I just dumped a really great guy, who's been one of my best friends for over a year, to take another chance with my ex.
You're probably already judging me for this and thinking that I'm making a stupid naive choice. I haven't told most of my friends (who are mutual friends with the two of us) but I'm sure they'll think the same thing. I guess some background would be good:
I'm a current sophomore in college. Last summer I started talking to this guy that I knew through extracurriculars - we really hit it off, talked almost every night, realized that we had mutual romantic feelings for each other. We decided to try having a relationship even though the following semester (last semester) he was studying abroad. So all of last semester was a weird, semi-official long-distance relationship. It was hard for me because I really liked him, we had a lot of things in common, the few times I did visit him was amazing. But he was also dealing with a lot of mental health problems which made him often emotionally unavailable and unwilling to commit to having anything this spring once he came back to school. Eventually, after not being in touch for a few weeks, he told me that he needed to figure his life out and wasn't sure if he wanted to be in a relationship anymore. This came as a bit of a shock to me and I was very upset for the remainder of the holidays. When this spring semester started I felt like I was finally starting to get over him. This was also complicated by the fact that the guy I just dumped, one of my best friends at the time, was obviously romantically interested in me. He is a great guy, very sweet and loyal and probably more than I deserve. A month into the semester we went on a date and I decided to give it a try since I thought I was over my ex. The sex was good, I still felt like he's one of my best friends, I certainly had a few doubts since I didn't want to ruin our friendship if it didn't work out, but I decided to take that risk.
Meanwhile, my ex came back from abroad and I still saw him a lot since we're in the same extracurricular clubs and we share a lot of mutual friends. I thought that we were all over the relationship and fine with being friends. However, last week he confessed to me that he still has a lot of feelings for me, that he was going through a really rough time in his life when he broke up with me, and that he is doing better, regrets it, and wants to get back together. After talking to him and some people who know both of us, I think that he genuinely means this and really wants to put in the effort to try again.
Ever since this, I couldn't stop thinking about him and what we could have had. Even though the long-distance relationship had its ups and downs, we had so much in common and I feel like we were really compatible and could honestly have a good relationship if we started over.
I'm just feeling so guilty about breaking up with my best friend since I don't have a great reason, he's done nothing wrong and he's been nothing but sweet and great and he really likes me and wants this to work out and since he doesn't know much about my ex except the negative stuff I sometimes told him last semester, he just doesn't understand. I know nobody feels sure about relationships in the beginning, but I've just been feeling less and less sure about whether I actually want to date him versus going back to how we were just as great friends and I feel like this will only get worse with time. I realize that it'll be almost impossible to stay close friends, and it's too late now but I find myself wishing that I'd taken the time to think about this more and not risk our friendship on this chance of dating.
I know nobody can ever tell which guy would work out better or if I'll regret breaking up with my friend to take a chance on my ex, but any thoughts on this are greatly appreciated.