[zebulla]

Hello,
I seem to have this problem of falling in love, or sex with as many women as possible. I am 23 and for the last 2 years I have had 2 girlfriends, now I have 3, in reality I only want one as it is very hard on my conscience and time to try and spend as much time as possible with all of them. It happens alot that one will want to do something while I am already booked with another.. then they get really sad and wonder why I dont want to spend anytime with them. That in return makes me feel like [censored]. I only want one, but I have no idea who, and I dont want to hurt them by leaving them because I know they are madly in love with me.
My first girlfreind who I have been with for 5 years I met when we where in high school, and I moved here to sweden from california to be with her. However from the moment I got here everything went to [censored] and we where fighting constantly, she had gotten rather heavy, and on top of all that I couldnt leave her because I had no place to go.. and no will or money to go back to california. So instead I put up with all the [censored] and started going out and meeting new women.. and that is where the next problem comes in, .. I fell in love with somebody else. (by the same name to make things even more interesting) she is tall, blonde and absolutly beautiful. We hit it off directly, the first night we met we had sex, I promised myself not to call her afterwards and to only leave as that.. but I couldnt stop, and I called her, and we met more and more.. and now I have a full relationship with her, and have had one for 2 years. .. and for a little while I was satisfied with thinking of her as my only girlfreind, but the whole time, everynight I was still going home and pretending to be my first girlfriends boyfriend.. really difficult to do. But I still could not leave her as I didnt want to break her heart, and a part of me was still in love with her. Perhaps her memory at the time. No idea.
Anyway, during this whole time I still felt unsatisfied or perhaps lonely (as it is very lonely not being able to show someone you love them, or going out in public and being able to introduce them to your freinds out of fear of hurting someone else) and went out looking for new women, not for a relationship but for sex, and only sex.
So now I have two woman madly in love with me, and still dont have the balls to end it with my first girlfriend, nor do I really want to end it with her. well, 2 years later and I am still with my first and second girlfriends and things are going great between both. . I have a great relationship with both, but still a feeling of being lonely when I am with them.. even when we are together doing something I feel a bit of loneliness, yet at the sametime there are days when I feel so madly in love with one that I never want to end it..
anyway, as if this was not a big enough problem by itself, I met a new girl who I am slowly falling in love with, and we do many things together and I can introduce her to some of my friends because I am freinds with her friends. But I know the only reason I am falling in love with her is because she is new and interesting. she is very sexy, but not the best in bed, or maybe she is, just not with me.. anyway, everyday I tell myself that I need to end it with her (girl 3) as that just seems downright horrible and if nothing else greedy. But at the sametime she seems to feel my last need of just feeling loved in someway, I am never lonely with her, and we always seem to be able to talk about things. But again I know that is just because she is new.. every relationship starts off really damn good.. and I beginning to wonder if that is the only thing I like about a relationship.. the newness and excitement.. because I am terrified of commitment, yet at the sametime I dont want to hurt anyone..

Please help somebody, and I mean real honest help and not just flaming.. I already know this is horrible I dont need to be reminded of it..
I am looking for any advice att all.. something real.

Thank you in advance

[mj14]

I have actually been in a similar situation to yours. I was once engaged to a man I did not love, but he said he would kill himself if I ever left him. So instead of "hurting" him, I pursued other relationships with men. But eventually he found out about one of the other men, which hurt him much more than my breaking up with him would have. Also, even that did not make him leave me, so I did finally have to break up with him myself.

Now I don't know if you are feeling the same way I was, but I can tell you that in my case, even though I justified it by saying I didn't want to hurt him, it was really my own feelings I was protecting...I didn't want to do something that made me feel like the bad one. Even though cheating was a worse action, it didn't involve any confrontation, so it didn't make me feel as bad.

I think it is very important for you to thnk about why you cannot be happy with one woman, and why you don't feel able to leave a woman when you are no longer happy with her (from the way you wrote, you do not have much loving feeling left for your first girlfriend). Often, this involves some need for validation, from outside yourself. And there are things you can do to work on self-validation that can lessen this need.

But when it really comes down to it, the only way to change your actions and your behavior is simply to discipline yourself to do it. If you want to play the field, and see lots of women, that's ok...but it is extremely unfair (and possibly dangerous) for you to pretend you have an exclusive relationship when you don't. So you have some very hard decisions to make, and then some very hard actions to fulfill. It will be hard, because it goes against your natural inclination...I know this myself from experience...but I don't think you can work on redefining your relationship with women and with yourself while you are working so hard to maintain all of these pretenses.

Also, a therapist should be able to help you work some of these issues out.

Good luck, and I hope you can find your way to a more fulfilling life.

mj

[jennie]

without honesty, you are hurting yourself and each woman you are involved with.

i have had many relationships in the past. many have lost my interest for various reasons. many of them i still love today. building a relationship is about compromises. you must decide!!!! what compromises are acceptable to you??? is it all about the sex or passion or is it all about looks or how she makes you feel, etc??? (most of those qualities change so hopefully you have great conversations with whomever you choose.) everyone is different and no one can tell you who is your best mate. thing is, you are letting yourself get into multiple relationships without deciding anything. some women are okay with sharing a man...some are not. you will have to choose. why would you pursue another woman if the one you were with were the one for you? (((Huggs))) ...i wish you the best!!!!!!!!!