Repeating a cycle and i want to break it

[NotAmonster]

Hello everyone, im honestly at a low point rn and hopefully can find usefull things here because ... i feel like shit and this cant go on.

Obligatory 25 y/o male

Ive recently gone through the third iterartion of a sexual behaviour cycle im sick of that involves the following:
1 finding a female friend sexually atractive.
2 making advances towards her and hitting it off .
3 plan and have a consensual sexual encounter with her and or propose a FWB arrangement(CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH ***NO PENETRATIVE SEX***) .
4 have a brief period in which i feel like James Bond. Confident, charismatic, atractive and sexy.
5 have a panic attack and stess over the emotional implications i.e What if she catches feelings and i cant offer her a relationship? What if I catch feelings and she just wanted some quick fun? What if we have sex and i dont like it (a topic for another day)? What if we have sex and she gets pregnant? (again, for another day).

Oh god. Did I just use her for her body? Am I an abuser? A deviant?

6 call it off and ask for some time to think it over.

7 resume the spiral described in step 5.

8 come back but this time having gone through 14 million possible futures and made contingency plans for each one.

9 turn her off with how paranoid ive become and the relationship sours.

This particular time i went through this cycle twice with this girl, lets call blue. Which is particularly problematic because she is friends with my best friend, and im sure if she found out i played with her friend's feelings she'd be pissed and pull away from me... and i dont know what i would do without her.

I feel like a pice of shit. Like i played with Blue's feelings despite both of us agreeing that we wouldnt date each other and that this was just some fun experimenting between friends.

Reading this out loud it... doesnt feel like the end of the world and thay i just fucked up and its time to give Blue some space and take a long hard look atmy self to fix my shity behaviour but ... i feel like im not worthy of forgiveness. I dont know how to explain it but it feels like this time shit will just collapse and its all my fault.

Any words of wisdom will be apreciated and a sincere thak you to anyone who made it this far.

Men will do everything except going to therapy (mainly because im broke and therapy is expensive).

[Anya]

Hey NotAmonster,

Welcome to the boards, we are happy to have you here.

What I'm hearing is that you are pretty used to this repetitive, frustrating, and recently pretty harmful cycle involving people you sexually engage with, and you'd like to talk through it and think about next steps.

First of all, I just want to say you are not alone in these kinds of worries regarding complex relationships and trying to navigate your own feelings and the feelings of others. We are generally not taught how to engage with others sexually outside of the most normative dating-to-marry framework which I'm sure you've noticed sure doesn't work for everyone. So those of us looking for the relationships that might actually fulfill us the most can sometimes mean a lot of building from the ground up. This can be a challenge for sure, but is by no means impossible.

The no. 1 biggest thing we can do for ourselves and our relationship partners generally is to communicate. I strongly urge you to voice these feelings to the person you're engaging with as it allows you to be on the same page. Because think about it, you're going to "spiral," as you say regardless, and during this time it seems like the person you're engaging with gets left out of any of this thinking, letting you further drift apart as a result. So letting that other person in on how all of this makes you feel acknowledges that these feelings exist and that they are valid in their own right, but also allows space for the other person to have some say over how the experience goes. Otherwise it does end up being pretty unilateral if you feel like you're the only one in the relationship who can or should make decisions over how it goes (even if that feeling stems from not wanting to get hurt first, or trying to avoid some situation and protect yourself). Sometimes, and unfortunately so (because it can be hard as hell), the best thing you can do really is to just allow yourself to be vulnerable with your relationship partner and communicate your feelings honestly.

Below i've linked some resources that you might find helpful for how to cope and go about this. Does any of this feel doable to you?

Be A Blabbermouth! The Whys, Whats And Hows Of Talking About Sex With A Partner
Quickies: Heathy Relationships
Casual...Cool? Making Choices About Casual Sex

[NotAmonster]

Thank you for being so wellcoming. Ive read the material you provided and... tho its all well and good my question is ... now what?

I find myself catastophising to hell and back and can come up with a million new outcomes that range from "ill probably see her again at the christmas party and it will be a little akward" to "my best friend will find out, give me the yelling of a life time and end our relationship because i couldnt keep it in my pants".

What is done is done and comunication has stopped for the moment. We havent blocked each other but we didnt leave in the best of terms.

A friend told me some time ago that my biggest flaw is that i dont know what i want and that confuses/hurts people.

I wish there were a way to know what people are going to do and act on that but sadly i broke my crystal ball last week.

Any way, thanks for the info and ill try to calm down. Whatever comes from this i have no other option than to face the consecuences. I just wish i could just stop speculating about what they will be.

Obligatory apologies for bad grammar and stuff. English is a funny lenguage with all the double letters.

[Heather]

Hey there. It is a funny language, thanks for working with us in it! Your grammar is fine, truly.

Can I ask if you've considered talking with your best friend about what happened openly instead of waiting for her to find out?

In terms of where things are with Blue, you say communication has stopped: do you mean that you have tried to continue it and she isn't replying or...?

In other words, the biggest pieces of what Anya offered have to do with communication. But I don't see you thinking about how to communicate, instead it sounds like that's something you're avoiding?

I do also want to offer then if and when we don't know what we want, that's another thing that it's always okay to be open and honest about. I don't think not knowing what you want will necessarily always be hurtful, but I do think that if you're not honest with people about your not knowing what you want when you don't know or aren't sure, that's where the hurt can come in.

[NotAmonster]

Wow, didnt expect to be talking to the site founder and director!

So point by point.
Regarding telling my friend ... i believe that would just speedrun the end of my most treasured relationship. I truly messed up and she is a person that doesnt take offenses like that lightly. Its a wonder we have been friends for as long as we have. Reading this out loud i believe my shame is talking right now, which funnly enough one of my greatest enemies. I cary alot of shame in regards to my sexual desires and this situation has me riddled with shame.

About communications with Blue we agreed to give each other space for a time, could be a few weeks, most likely a couple months just to allow time to do its thing.

And if it sounds like im avoiding yes, im a huge coward and avoiding is my specialty... im not proud of it... but it has worked before.

[Heather]

I am in our direct services every day like I have been for decades now!

Generally, most people are going to respond a lot better when you bring an issue to them openly and frankly rather than discovering you were either hoping they'd never find something out, or that you were waiting for them to discover whatever the thing is on their own. Because both of those options involve zero accountability, while bringing the issue up honestly involves being accountable. Accountability is really, really important in relationships, and not taking it is one of the surest ways to tank any relationship with anyone. Personally, if you care about this friendship, I'd bring this to her rather than not. If you want help with how you can do that, I'm happy to help you with it.

I understand what you mean now about Blue.

Being avoidant isn't something I'd describe as cowardly, because I don't think it usually is about a lack of courage, exactly. How we react to conflict is usually something we mostly learned as kids and has a lot to do with our family dynamics and the ways we intuitively learned to cope with whatever those are. People who learned to be avoidant generally did by getting poor responses to voiced needs or issues growing up.

But it, like some other coping mechanisms, obviously can create some real problems. It may "work" sometimes, but what it mostly does is allow you to be in any kind of relationship only so long as there aren't any issues or conflicts to resolve, and then when something like that crops up or is going to, and an avoidant person just won't address it or deal with it in any way, those relationships either kind of freeze in place, without being able to become anything deeper, just fizzle away slowly, implode or become laden with issues that are never resolved and tend to hurt everyone to some degree.

How do you feel about the idea of changing in this way, where you start to learn how to be more communicative and less avoidant?

[NotAmonster]

Well ... after thinking it over perhaps the best course of action is having an unconfortable conversation with my best friend about Blue's and I involvement with each other and how it ultimately ended.

Its going to suck but the thing about her is that, even tho she is a tough cookie i still do trust her with my life. Again its going to suck but the truth usually does.

Any tips on how to go about this?

And deeply deeply thank you for taking the time of day to talk with me. Ya'll fighting the good fight with this project.

[Heather]

Sounds like a pretty important friendship, and I agree that to value it, telling the truth is the way to go. And I'm glad we're able to help.

Have you two ever had a conversation about anything difficult before? If so, how did that go, and what would you say worked and what would you say went poorly or didn't seem to be a good thing?

[NotAmonster]

I dont know if we've ever had a tough conversation like the one that's going to go down, but we have seen each other through difficult situations, trusted each other with things we wouldnt say to many other people and had each others backs in school and other creative projects through the years, even went through an earthquake together.

She's not one for sugarcoating and is overall blunt and to the point, everything im not.

And regarding Blue. Is leaving it alone after agreeing to stop our interactions the way to go? I feel like its to late to do much else.

And again i cant thank you enough for this, it is trully helping.

[Heather]

I'm really glad to hear that. <3

So, it sounds to me like your best friend is probably someone who actually would appreciate direct communication. That's great. That given, I think it sounds like you can be pretty straightforward with her.

You know, unless I'm missing something in all this, I don't actually think you did anything wrong, here, honestly. My read of the situation is that you initiated an FWB and then got scared and called it off. That's not you doing something wrong, truly. It's okay to end or back out of an intimate relationship: asking for one doesn't obligate you to stay in it. I don't see you having played with anyone's feelings here, I really don't.

I think telling your friend that you want to tell her something you did with a friend of hers that you don't feel good about, even if no one did anything wrong per se, is the way to go. I'd let her know that while you feel nervous to be honest, you really value your friendship so you don't want to be avoidant. You can then explain what happened, like you did to us, and how you feel about it, and let her know you and Blue did not end on terrible terms and that right now, you're both just giving things some time before you talk again.

In terms of Blue, if you two agreed to a cooling off period, I'd honor that and just stick with it. Maybe in a couple weeks or so, you could leave her an apology for calling things off twice, and just own that you thought you could handle something that it turned off made you feel really stressed and worried. I'd tell her it isn't her fault, it was all your issues, and you're just really sorry you weren't able to handle things better. I think anything more than that is overkill: again, I don't see you having done anyone wrong here, you were just clumsy with this, you know? Then you can wish her well and let it go from there.

How do both of those suggestions feel?

[NotAmonster]

Holy cow! ... yeah that sounds like a plan.

I guess my anxiety is what was really eating me inside, cant say that its the first time.

And well, yeah you summarized it acurately, that is what happened, plus one encounter we did have but that was a good 10 months ago and as far as i can surmise we both left satisfied and happy.

Anyways, ill have to post an update after this all goes down. Here goes nothing, i guess.

[Heather]

I hope that you can also give yourself a break, here. Truly, I don't think you did anything wrong here, I really don't. Giving yourself such a hard time about this is of course only going to make you feel anxious and stressed. How about you try and let go of any beating up of yourself you have been doing around this, on top of having those conversations?

If you want, once you have had those conversations, I'd also be happy to talk with you to help you sort out what you do actually want and feel ready for when it comes to sexual partnership right now, and how you can seek that out in ways that feel like a better fit to you.

I hope these talks go well for you.