I’m Afraid to Want Anything With My Twin Flame

I spent so much time letting go, I’m not sure I know how to do anything else at this point

Nat and I aren’t “together” anymore. In fact, we haven’t been for almost two years, but he’s still my Twin Flame, and we are still very close — although it did take some time to get back there after our rather dramatic break-up in 2021. During that time, I taught myself how to let go of expectations and to release attachment because the alternative was to be in a significant amount of emotional pain. It was a good place to get to, but things have recently changed rather suddenly, and I’m not exactly sure what I’m really up for at this point.

My husband James is my primary partner, and I love him very much. Our life together means the world to me, but Nat is also very important to me. I don’t just love him as a (former) partner — to me, he’s actually a part of my family. That’s because the Twin Flame connection is a cosmic one, and Nat will always be a part of me, no matter what. We are from the same source — whatever that means.

When I met Nat in 2015, it was like encountering someone I’ve always loved but didn’t even realize I was missing. I initially didn’t find him all that attractive, but I still felt somehow drawn to meet him. Our first kiss was magnetic and all-consuming. He bruised my lips because of the intensity of it. James and I had just recently opened up our marriage and he was someone that we got together to play with. The guys weren’t into each other but we all liked the idea of an MFM threesome and we all definitely had an amazing time together.

We dated for a while, but Nat was also married, and although he and his wife had kind of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement, it put a lot of strain on ours to never be able to be above board about things. Although it definitely took James some time to adjust to the fact that I loved someone else in addition to him, he was nearly always supportive and tried to be understanding of our unusual connection.

While I definitely understood that Nat’s family was his main priority, because my family with James is also mine, it was hard to feel at times like I was a dirty little secret. After a few months, the intensity of what was happening to us combined with the pressures of trying to make it work under those circumstances meant that Nat and I broke up.

We didn’t even know about the whole Twin Flame (TF) thing at that time, so we didn’t have any frame of reference. Learning about that later helped immensely because we have gone through a lot of the classic stages, but it’s still quite an emotionally intense experience that can create a lot of disruption. In some ways, it was helpful that James and I moved away a few months after things ended with Nat, although we did still keep in touch — only rarely at first, and then progressively more and more.

It’s quite typical for TFs to go in and out of each other’s lives, and never quite be able to make it work in any conventional sense. Despite the strong attraction and profound connection, the TF relationship is both challenging and healing by cosmic design. It pushes you to face your wounds, fears, and shadow self and your TF is both the source of many of the challenges as well as the one who often helps you to overcome them.

This stuff is truly not for the faint of heart, and it’s definitely not the fairy tale love that it is sometimes portrayed as in the popular imagination. From my perspective, if you’re doing it right, it becomes less about the other person and more about your own journey of growth and healing. Time spent apart is to make a space for that to take place. But that doesn’t mean that the love or deep connection fades or that it doesn’t hurt to be apart.

After the first break-up, Nat and I took about a year to really find our way back to each other. We were talking the whole time, but still wary and not sure what we were going to be to each other. Not having the stress of trying to schedule regular in-person visits helped since we now lived far apart, although twice when James and I were back in the area, we tried to get together, and it just never seemed to work. That was really hard. I felt like we were meant to be in each other’s lives, but that we kept being thwarted for some reason.

Fast forward to today, after Nat and I rekindled our romance long-distance it kept progressing nicely, but after about 5 years, it blew up in our faces. The ways that we are very different and go about being in a relationship quite differently became painfully apparent. He was dealing with some pressures at home, with his parents, work, and his kid’s busy schedules. I was increasingly unhappy about the “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing, particularly since that had been a major factor in why prior visits hadn’t worked out. For me, a big part of polyamory is the openness and honesty and he wasn’t able to give me that. So, two summers ago, we broke up again, in a rather spectacular fashion.

But still, we couldn’t go out of each other’s lives completely because of how profound the soul connection is. We stayed in touch — somewhat sporadically at first and then more and more after he made it clear to me that he really missed me and wanted to be connected to me. About two months ago, we had just had a very transparent and honest conversation about how it didn’t seem like there would ever be room for Us in this life, but that we would always be more than friends, always have that romantic connection taking place — perhaps on some other plane, if not on this one.

A week later, his wife died suddenly and very unexpectedly.

Naturally, he’s still in shock and still navigating the everyday aspects of grief, so we’re not talking about how this affects our relationship at this point. But it is something that I feel is on the horizon. We talk often now, and I’m the one who is really supporting him through this difficult time, just letting him be wherever he needs to be in the grief process. His daughter is graduating this year, so there’s all the stress of her mother not being there for prom, and these other milestones.

I’m the one who got him through his wife’s breast cancer a few years ago. That isn’t what she died from, and this made it all the more shocking and unexpected. Everyone thought she was out of the woods, and then this.

I’m the one who got him through his childhood friend’s breast cancer death while his wife was still undergoing treatment because it was too close to home for her. Nat is my family in my heart. I’m more than happy to be there for him and to support him in any way that he needs. I hate that this happened to him, even though it potentially makes some things easier between us.

But after doing so much work to distance myself from the feeling of wanting him in that way, I’m not entirely sure that I want to open that door again. It may not even be on the table. Maybe I’m being premature here, but we are very, very close right now. I’m really showing him my love through my actions. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to think that given the intensity of the Twin Flame dynamic, we might be drawn together again.

And I don’t really know how I feel about that. Part of me would welcome it because, of course, I love him, but part of me is afraid to go back to that place where I probably can’t be as unattached with no expectations as I am right now. It’s a weird curve ball that the Universe has thrown us and I really don’t know what’s going to happen next.

It’s probably going to be some time before he’s ready to even think about anything but his grief, but eventually, that day will come. What then? I guess we’ll all have to wait and see.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2023