Accidentally being someone’s emotional affair
Hello, I would be really grateful for any kind of advice as i don’t know how to operate this situation.
I would like to point out that I have never been in any kind of romantic nor sexual relationship with a man and have identified as asexual since my early teens. Ive never been on a date, kissed anyone etc.
Sexual activities and being percived in a sexual way repulses me very much. The only “relationship“ I’ve ever been in was with another girl during 8th grade. It lasted only few weeks as we were afraid that our parents will find out and our community isn't very inclusive and all that changed in our relationship was that we called each other girlfriends but I don’t consider myself lesbian and in the past I imagined that I might find a partner wether that would be man or woman if the relationship would be platonic.
Im not using my sexuality as any kind of excuse for potencial harm i have coused but i still think that it is importand to point out for the whole story. I understand that people can do bad things without intending to do so and that it doesn’t make it a lesser evil like If someone kills accidentally that still makes them murderer.
A few years ago (I was 18 at the time), whilst on a university work placement abroad, I became friends – or so I thought – with a group of guys (aged 18–22). In the group I was working in, all the other women were already PhD students, so I spent much less time with them. After classes and work, we’d play cards or watch films together, and at the weekends we’d go on trips with our professors. It was my first experience in this field, and at the time I really enjoyed the sense of belonging to a community that this several-month-long internship gave me as I grew up rather sheltered with mostly 1-1 friends and never having a bigger friend group wich I always dreamed of as I read a lot of found family books when I was in my teens. I considered everyone
A few weeks after I left, one of the guys I’ve met there (aged 19 or 20 i dont know excatly but he was year above me) started messaging me outside of our groupchat about what I thought were purely friendly matters, such as ,,You’ll never guess who’s just got a job at …” or “I wanted to brag that I managed to get a ticket for that band’s concert” or sending me memes and things like that I was responding how I would to any other of my friends without thinking much about it.
It didn’t strike me as suspicious at the time, as I simply considered him a friend. Shortly afterwards, however, he began sending very long messages about his mental health, domestic violence, addiction problems, a failed suicide attempt and his fear of losing his girlfriend; all of this was very general, however, with no specific details, even though the messages were very long.
At the time, I truly believed that it was right thing to do to reply to these messages and thought I was acting like a good friend and as anyone should in such a situation. I’ve faced various mental health problems myself (Im diagnosed with audhd, and severe anxiety disorder) and was myself suicidal when I was younger so I was aware that other people even listening to your problems can be life saving.
I told him to see a psychologist or psychiatrist (we are from different parts of the country so I didn’t send him any particular facilities addresses but I send him some phone numbers to mental health institutions) as im not in any way capable of handling such matters properly and that i don’t know him enough for my advices to be anything apart from general clichés. I also asked why he was writing to me about this rather than to his girlfriend (I knew he had one), to which he replied that she was not the sort of person who would understand such matters and that he was afraid that, because of his deteriorating condition, she would leave him, and as he said loved her very much and wanted to avoid that. He was at the same time telling me how much he loves her and what an awful person she is wich was weird but I only knew as much as he was telling me and was afraid that this would end in some kind of tragedy.
Now I know that it is absolute idiocy on my part for still writing to him after him talking about his girlfriend in degrading way but at a time i for some reason really believed that he is hurt and also really wanted to believe in this image of being part of this group of friends wich I romanticised to much in my head. i don’t know how I could be this dumb even considering the fact that I don’t have much experience with man in general (prior to this internship i had some guy friends but if they had girlfriends I also was friends with those girls, and all of those friendships were not very close).
The messages stopped coming after about 2-3 weeks. I was a bit worried that he’d hurt himself, but at the time I was also busy with family issues, so most of the time my mind was on other things. I also asked other friends from the internship if they knew anything about him, but they weren’t aware of his problems at all, so I didn’t discuss it further with them, as I was afraid I shouldn’t bring up the subject at all. He messaged me again few month later accusing me of trying to seduce me wich made me truly astonished as it was absolutely not the kind of massage I was expectin. he told me that I was lovebombing him by being so very nice and always responding and that it was clear signs of my interest in him and that I was messing with his head and tried to ruin his relationship and that I’m his emotional affair (at a time I didn’t know those terms but after googling it I realised that it is probably what me talking with him was, he was telling me about his problems all the time and probably hide it from his girlfriend and I’ve never even once considered that he might be lying to me when complaining about stuff she was doing to him) Ive considered trying to find his girlfriends social media to apologise or show her all of our conversations So if he’s lying to her about what he was writing to me she would know but I don’t even know her name.
I was truly shocked after he wrote that to me and didn’t know what to answer to that so I said sorry that anything I ever said made you feel like I’m interested in you in any way and that I won’t be messeging him ever again. But that wasn’t probably the best was to handle it but I’ve never had nor ever even heard of anyone going through something similar and for some weeks after that I vas in denial that it all must have been some kind of misunderstanding.
I showed the messages we’d exchanged to my friends and they said there was nothing inappropriate in them from my part and that he was trauma bonding, but I’m worried they might be downplaying my fault because they want to reassure me in some way and because I’m the shy, childish friend in their heads and they are not capable of seeing me as a bad person Because I have them tricked somehow. I feel like a fraud like I can no longer belive my own thoughts and I’m the worst person to ever existed, I feel the need to tell this story to every person im ever geting to know so they would be coucious with me. I’m afraid that I would accidentally seduce other man. It was few years ago yet its the only thing I can thing about I feel like I can no longer consider myself a woman as by angaging with this guy I betreyed Womanhood. It was really selfish from me because maybe I know that deep down I just really wanted to feel useful and believe in a picture of a perfect fiend group I’m part of (I’ve overestimated the whole thing with those friends from internship in my head probably)
if I never for a second even considered this man a potential partner but when I think about me being asexual maybe this is the worst thing I could ever done as I would never kiss anyone or anything further. Thinking that he might have thought about me in a romantic way makes me want to reap my skin off and when I thinking about me being the reason some dude cheated emotionally on his girlfriend I simply want to kill myself wich I can’t do because I have responsibilities for my family jet it’s the only thing I think of each every second of my life since then. even if I move to another country, the field of science I’m involved in is so narrow that I won’t be able to avoid running into him or having to work with him; I don’t want to give up this career but I consider it more often know, I’ve worked very hard for my education but what I’ve done even unknowingly is simply unforgivable according to my morals. every time I’m meeting him since then I feel like I’m escalating this situation as I try to talk it through but I always freeze when I see this man and feel like I’m incapable of even saying one word and like all of my insides are dying I feel like he’s playing some game with wich I don’t know the rules for as he’s always makes some weird remarks when we are in the same room like he’s saying something to someone else but in a way that would make me specifically uncomfortable and I’m starting to genuinely feel scared of him but at the same time I dont want to make myself a victim of this situation as I brought it all upon myself also sometimes when I see him doing something super normal like taing his shoe i cannot bring myself to think badly about him but then I see him bragging about being in multiple relationships at once and i know that instead of helping anyone by talking to him I was adding to his ego and completely misread his character I also know that he’s making rumors about me sleeping with basically everyone but I know that it deserved (I’ve never told him about being asexual as I’ve never thought it was relevant) I sometimes cant bring myself do leave my apartment even tho I know he’s in a different city I basically mostly just want to stop existing Im not writing this couse I want pity or anything Im really afraid of hurting people in the future I’ve done some other selfish things in life I’m afraid that I might be covered narcisst or psychopath and I’ve asked about it my therapist once before this whole situation and she said that I’m not that smart to trick her and that I’m none of this things but that was before this situation so if she knew that maybe she would diagnose me differently and I feel like at this point I tricked even myself and absolutely don’t know what is true in my head sometimes i convince myself that I actually flirted with this guy and I compulsively read all messages we ever exchanged so I know that I didn’t wrote anything like that but then I’m afraid that I did and that I deleted messages and convinced myself that that never happened and then I see some messages when he tells me some vague compliment and it makes me realise how dumb I em for never seeing trough it but then Im realising that even when I wasnt saying anything I considered inappropriate simply talking to him after he was talking badly about his girlfriend was enough to make me fully responsible
i feel dumb ashamed dirty an used but at the same time I know my fault I just don’t know how to make it right
how should I deal with this situation? at a moment I don’t have money for a therapist and I would be so very grateful for any form of advice, does anyone gone through anything similar?
is it possible to ever live again with this much shame and guilt? I truly cannot end my life at this moment I have family members who need me but this situation and thinking constantly about it all makes me incapable of being a useful daughter wich I know is appropriate punishment but im making even more bad deeds by not helping my family as I should