When love feels conflicting: I (24M) feel very conflicted about having romantic feelings towards 22F. How do I overcome this?
I met a wonderful woman (22F) a few months ago, we are long distance, which is convenient due to my anxiety towards romance. We are very compatible in terms of goals, values, dynamic and sexual preferences but I still feel conflicted.
I (24M) have lived majority of my life being disinterested in romance, partially due to being raised in a very christian environment (I am no longer religious though). It was only 2-3 years ago where I became interested in pursuing relationships with anyone but I still can't help but feel like having romantic or even sexual feelings is inherently wrong.
I care deeply about her and I do have romantic feelings for her, I just feel extremely guilty about them. It feels like pursuing this would warp my identity and take away my purity.
Of course this has put a strain in our connection since she does ultimately want to enter a relationship with me. We communicate a lot and she is aware of the situation and trying to be as patient and understanding as possible, which I appreciate.
I told her I'd try to figure things out and be as transparent as possible with her but everytime I think about this whole thing I can't come to a definitive conclusion.
How do I figure this out? I'd hate making her wait and hurting her in the process but it also feels ingenuine to enter a relationship where I'm this scared of who I will become. I know it's on me.
Has anyone else overcome this or had similar experiences? How did you decide?