Let me get this out of the way: I am a certified idiot. I took a bad situation and made it much, much worse. I know all this.
I am recently divorced. I have not dated in 20 years. I recently met a wonderful woman on-line. We have gone on two dates so far and spend hours and hours on the phone. I am falling for her in a way that scares me very much.
On the second date, she confessed something about her past. (It doesn’t matter what.) She seemed very worried about my reaction to this. I tried to reassure her by telling her that my (female) roommate had once done something very similar and that I was completely OK with that. She seemed relieved and the rest of the evening went great.
Later I started feeling bad for sharing my roommate’s story with my date. I told my roommate what I had done. She asked for more information and I ended up telling her what my date had told me.
Later yet I started feeling bad for sharing my date’s story with my roommate and confessed to my date what I had done.
She is now very upset with me and may never see me again. I have of course explained my actions, apologized profusely, and groveled appropriately. I desperately want to make this right with her but I’m not sure what else to do.
As you know, you technically shouldn’t have told either’s story to the other. But you did. You made a mistake and you appear to be truly sorry. People make mistakes - we’re human. I’d try to impress on the date again, if she’ll listen, that you are really honestly sorry, you just didn’t think, you did a stupid thing, you apologize, etc., and hope she can get past it. There’s not much else you can do. Maybe sending flowers with a written note could help. Good luck - I hope it works out for you.
As hajario said, there’s really nothing you can do to get past this. If she feels she can’t trust you now, then she’s probably not going to want to continue pursuing a relationship with you. The early stages of a relationship are when it’s easiest to pull the plug if you see red flags (which you should do also, by the way), so this really may be the end of it.
The best you can do is learn and move on. You’re probably in serious rebound mode right now, so this may be the best thing for you – it’s natural to fall hard for the first person you date after a serious relationship, since they’re new and exciting and don’t appear to have any of the flaws of your last relationship.
Hopefully, you’ve learned two important lessons:
Don’t give away your friends’ secrets to make a woman feel better about telling you hers. If you do, don’t give away a woman’s secrets to try to make things even.
If you reveal someone else’s secret, decide if confessing to them is really for their benefit or if you’re simply trying to absolve yourself of guilt. If you tell it to someone who doesn’t know them and may not meet them, it’s not really the same thing as telling all your mutual friends.
That’s truly bizarre. Could you elaborate a little on your compulsion to tell people these things? Telling your roommate’s story would have even been ok, if you hadn’t identified her. So what made you identify her? You can apologize to the date, and make it clear that you will never go around telling stories about her again (and stick to that) but beyond that, there’s nothing to be done. Meanwhile, don’t go around telling personal stories for no reason, and don’t go confessing things just to relieve your own guilt. Especially if you can’t confess things without telling personal stories for no reason.
Is it possible this woman is jealous of your close relationship with your roommate? A budding relationship can bring out the insecurities in the most confident woman. Speaking for myself, I would be very disconcerted to learn that a potential love was sharing my intimate details with another woman. I would be thinking “Whoa! Are there three of us in this relationship? Is he going to share everything with her? Who’s opinion matters more, hers or mine?”
I suggest a sincere contrite apology. Tell her truthfully how you’ve been beating yourself up over this. And something along the lines of “I think about you all the time and I want to talk about you all the time too and that stuff just came out” might help. And try to assure her that she is the alpha female.
Good luck. If I were a bettin’ woman I’d give you two to one that she’ll get over it.
I’m not exactly sure, because, as mentioned above, I am an idiot – but I don’t think “I would rather put everything on hold” and “I am dropping out of the dating scene for a while” are a good sign.
I’ve been talking to my friends, who tell me it is fairly common for the first date after a divorce to have such a dramatic effect. I just didn’t expect her to have such a dramatic effect on me. She’s a very special woman indeed.
Oh well, you live and hopefully you learn. Let’s hope I don’t do anything quite so stupid next time around.
I’m interested to know what the big secret was, or at least the general ballpark- was it something sexual? Illegal? Immoral? Etc.
I can understand her freaking out if it’s something truly heinous, or something that would humiliating to any person in any context. But it could be something only slightly salacious that she shouldn’t be that worried about keeping a secret anyway.
Funny, I’ve had those exact concerns about virtually all of my longterm girlfriends. For some reason, they just can’t help but tell their best friends crap I mistakenly thought was private.
I think the nature matters (but don’t tell us! Do not compound the situation!) because if she admitted she cheated on a spelling test in fourth grade, it’s an overreaction on her part, whereas if she enjoys eating puppies, even if you’re ok with that, I would understand a strong desire to keep it secret.
But yeah, you’re an idiot. Not a big idiot, and the good news is that while it’s a thoughtless act you committed, you recognize that it was dumb and can stop. Telling your date that you once knew someone who cheated on a spelling test/ate puppies is, to me, fine and dandy, as long as you didn’t give away identifying details. It’s the confession afterwards that seems just completely insane to me. And then the confession of the confession.
Don’t confess things. It may be some sort of relief, but as you’ve seen, it only adds to your problems in the end. Don’t confess things, that is, if they’re sufficiently minor that the person is very unlikely to ever be hurt by what you did.
I mean, what you did was seriously dumb, but people do seriously dumb things. The best you can do is not make the same mistakes again. Whatever is behind your compulsion to confess things, now you’ll have something to remind you of the bad results. It’ll also prevent you from ‘unloading’ your own guilt at the expense of someone else’s emotional well-being.
Well, you could console yourself with having learned this lesson without having to first get confined to an inpatient treatment facility. I grant this is at best very cold comfort, but it is some.
How much do I owe you?