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I think I'm a terrible person.
Mertzy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Long story short, last night, while not exactly in my normal state of mind, I fooled around with this girl I met at a party. We talked for a while and subtle indications followed, mainly from her, but we wound up together on the outskirts of the property on which the party took place. Nothing "serious" went down, but it happened. I told her right off the bat that I was already in a relationship, but something kept us going, and while both of us would acknowledge the predicament from time to time, neither of us really stopped.
The terrible part, as some may have already guessed, is that I currently have a girlfriend. I've been in a long distance relationship for about a year now (first 3 months an hour apart, next 9 with her in another state for college.) She's coming home at the end of the semester and is actually coming back home for good.
With this I should have been content. I should have been committed and ready to welcome her home after having waited faithfully so long, and then some shit like this happens, and I don't even know what to think of myself. I'm very much confused right now and yet, I find myself searching for a guilt or disgust that I'm having trouble finding. I've been on depression medication for 6 months now and think it might have something to do with my detachment, but this seems like just another excuse I'm giving myself.
A few weeks ago I actually met another girl at a weekend retreat I went to with a school program. Nothing happened between us, we had a good time talking and walking around, but I felt myself falling in love again or something like that, and this is where my confusion started. I felt like I did when my current girlfriend and I first started dating. It was refreshing, revitalizing, and overall an addicting feeling///
I was absolutely devoted to my long-distance relationship. I was in love with her and confident we would be together and then the retreat happened and I was made aware of how fast someone can have a change of heart.
What the hell do I do? How should I be feeling? I've never really been in relationships before and I'm at a loss of ether of these. I really used to pride myself for not being someone who does things like this, but now its done with and I'm feeling a bit hollow, or maybe I'm just telling myself that to feel better.
The terrible part, as some may have already guessed, is that I currently have a girlfriend. I've been in a long distance relationship for about a year now (first 3 months an hour apart, next 9 with her in another state for college.) She's coming home at the end of the semester and is actually coming back home for good.
With this I should have been content. I should have been committed and ready to welcome her home after having waited faithfully so long, and then some shit like this happens, and I don't even know what to think of myself. I'm very much confused right now and yet, I find myself searching for a guilt or disgust that I'm having trouble finding. I've been on depression medication for 6 months now and think it might have something to do with my detachment, but this seems like just another excuse I'm giving myself.
A few weeks ago I actually met another girl at a weekend retreat I went to with a school program. Nothing happened between us, we had a good time talking and walking around, but I felt myself falling in love again or something like that, and this is where my confusion started. I felt like I did when my current girlfriend and I first started dating. It was refreshing, revitalizing, and overall an addicting feeling///
I was absolutely devoted to my long-distance relationship. I was in love with her and confident we would be together and then the retreat happened and I was made aware of how fast someone can have a change of heart.
What the hell do I do? How should I be feeling? I've never really been in relationships before and I'm at a loss of ether of these. I really used to pride myself for not being someone who does things like this, but now its done with and I'm feeling a bit hollow, or maybe I'm just telling myself that to feel better.
THE END.
Mertzy on
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DO NOT TELL HER ANYTHING!
Telling will not do anything good for her and certainly not for your relationship. Her knowing will not make her life better.
You did a stupid thing and you need to either:
A. Suck it up as a lesson and take that as punishment keeping it to your self.
B. Decide it happened because you're seeking for a way out of the relationship. Tell you're GF the long distance thing is not working and that you're breaking up.
I have to strongly disagree with this advice if you see yourself with your current girlfriend in a very serious relationship anywhere down the road.
If you do not tell her, you might not be lying, but you're founding your relationship on the lack of trust. She might not know it, and you'll be safe for a time, but talking about it with her can open up a lot of things that you might need to discuss anyway. She might commend you for honesty, and you will not have a nagging feeling of disappointment in yourself.
This is ultimately your decision, but I would suggest talking about it, it could turn out for the better.
Also, nice avatar.
Bolded for emphasis. She also MIGHT NOT forgive you and you'll have destroyed something you've worked to hold onto for months. Relationships aren't perfect, and if you want to take a chance on throwing this one out the window for a single mistake, that's up to you. I think you'll regret it.
As someone who's been in a long-distance relationship, this is stupid. Your relationship was already FOUNDED when you were together. Whether you like it or not, the relationship has essentially been on hold. Talking about it will open up things - feelings of doubt, self-doubt, longing, and regret for not being there that she has probably been feeling the whole time. This will just bring all that crap to the surface, instead of letting it be washed away by the time you'll spend together when she comes home for good.
Long-distance relationships aren't easy, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's made mistakes as well - would you really want to know if she'd made the same mistake? While long phone calls and good feelings are great they don't replace the CLOSENESS in which relationships form and thrive. Mistakes happen, you still care about her enough to feel really bad about it, so let it go.
I am in no way saying that it's all right to go around making out with and sleeping with anyone you want - what I AM saying is that relationships form through physical closeness and affection - The one you have with your girlfriend started the same way, right? Stuff happens between men and women, especially at your age, which we don't always feel great about. You've made the mistake and regret it, which shows you actually have a soul and care about your girlfriend - Don't throw that out the window to make yourself feel better. Your guilt is making you delusional - she doesn't want to know, and if she ever thinks she does it's to make the pain of thinking of you with another woman mean something worthwhile.
I'd say wait until she gets home, see how things go, and if things aren't great or where you think they should be, end it. And never tell her.
No.
Tell her.
You fucked up, it's time to man up and face the consequences. If she decides she never wants to see you again, good, you deserve it. Move on and try not to cheat on the next one. It's not fair to her to go on like nothing happened. If the roles were reversed, would you really be fine if she just didn't tell you?
Technically speaking, of course he would be fine if she didn't tell him, because he wouldn't know.
Its not something to be commended, and its not something to repeat. Its also not that big of a deal.
She doesn't need to know unless you really feel that you can't forgive yourself for making a stupid mistake.
Just because he cheated once doesn't mean he doesn't love his current girlfriend.
I can never decide whether a SO should be told or not when one cheats, but it is certainly true that relationships can - and in many cases, should - hold after the truth comes out.
I'm assuming that "fooling around" is closer to making out than fucking. If that's the case, then you need to carefully consider your options. These sorts of things are very fact sensitive, and there's no clear answer, despite what the other posters have been saying. On the one hand, yes, you've damaged the trust in the relationship. That's bad. But it's not, as some people are implying, the end of all things. You may be able to repair the trust by never doing anything like that again. And she doesn't need to know in order for the trust to be rebuilt. As long as you're faithful and loyal for the rest of the relationship, both of you can be happy. You definitely should not tell her just to "get it off your chest". The guilt you feel is something you have to bear on your own, as a consequence of your actions.
However, you need to consider the kind of person your girlfriend is. Some people, like me, would prefer not to know if their significant other made a mistake and engaged in some light cheating (i.e. kissing someone else). Other people obviously feel the opposite. If your girlfriend is the sort of person who would want to know, regardless of how difficult receiving the news is, then you should tell her. This is doubly true if she could find out what happened from someone else. In fact, if you think she's going to find out one way or another, then no matter what she would like, you should tell her, because it's almost certain that if she has to find out from someone, she'd rather it be you. I know that pragmatic concerns such as these may seem a bit distasteful in this kind of situation, but you have to consider them. It's not to say that "it's only wrong if you get caught", but the specific manner of atonement depends a lot on your and her specific circumstances.
There's no chance of an STD, no chance of a pregnancy, so no reason to mention it at all if she's not going to find out.
No, more like there are lots of ways to right a wrong. If OP really loves his girlfriend and wants to continue this relationship, I'd consider it fairly even if he made sure for the rest of their time together he beared in mind how close he came to ruining such a wonderful thing. And with that in mind, treated her and every moment they get to spend together like gold.
Why did you two originally stick together? Was it because there were a lot of deep connections and shared history? Were you into the same things in a way that made the relationship joyful? Or did you two stay together over the last 9 months because it was easy, and you figured you liked each other enough?
You've already been exposed to two other girls who are apparently at least as interesting as your current girlfriend, to the point that you didn't really give it a second thought when you were kissing one of them. While a kiss is nice, it doesn't make you a terrible person. What it does make you is someone who doubts his original relationship.
That's just how I feel about it.
As far as the whole "how to feel" thing goes, I'm kind of conflicted on how to read your situation, so I'll just leave that to other people.
But, I have also never had a relationship, so I think that means you should do the opposite of whatever my instinct is.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think it would suck more to be in a relationship built on lies (even lies of omission) than to end the relationship when I found out my partner was cheating.
I'm pretty sure that's what he's saying.
No, it's the opposite. Hiding information is the opposite of telling her so that she can decide whether to continue the relationship.
Which means I shouldn't have even posted. But I was surprised at the number of people advocating a definitive "keep it from her" attitude and felt like supporting the other side.
Because she deserves to know. Exclusivity doesn't mean "exclusivity unless you hear I cheated on you."
You are not a terrible person in my opinion -- unless you continue with your GF and hide this. It does not matter if it was getting laid, kissing, or just holding hands. You have admitted you were in a long term relationship. To me, that is defined as exclusivity unless otherwise specified between you and your GF. Not telling her is a betrayal of trust. That betrayal is not limited to just her -- you betrayed yourself and the committment you made.
This will test your relationship. It may make it stronger, it may end it. Either way -- you will feel better because you have not hid it. Everyone lies and I think we all know how much harder it can be to continue and/or hide a lie. I would hate to see this event come out in an argument years from now because you bottled it up for so long.
Maybe that pain is something he'd think of at the next party, reminding him not to do it again?
If he's able to lose himself in certain moments of attraction, it is conceivable a similar situation could arise in the future - and the only prior experience he can call upon is that something like this already happened and has to be hidden from her. I can easily see temporary lust steering an internal rationalization like "Well this probably would upset her, but because we never broached the subject I don't know FOR SURE if it's a big deal or not". He should have a clear concept of how this behaviour affects his relationship and partner, and then live according to a desire to either satisfy them or break them off.
Isn't shielding yourself from learning how much something bothers your partner just as selfish a move?
I don't mean to sound patronizing, but in my opinion, I just think telling her and being open about it will help things in the long run, and might even make your relationship much better.
Hopefully you've learned what a shitty thing this is that you've done and won't make the same mistake twice.
PSN = Wicker86 ________ Gamertag = Wicker86
Here's the problem with this line of thinking. When you cheat on someone and then "come clean", you're shoving the responsibility of determining consequences off on the person you cheated on. You're saying, "I cheated, how are you going to deal with it?"
Kate of Lokys wrote a post on this subject that has stuck with me since I read it. Her hypothesis is that if you're the person who cheated, you have an obligation to do whatever hurts least the person you cheated on. If she can live the rest of her life blissfully unaware, the OP would be doing unnecessary harm by telling her. If there's a good likelihood that she's going to find out, though, she needs to find out in the way that will cause her the least amount of emotional anguish.
It's naive at best to assume that honesty is always the best policy. In this particular situation, the truth can do nothing but hurt a girl at a time when she's very vulnerable. Discretion, on the other hand, results in nobody getting hurt, except maybe for the OP internalizing his guilt over this and learning his lesson.
Am I being Machiavellian about this? Sure. But the alternative is to wreck a relationship and cause an innocent person needless pain over something as trivial as a makeout session. The OP sounds like he realizes he fucked up, and this doesn't sound like it went past first base (so there are no STD/Pregnancy risks here), so the "right thing" here is sparing his girlfriend's feelings by being discreet, then never repeating this mistake.
That's just it. She does not deserve to know because letting her know means pain, hurt feelings and nothing good for her. What she deserves is a partner that is faithful but that is out the window so lets examine the situation.
1. There was fooling around - once. Not sex, not ongoing planed for black op with a ton of lies or anything close.
2. The guilty party knows it was wrong and has learned how wrong it feels so it will not happen again.
3. Exactly what good will come from telling other than the wrong doer get it of his chest? NOTHING!
I have had a GF tell me about a dance at a party that went a bit to far. Was I glad she told me. Did it make me trust her more afterwards. Did I really believe she told me the full version. 3xNO!!!
Honestly as long as we are talking a moment of kissing/groping and so I would be much happier not knowing. With no feeling just real heavy flirting it does not mean anything but making something that must be confessed changes that - suddenly there are a lot of feelings. Hurt feelings plus if it did not matter then why go through the whole "I need to tell you...I'm so sorry...I will never happen again...It meant nothing..."-routine.
OP - seriously. DO NOT TELL. Just remember the feeling so it will never happen again.
are you a bad boyfriend? probably. are you a terrible person? no way. clearly you feel remorse about what you did, and everyone makes some kinds of mistakes in relationships - it's how we grow as people.
Whether or not you tell her at this point seems kind of arbitrary, because to me it sounds like you were tired of her/the long distance thing anyway. This also doesn't make you a terrible person. Sorry I'm not giving you straight up advice. I fall into the selfish camp, if you can't live with the guilt of hiding it, you should tell her.
Now, Eggy has brought up a few things that the OP should probably have a good think about. Take your time with this.
It would seem we disagree fundamentally. If the relationship is to continue then she needs to know. If he's going to break it off anyhow then you're right - he doesn't need to tell her. Honesty may not always be the best policy, but there is more to consider here than "will it hurt her?" It sounds like this is the type of thing that is eating OP up inside. He needs to tell her just as much (probably moreso) than she needs to hear it. If I were OP I wouldn't be able to not tell her. Because relationships are built on trust. If I cheat and don't tell her all that is telling ME is that I can not be trusted.
And I would want to be told. Cheating is a deal-breaker for me. I would be infinitely more pissed if I somehow found out later than if my wife/girlfriend just came out and told me.
For what it's worth, I only think the OP is a terrible person if: 1) the relationship is exclusive, and 2) he continues it without telling her he cheated.
This. There could be a chance somebody finds out and lets your girlfriend know, and at that point she realizes that not only are you dishonest, but you treat things like this as if they don't matter. Analyze what matters to you in the relationship and if fidelity is one of those things, I'd really suggest telling her.
Making out with somebody is not insignificant, and depending on the person, she might want to know the truth, even if it hurts.
EDIT: I'm really starting to sound like a broken record here, but I stand by my point. If it were me, I'd tell, that's my opinion on the matter. I hope this works out for you OP.
So he needs to break his girlfriend's heart and inflict pain on her that'll lead to permanent trust issues so he doesn't have to feel bad about what he did? Bullshit.
And I'm with BlindZenDriver 100%, if my fiancée made out with someone at a party, I'd be infinitely happier not knowing about it.
I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who's been cheated on more than once. There's a time and place for honesty about this kind of stuff, and now is not that time. The OP is just going to inflict a lot of needless hurt by telling her, and he's going to prevent a lot of needless hurt by shutting his damn fool mouth.