fully on my girls, until I caught a glimpse of his smile.
It started as mild flirting. He was working, and at some point mentioned going out for drinks after his shift — it had been a rough night, a rough week. Tipsy, bold, and confident, I handed him my phone and told him to put his number in. He had a few hours left on his shift and we still had girls’ night going strong. Now all of us were giggling over the guy I was already texting. I mentioned we’d be out for a while if he wanted to come have a drink with us nearby. He agreed — but in that same message, said it plainly: “I’m married. I understand if that’s a deal breaker or makes you uncomfortable.”
It rushed to my head that I hadn’t even looked for a ring. Hadn’t even noticed. My friend had, but held no judgment. This is where I should have said ooop, full stop. But tipsy, lonely, and — let’s be honest — horny after three years, I didn’t. I figured a drink or a hookup wasn’t that serious. I’d probably never see him again. I wasn’t looking for anything real. We ended up chatting for hours at the bar. We didn’t hook up that night. He asked if he could kiss me, and it felt electric.
The next couple of days we just talked. Then the hookup happened — and it was phenomenal. It continued to be. And somewhere along the way, it stopped being just sex.
A few months after meeting him, I went through an intense, rough patch. I had no one, and he was my rock through all of it. Then he went through his own rough patch, and I became his. We got closer. We became best friends. Underneath everything else, that’s what we built — a genuine closeness. He was able to see me almost every day, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for three, because things at home were just that way. She wasn’t present. I have no place to speak on the specifics of their dynamic, but that was the reality. Over the course of that year and a half, we even managed a couple of overnights, some actual dates. And during all of that time, she had never been intimate with him — not once. That had already been the case before I ever came into the picture.
What started as a hookup became so much more. Feelings happened — for both of us. His, ironically, came first. Then, about six months ago, I woke up to the text: “She’s gone through our messages.”
My stomach dropped. Panic, heartbreak, worry, guilt, anxiety — every emotion hit me at once, and I still had a full day of work ahead of me. I knew I couldn’t text him. I had no idea what was happening on his end. For all I knew, it was over and I was just waiting to find out. I swallowed the tears threatening to pour out of me and went to work.
By the end of my shift, a few messages were waiting. The gist of all of them: It’s going to be okay. I’m convincing her you’re just a really close friend I’m not willing to cut out of my life.
And that’s where the numbing started. The quiet heartbreak. The loneliness. Everyone knows how this realistically goes, right? She leaves him, or he leaves me. But instead, a third thing happened. Some might call that a win — and maybe it was, in some version of things. But it hit me like a brick wall. He chose her. I had always known he would. I had said a million times over that year and a half that I never actually wanted him to leave his wife. But somewhere along the way, some part of me had quietly decided it wanted more of him than was ever available — and that moment made it impossible to ignore.
And now I was going to see him less. A lot less.
What had been almost every day became maybe once a week, or a quick stop on his way home. We managed. But it pulled at me constantly. Every cancellation, every time he couldn’t make it, was just another reminder that he hadn’t chosen me — that while I spent my nights alone, wishing he was there to cuddle with me, wishing I could spend my days off building something with him, he was going home and building with someone else.
That feeling kept growing. Slowly, but it grew.
Things at home eventually settled a little. She was convinced we were just friends. Life found a fragile kind of rhythm again. Then, about three weeks ago — round two. She went through his phone again.
The fighting started back up. He was still trying to see me and being honest with her about it, telling her he wasn’t letting me go. But every single week for the last few weeks, on the one day we’d make plans, she would start a fight or try to call the shots on our time together.
Last week, I broke. I tried to end things. I laid it all out — how hard it was to stay while knowing he was working on things with her, how I didn’t have a future with him, how I was just wasting time. All the emotions I imagine so many people in this situation have felt. I didn’t end things, but I did let him know that emotionally, I needed to step back a little and allow myself to be open to something else, someone else, whatever that might look like.
He took it okay.
We made plans again — third week in a row, because third time’s the charm, right? That was supposed to be last night.
After all the drama, all the tears, all the back and forth of the last few weeks, I had been looking forward to it more than I could say. We weren’t even going out — just staying in. A movie we’d been saving to watch together, snacks, cuddling, maybe finally being close again after a month and a half of nothing. All week, it was the one thing we were both holding onto.
Then, an hour before, she started a fight. Threatened that he shouldn’t even bother coming home.
And so I did what I always do. No, it’s okay. Go home. Go fix things.
If you made it to the end of this, thank you. Truly. This is the first time I’ve laid it all out in one place, and it’s a lot. I’m not here looking for judgment — I know the situation well enough to judge it myself. I’m here because some feelings can only be understood by someone who’s lived them, and I think a lot of you know exactly what I mean. I’m looking forward to getting to know this space and the women in it. It’s nice to finally be somewhere I don’t have to explain myself from the beginning
