2 Guys, 1 Girl & Sleepless Nights of Guilt

Dear Dee:
There are two guys who I broke up with who don't care if I hurt them or not.

Believe it or not, they have the same ideas about fighting for someone they love. I can't stand it really. I can't sleep, I have panic attacks and mostly the worst thing is, I have severe guilt.

I didn't know what I wanted when I broke up with boy #1, and decided finding a nicer guy might be good. So I dated this new guy and his feelings were strong from the beginning. I knew that wasn't good, and didn't trust my intuition to back off and not let it get serious. But I stayed with the new guy because I found out guy #1 was doing some really stupid things.

But time went on, and I needed resolution from guy # 1, since we dated 4 years. He would leave notes on my car would try to get in touch with me all the time. One day I gave in and they both found out about each other.

Now they are both hurt and fighting for me to win me over. I feel like blowing up at both of them because its hard for me to say how I feel without fear and guilt. Do I stick it out with guy #2 and let the stress heighten? If that's what I should do, how do I tell persistant guy #1 I cant do this. Why is it so hard?

This is a mess, because you let it become a mess. You let this get out of hand and you kinda jerked these two guys around. There's no question about that.

And you've already hurt them and caused bitterness between two individuals who actually, don't seem like they're the um friendliest and most stable of guys emotionally. It really sounds like this could end very badly if you don't handle it correctly. So you need to act decisively and with authority.

Very plainly, you shouldn't be in a relationship with either of these boys, since you can't sort out your feelings or what you want. And since you can't seem to be honest with either of them or yourself.

You need to get your crud together, get back on track emotionally -- and after you've normalized for awhile, then try a relationship. You've got some growing up to do in how to deal with commitment and understanding what's right and wrong in a relationship. Furthermore, you need to figure out what YOU did wrong this time around and how you can avoid it in the future.

It won't be easy, but it's the smart thing to do: Get these two to stop fighting, tell them you can't be involved with either of them and that you need time. And take a step back. Get yourself sorted out then go from there.

Hey everyone makes relationship mistakes. I do it all the time. In fact, I spend more time apologizing than anything else -- but the trick here is to know what you've done wrong, fix it and learn from it. If you can do that after you've sorted through this mess, then great. If not, then wait until you can before getting into another relationship. You can clean this up -- it might just take a few hundred bandages and maybe a little scotch tape to do it.