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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40079
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

To answer the actual question that you asked:

> how do I, who have grown attached to both of the characters and want them both to succeed, do so in a way that doesn't seem like I'm settling for one or the other?

by walking yourself and the reader through the process. Being in love with two women can be nerve-wracking and leave you in exactly this position you find yourself in: Frozen, unable to decide anything, stuck between the chairs.

Explore this feeling in your MC. Make him go through the decision process again and again and again. Show his pain, because you have a version of that pain in yourself. Bring it out into your story.

And then here is how it will end: Either by walking through the process, a decision will appear, a clear path will emerge from the fog and triumphantly, you and your MC both take it.

...or it ends in desaster because the girls won't wait forever and if he can't make up his mind, time and things happening will take them both away.

...or if you have a path for yourself that doesn't fit for your MC (e.g. you prefer one girl because you just find it easier to write her) then external circumstances make the decision for the MC. A sudden death by accident can take one of the girls, the other comforts him and he ends up with her but there's this nagging feeling if maybe he should have been with the other... well, you know, you basically set up a sequel where that conflict will be explored.

Original score: 6