(M) 33

Regular lifter, frequent sidebar reader and regular contributor.

I make good money, have an exciting which also helps me get laid on a regular basis (3-4, multiple plates, etc).

The thing I am struggling with the past creeping up and affecting my present, and it’s not necessarily woman related.

Flash back 11 years ago, I was in an LTR of 5 Years at the time (I was 22, she was 21). We both worked in retail in college at the time, and I felt I had my shit together (LTR, nice car, owned a house).

During that time a group of guys (ex frat, late twenties early thirties), who worked with me, actively pursued my girlfriend.

They also constantly tested me. I was young, skinny, and played video games and they were cool, bar crawling roommates who had game.

Eventually, my LTR cheated with one of them, and eventually ended the 6.5 year relationship over text, and eventually confessing she need to find herself (we know what that means).

She got a new boyfriend within the year and I think they are married now. I went no-contact and haven’t seen or spoken since 2008-09.

Flash forward to 2018, I learned how to meditate and through meditation I have had epiphanies regarding my current mental and emotional shortcomings. I was able to dig deeper and a huge part of my mental is scarred by the interaction I had with those men, and how inadequate I felt.

I am sure there are other reasons but that one situation has been sticking out. No matter who I lay, threesomes, etc. does not shake that feeling.

My job, my passions, there has been this lingering in the background that I am not fully a man, and I am lacking the self actualization despite any successes (leadership positions, being married at one point, success through my passions, increased physique).

I have logically written the situation off as hypergamy mixed with seeing blood in the water, and every makes sense but the feeling inadequacy has never fully left and If course running through 100+ women in a year hasn’t shaken the feeling I allowed those guys to project on me.

TL:DR - Haunted by a series of interactions with older alpha males while being young and have had the feelings of inadequacy linger or creep back into my dampening my feeling of being a man no matter the success.