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Once More: Relationships!
flapjack
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm rather shell-shocked at the moment and don't really know where to begin, so I guess I'll jump in stream-of-consciousness style.
I've been dating someone for a bit over two years now. She has an apartment and I live with her, though I'm not on the lease.
Well, earlier this evening I found out that she cheated on me a couple weeks ago. She was with a friend, they both had too much to drink (I've already said that isn't a very good excuse), and ended up messing around. Her friend is female, and from what I understand the extent of the fooling around was, to try and keep this somewhat clean, making out and fingerplay. She wasn't the one who came on to the other, but she also went along with it.
This all came to a head because girl #2 worked for my girlfriend. I say worked for because earlier today she called my girlfriend's boss, had a conversation about what transpired, and now my girlfriend is out of a job. So, she's kind of a total bitch. Lesson learned, I suppose.
For the sake of disclosure, I will say that at the time they fooled around our relationship was going through a rough patch. In addition, girlfriend is being treated for some rather serious depression and anxiety issues. I'm not trying to make excuses for her admittedly wholly inappropriate behavior, just trying to present the information.
I haven't really done anything about the situation other than say that my trust in her is pretty well shaken and I don't know how long it's going to take for that to work itself out. She is rather apologetic and upset, saying that she's willing to do anything and wait however long is necessary for me to trust her again. I've already said I don't know what it will take. Other than that, I haven't said a whole lot of anything, in regards to any of the information I've been presented tonight. I feel pretty hurt and vulnerable and my brain isn't keeping thoughts together too well, so I decided that keeping my mouth shut was probably the smartest course of action.
Any situational advice would be appreciated; bonus points if you've been in a similar situation before. Sorry if this is slightly incoherent!
I've been dating someone for a bit over two years now. She has an apartment and I live with her, though I'm not on the lease.
Well, earlier this evening I found out that she cheated on me a couple weeks ago. She was with a friend, they both had too much to drink (I've already said that isn't a very good excuse), and ended up messing around. Her friend is female, and from what I understand the extent of the fooling around was, to try and keep this somewhat clean, making out and fingerplay. She wasn't the one who came on to the other, but she also went along with it.
This all came to a head because girl #2 worked for my girlfriend. I say worked for because earlier today she called my girlfriend's boss, had a conversation about what transpired, and now my girlfriend is out of a job. So, she's kind of a total bitch. Lesson learned, I suppose.
For the sake of disclosure, I will say that at the time they fooled around our relationship was going through a rough patch. In addition, girlfriend is being treated for some rather serious depression and anxiety issues. I'm not trying to make excuses for her admittedly wholly inappropriate behavior, just trying to present the information.
I haven't really done anything about the situation other than say that my trust in her is pretty well shaken and I don't know how long it's going to take for that to work itself out. She is rather apologetic and upset, saying that she's willing to do anything and wait however long is necessary for me to trust her again. I've already said I don't know what it will take. Other than that, I haven't said a whole lot of anything, in regards to any of the information I've been presented tonight. I feel pretty hurt and vulnerable and my brain isn't keeping thoughts together too well, so I decided that keeping my mouth shut was probably the smartest course of action.
Any situational advice would be appreciated; bonus points if you've been in a similar situation before. Sorry if this is slightly incoherent!
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Obviously, fooling around on you has come back to bite her in the ass in a rather unpleasant way, so I would think that would make her less likely to do it in the future.
I don't have much advice, but you didn't seem to note whether you want to continue things or not.
1. If you believe you can truly well and forgive her, that you can eventually trust her again, and that you want to keep the relationship, then move on and continue the relationship.
2. If you don't believe you can forgive her, or will never fully be able to trust her again, or just don't want to do the work involved to keep the relationship, then break it off.
In nerdspeak, notice that the first conditional is basically a long string of AND operators, and the second conditional is a long string of OR operators. These are not coincidences.
It really took me a while to understand what it means to be lesbian / bisexual / straight. It doesn't exclusively mean "would I hit that?" It means can "I connect with that gender on an emotional / physical level in a way that feels whole and natural?"
Part of being a lesbian or bisexual means being able to form that kind of relationship with the people of that gender. Your girlfriend might not even be bisexual, and neither should that give you cause for being upset. Sex can be just sex, no strings attached, especially under the influence of alcohol. It doesn't mean she can't still love you or that she might have a thing for girls.
Here are things that have helped me:
1) Don't ever, ever try to confront the other girl about what happened. This has almost nothing to do with her, a little to do with your girlfriend and everything to do with you. On that note,
2) You are allowed to be selfish to protect yourself until you're comfortable again. That means asking her if she's going out to drink, who she'll be with, when she expects to be back. Those kinds of questions are invasive to a person who's done nothing wrong, but she has done something wrong.
3) In the event you tell her you forgive her, you have to actually mean it. It means that you can never use it as an argument or bring it up when you're upset. It has to be rendered almost ineffectual in your mind. If you can't do this, you should tell her instead of stringing her along with the promise of possibly forgiving her in the future, maybe.
4) Understand that you found out about the cheating under circumstances she couldn't hide. The chances of her telling you about a future cheating scenario are next to 0, but the chances of her doing it again are much less. She will be asking even more trust from you in the future.
Other than that, sorry it happened to you too
Bitterness and advice are not a good combination.
Again, Thanatos got it.
Maybe you're right but I've seen too many women in the last couple months stomp on their guys hearts so to speak. In each case the worst of it came just after the girl profusely apologizes. My faith in women is pretty low at the moment.
Bitterness is all some of us have left.
I don't know you, and I won't judge... but if it keeps happening to you, perhaps it's time to look at what it is about you in that dynamic that needs to change. Not that it's your fault, but you are the only constant and the only thing you have control over.
Then again, if it did happen to me, who's to say my anger wouldn't overcome my senses and I walk.
I applaud you for not saying anything at all and thinking it through.
You say it's your GF and marriage may not be in the cards at all but maybe some pre-marital type counseling might help.
In helping you come to grips with what happened, the more you know the better. And I'm not talking gory details of what they did together (I for one could do without hearing all that) but more like:
Why did she think it was ok to make out with someone else?
Is it something I wasn't doing that made her look elsewhere?
Why wouldn't she talk to you about her being attracted to women?
And tons of other stuff I can't think of right now.
It's easy to say "get counseling" and I say it a lot but damn if just talking to someone doesn't help.
Out of curiousity how did you find out? I guess she had to tell you why she got fired?
I haven't dated for years since my first GF cheated on me with my best friend. Maybe it was my fault but she is adamant that it wasn't.
The particular instance that happened too me recently was more of a mental health issue on her part but she could have handled the situation better and we've since stopped talking. I was more of an experiment in normality for her or something I don't know.
So that's 2 for me in the span of so many years so it's not exactly a very large sample size from which to draw a anything; however I've seen no less than 4 relationships break up in similar circumstances in the last couple of months and in every case it's the girl cheating on the guy.
It's certainly possible that I only know terrible people but still it's enough to make me stop and take notice.
Most recent being this little scenario
Friend: Hey I met this girl she's cool
Girl: Hey I like you, can I live with you?
Friend: Sure!
*They go out for 4 months then Girl is found out to be seeing OldBoyfriend*
Friend: Hey I'm pretty upset over this
*All of Friends, Friends tell Friend to dump Girl, once a cheater always a cheater, I tell friend she's had a hard life that might have lead to issues breaking off relationships. Friend agrees and tells all of his friends to butt out because Girl says she is really sorry and wants to work stuff out and she loves him. Girl and Friend take ~2 months to get back to good after the event.*
Girl: Hey OldBoyFriend I really love you but I don't want to be kicked out so lets see each other behind Friends back!
*Que another horrible fight and breakup only this time Friend feels like a jackass because he believed Girls bull and stuck up for her even after she cheated on him once already.*
Like I said this is probably the 4th relationship going down the same path as others I've seen recently and all of them do nothing for my faith in women.
I know not all women are like this but it seems the only type anyone in my immediate area are hooking up with. Yes I'm bitter.
Here's the thing: if each of us were to judge every member of the opposite sex based on the precedents established by our previous boyfriends or girlfriends, none of us would ever date again. Because in almost all cases, something happened that caused the relationship to fail, and it was probably pretty sucky. You have to get past that and trust someone again. Maybe that means forgiving your signficant other. Maybe that means finding someone new you can trust. I'm pretty sure, though, that "dying alone" wasn't one of the options the OP was considering, so a rationalized form of misogyny isn't particularly helpful.
for some reason I like Zushiba's bitterness but, yeah, this is limed for a reason: