Cheating

klandry15

My boyfriend & I have been together almost 3 years now. this past summer i cheated on him & the day after i told him what i did & broke it off because i felt ashamed & i felt like he wouldnt wanna stay with a cheater, he then found a new girlfriend & 3 months later he dumped her & should up at my house when talked about working on things and starting out as friends and if it goes well becoming a couple again. we got back together in september & in the beggining of December i went thru his phone to find text messages confirming he cheated on me. he hid it from me until i found the text message, he then decided to break up with me and then we procceeded to get back together a couple days later.. new years eve he proposed to me & i said yes. my issue is that i have tons of emotions and thoughts going thru my head. I feel like were abusing this word called love. we really do love eachother and wanna work past things but theres so many questions that i want to know. like how do i know he really loves me and he just is doing all this because in the end he doesnt wanna be alone. & was him cheating on me connected with me cheating on him first? & are we dumb for staying together and getting engaged? im honestly scared that hes gonna think since i took him back if he does it again that i will continue to take him back. ive made it very clear if he ever cheats on me or talks to the girl or sees the girl he cheated on me with ever again we are over & hes said the same to me when i cheated. i just dont understand how a man go thru getting cheated on and he saw what it did to us and the pain it brought to the both of us and broke us up for 3 months and how he could go and say please never hurt me again kayla thats all i ever ask and then sure enough he does it to me.. at the end of the day i honestly feel this is all my fault. i feel like if i would have never cheated on him that he would of never cheated on me. i feel like i deserved it.. i just feel that everyone deserves a second chance but if they repeat their mistakes then thats when you put a stop to things, but so many people on articles i read say differnt and say that fixing a realationship after cheating is a waste of time.. idk. thoughts please?

Mim

If you're both old enough and can afford it, couple's therapy. If you're both super young, you might want to let this relationship go. If you can't trust him, and he can't trust you, then there's no real good reason to stay together.

minirhyder

With the level of trust you have in the current state of the relationship (hint: it's low to non-existent), I would stay away from any life changing decisions together for at least a few years.

ceres

If the rest of your relationship is really good and you love each other, but just want to sleep with other people sometimes, you could consider an open relationship. The trust HAS to be there though. If you can't trust each other that will implode quickly.

Xaquin

don't get engaged or get married.

If you're super serious, get couples counseling. If that's too big of a leap for either of you than drop the whole thing.

look at it this way.

Couples counseling is the price of a copay +/- and an hour a session.

Marriage is tying together all of your love, trust, finances, lively hood, and etc. with one person (supposedly for the rest of your life).

If you two can't make it to a few sessions of couples counseling, you can't make it through a marriage.

Jean Claude Van Calm

I would advise extreme caution with the "together - break - together - break - marriage" rhythm. Some people seem to think a proposal is the ultimate bandage for a broken trust. It makes sense to think that the highest display of commitment and affection can overcome past issues, unfortunately it rarely works out that way.

I'd recommend not only counseling but a healthy dose of time before you make any big decisions, same as others have said.

schuss

Marriage ain't shit but a legal status, when you get down to it. If you think people are any different married than they are as normal partners (BF/GF), they aren't.

Enc

The fact you have both cheated on each other and expect anything to change after only a few months should be warning sign enough that you shouldn't be engaged. Marriage may not be a huge thing these days, but it can have huge ramifications on everything from your possessions to credit score, not to mention your social lives and general expectations from people around you. Rushing into marriage as a means to stop cheating or prove commitment is probably the worst possible way to show either of those things, all that says is the partner is desperate to lock you both together without showing they have the intention of playing it straight.

After a year or two without cheating, that's when marriage should be a factor. It's an important rite of passage, but one you really only need once things like hospital visitation rights and insurance premiums are more contentious issues than faithfulness.

naporeon

schuss wrote: »

Marriage ain't shit but a legal status, when you get down to it. If you think people are any different married than they are as normal partners (BF/GF), they aren't.

100% agreed, but disentangling yourself from a failed marriage can be extremely complicated. So while the married vs non-married status itself may not change anything, the dissolving of a marriage sure as hell does.

Holler

-

Jean Claude Van Calm

Holler wrote: »

That all said, I honestly find the fact that his answer to all of this was proposing instead of actually talking to you about it to be frighteningly immature and a honestly a bigger red flag to me than the cheating. Definitely backtrack on this proposal, whatever else you do, and if he won't go to couples counseling, dump him flat out.

This is the way I meant my original post to sound. As someone who, like schuss, agrees parts of marriage are overblown hoo haw, and as someone who has been divorced - It's extremely difficult to overlook all the deep meaningful bonding of marriage as it relates to the cray cray of love, and it sounds like the proposal is a hail mary toss to prove that the relationship will work. No one here knows the inner workings of your relationship so it's not fair to say toss it out, I know for a fact practically any crazy combination or arrangement of people can work for them.

It's just that you should be careful of avoiding a bandaid marriage, cause as hard as it is to overlook all the squishy feels of love and marriage, it's way harder to overlook a divorce from a marriage you shoulda never jumped into cause you wanted to fix your relationship. Trust me.

Edit reiterate: Be Careful, seek guidance from an outside source, for the love of all that is pizza flavored - Take your time to gain perspective of this situation.

Mortious

Xaquin wrote: »

don't get engaged or get married.

If you're super serious, get couples counseling. If that's too big of a leap for either of you than drop the whole thing.

look at it this way.

Couples counseling is the price of a copay +/- and an hour a session.

Marriage is tying together all of your love, trust, finances, lively hood, and etc. with one person (supposedly for the rest of your life).

If you two can't make it to a few sessions of couples counseling, you can't make it through a marriage.

Couple's counseling is good, even with a healthy relationship.

Nothing wrong with being engaged though. It's fun, and doesn't have any real legal weight, and no expiry date.

tinwhiskers

Some advice:

1) You may not want to put your real name in your post, which I'm guessing you did based on your user name.

2) The enter key and the shift key were put on there for a reason, don't let them feel unloved.

3) Don't get married. That is like slapping a bandaid over your relationship, except removing a bandaid generally doesn't involve lawyers. This advice x1000 if the word 'kid' is kicking around in your head anywhere.

4) Just end it, between the cheating, the snooping on each other, etc you two do not have a functional relationship.

klandry15

Thanks everybody. I'm going to speak with him about things tommorow. I never once said I was jumping into a marriage. I plan to be engaged to him for at least 2 years to make sure that we can manage to trust again & making sure there's no more cheating or lies. We have lived together mostly the entire 2 and a half years together & managed quite well minus the cheating.. since all this has happened my minds been a little wobbly to figure out if continuing this relationship is even healthy. But we do love each other & both want things to work out.. I understand trust is key in a relationship and if we continue to feel like we can't trust one another down the road like a year then I can see ending it as the best response. Thank you all for your advice. & I do agree on proposing to me being immature.. I feel more hurt he tried to hide it from me than to tell me he cheated. I'm not trying to say I am better than him but I did admit to cheating the next day. I sometimes wonder if he cheated because I cheated on him.. idk..

BouwsT

klandry15 wrote: »

...I never once said I was jumping into a marriage....

Aren't the words used to initiate an engagement typically, "Will you marry me?" I think that's why everybody jumped to that conclusion, and were very quick to suggest what they have.

Otherwise, I mirror an earlier post of Xaquin.

Xaquin wrote: »

don't get engaged or get married.

If you're super serious, get couples counseling. If that's too big of a leap for either of you than drop the whole thing.

look at it this way.

Couples counseling is the price of a copay +/- and an hour a session.

Marriage is tying together all of your love, trust, finances, lively hood, and etc. with one person (supposedly for the rest of your life).

If you two can't make it to a few sessions of couples counseling, you can't make it through a marriage.

hoodie13

Get yourself some therapy too, I think. The correst response to a guy asking you to marry him after months of you two spying and swapping infidelity is NOT "yes." Regardless of why this guy did what he did or how he acted when you cheated, some therapy can help you figure out how to process both your and his actions.

Also, just break up already. This relationship sounds toxic, no matter if you think you're in love with him or not. If in a year or two you think you've got things figured out, THEN get back together with him. Don't just stay stuck in the mud while you try to determine if you actually do trust him (all while still being "engaged"? yikes).

Pinfeldorf

To me, it actually sounds like you two are polyamorous and don't want to address that part of the equation. Couple's counseling is definitely the course of action I would recommend.

But then there's the immediate red flag of you snooping through his phone. If any ex of mine was snooping through my phone, for any reason, that is such an immediate and unrequited breach of trust I'm not sure I'd ever be able to get over it.

ceres

I pretty much agree with Pinfeldorf on all counts.

V1m

klandry15 wrote: »

My boyfriend & I have been together almost 3 years now. this past summer i cheated on him & the day after i told him what i did & broke it off because i felt ashamed & i felt like he wouldnt wanna stay with a cheater, he then found a new girlfriend & 3 months later he dumped her & should up at my house when talked about working on things and starting out as friends and if it goes well becoming a couple again. we got back together in september & in the beggining of December i went thru his phone to find text messages confirming he cheated on me. he hid it from me until i found the text message, he then decided to break up with me and then we procceeded to get back together a couple days later.. new years eve he proposed to me & i said yes. my issue is that i have tons of emotions and thoughts going thru my head. I feel like were abusing this word called love. we really do love eachother and wanna work past things but theres so many questions that i want to know. like how do i know he really loves me and he just is doing all this because in the end he doesnt wanna be alone. & was him cheating on me connected with me cheating on him first? & are we dumb for staying together and getting engaged? im honestly scared that hes gonna think since i took him back if he does it again that i will continue to take him back. ive made it very clear if he ever cheats on me or talks to the girl or sees the girl he cheated on me with ever again we are over & hes said the same to me when i cheated. i just dont understand how a man go thru getting cheated on and he saw what it did to us and the pain it brought to the both of us and broke us up for 3 months and how he could go and say please never hurt me again kayla thats all i ever ask and then sure enough he does it to me.. at the end of the day i honestly feel this is all my fault. i feel like if i would have never cheated on him that he would of never cheated on me. i feel like i deserved it.. i just feel that everyone deserves a second chance but if they repeat their mistakes then thats when you put a stop to things, but so many people on articles i read say differnt and say that fixing a realationship after cheating is a waste of time.. idk. thoughts please?

Don't do that any more. As soon as you start doing things like that you're not in a 'relationship' any more, because there is now zero trust involved.

As for your current situation, take a step back and consider honestly whether you really trust him not to hurt you any more. Because you sure don't sound very certain to me. And then ask yourself if you really think he'll ever be able to bring himself to trust you? Because you don't sound very certain of that, either.

Why not just ask him for a week or two to think about things, and see how you both feel then.