she cheated on me.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

First off: I’m a girl. My girlfriend’s a girl. Correct pronouns and all.

I know this board gets inundated with these threads… I apologize in advance. In my experience this is the best place to find objective advice.

A little background: I’ve been dating this girl for about a year & a half. She and I are basically perfect for each other-- we never fight, we’re completely in love, we have the relationship everyone else envies. We’ve talked about marriage & kids several times, something I’ve never felt comfortable doing with anyone else. It’s been a long-distance relationship from the beginning, except that she lived with me this past summer, which was beyond great.

Well, fast forward to three nights ago, which found me just shitbombed out of my mind drunk downtown with some friends. I remember very close to nothing from this night, but I apparently made out with a girl I work with. I took a day to think about it, felt like shit, and finally I called my girlfriend crying about it last night, telling her I was so sorry, I would never do that consciously, etc etc, honestly thinking she’d break up with me.

She didn’t. She was extremely understanding, said she’d never throw all this away for one drunken mistake, and not even a bad one at that. I told her how wonderful she was and that I didn’t deserve her… to which she eventually responded that actually, she was the one who didn’t deserve me. I heard something fucked up in that tone, and I asked her what she meant.

After she moved back to her home state at the end of summer, I had sensed some distance. We hardly talked at all for her always being over at her friends’ house. She started mentioning this guy who’d started hanging around over there a lot and hitting on her, saying he made her feel really uncomfortable. Of course I bristled at this, but I probably would’ve let it go if she hadn’t brought it up several times over the course of a few months. Finally she stopped mentioning his name and I pretty much stopped thinking about it.

In this conversation we had last night, she confessed that she slept with him once back in September. She says she was confused, she didn’t know whether she wanted to stay with me, she thought there might be something else out there for her. She says he was the first person she’d been attracted to since we started dating, she was a little tipsy, and it just happened. But apparently within 30 minutes of fucking him she knew she wanted to be with me forever. To add insult to injury, she informed me that she never knew I was her soulmate until after she fucked him.

She swears it was only once. She swears she would never ever do it again, she wants to marry me, I’m the only one she wants to be with. I ask her why, when I made it crystal fucking CLEAR to her that all she ever had to do if she felt like she wanted someone else was to tell me so I could give her the freedom to explore it, why the fuck she couldn’t tell me until I fucked up myself. She says because she’s selfish and didn’t want to face the consequences.

I feel disgusted. I cannot even conceive of how she could do this to me. I have literally no trust for her. And yet I can’t let her go. I love her with all my fucking heart and I can’t see my life without her in it. I feel so fucking betrayed… I can’t believe that this fucking douchebag got to touch her in the same way that I do, the way that I thought was reserved only for me for the rest of our lives. It makes me want to fucking vomit.

I don’t know what the hell to do. I feel like I can’t leave her, but I don’t see how I can ever stop visualizing this. I don’t know if I can ever get past it and I don’t want to spend my life torturing her. I love her too much to put her through hell for any reason.

I’m not sure what I want out of this thread. Advice, commiseration, blunt objects to the head… anything is better than this mental car crash.

2

Ouch; I feel for you.

She forgave you; can you not forgive her?

3

Moving thread from IMHO to MPSIMS.

4

If, in my 43 years of lesbianism I can glean something from my experience in regards to your dilemma, let me say this: You have something good going on. Don’t wreck it.

If you have to, see a counselor together to get the anger out. But let me just point out a few things:

If one night with that guy made her realize you were her soulmate, that’s a POSITIVE, not a negative. Believe me, not everyone comes to this conclusion easily, sometimes it takes a kick in the pants to get it from the subconscious into consciousness, and in her case the “cheating” was that kick. Don’t blame her for not being as “emotionally evolved” as you imagined.

If you dump her for this, you’re in for a shock when you start dating again, and realize how rare mutual love is. You’ll go through worse than just one night of cheating, believe me on that. If you really love her, and she really loves you, don’t kill it off because of one mistake. I know for a fact that you will regret this the rest of your life.

Yes, it hurts right now, but you CAN work through this, and that image of the guy touching her the same way you do WILL fade. That’s a function of time and hard relationship work. Yes, it will be tough at times, but if your love is as strong as you’re describing here, it will be worth it more than you realize right now.

Trust me, if this all works out in 10 or so years you’ll be pouring her a nice Martini and laughing about all this.

5

You can. When you are ready to, and if you want to.

Again, you can get past this, if you really want to.

Let’s start at the beginning - what do you want? I know you want this to never have happened (or your own infidelity to not have happened), but they did, and you both need to move on from there. If you’re going to break up, you need to rip that bandaid off. If you’re going to stay together, you need to find a way to get back to trust and happiness again.

I have to say it, for all your saying this is the perfect relationship, you both cheated - it doesn’t sound that great to me. How old are both of you? Not to be ageist or anything, but as we age, we usually learn not to do things like get drunk and cheat on our SOs (usually by learning the hard way, like you are right now).

6

These things happen, especially among hot-blooded youngsters who are trying to maintain a long-distance relationship. If she cheats when you’re in the same town, that’s a red flag. This one seems more like yellow. After all, you flirted with infidelity as well.

Are you more worried that she’s not committed to you, or that she may not be committed to girls in general?

7

nevermore, is this the same girl that we’ve heard about in a SDMB meltdown before, or a new girl?

8

Look, you both screwed up here. Call it even and start over again from the beginning. If you’ve learned your lessons about fidelity, boundaries, and sexual ethics, you might even come out of this stronger than before.

9

So it’s not the being with someone else, as much as the fact she didn’t tell you right away? After all, you both cheated; only you 'fessed up first…you were a bit braver and more honest, but you both acted badly.
Infidelity is hard, but you can work through it if you both want to. (I probably sound like an echo.)
Do you want to? Does she?
Apart from each making a dumb mistake, it sounds like you have a great thing going; it would be a shame to abandon it in anger, I’m thinking.

10

Personally, I don’t think that what you did is in the same league as what she did, so I don’t feel that you are equally in the wrong. I think it reflects better on you that you felt guilty enough to tell her about the kiss right away whereas she probably never would have confessed to her cheating if you hadn’t fessed up first.
I take a pretty hard line on cheating. If someone I loved cheated on me, I don’t think I’d ever be able to trust them again and it would probably be the end of the relationship.
I’m not saying you should necessarily break up, but I don’t think you can or should just try to forgive and forget right away.

If I were you, I guess what I’d do would be to take a month or two of space from her (no contact) to try to get some perspective. I find that many times my perception of a relationship and a person is quite different once I’ve had a little space to think about things.
Having some space gives you a chance to separate true love from the urge to cling to something familiar just because it’s familiar.
Good luck…

11

Look, having learned the hard way (both as cheater and cheatee in the same relationship), I will say that it is possible to stay together. You can even get back to that mutual love and even the trust you had before. But it’s not easy.

First off, I agree with lavenderviolet on the space thing. Take some time to yourself without talking to her. Give your anger, disgust, and shame a little time to cool, and think seriously about the relationship. If it’s not something you would go through a period of emotional hell for, then it’s probably best to just end it. Really, it’s going to be awhile before you’ll be okay with her again, and questioning her every move everyday will torment her if she’s as sorry as she says. She’ll need some space too, to try to work out how she feels about all this and how to move forward.

Then talk to each other. It’ll be one of the hardest coversations in your life. You’ll want to yell, run away, vomit, throw her out and maybe hug her and cry on her shoulder all at the same time, and she’s likely to feel similar. But discuss what you’ve taken time apart to think about. If you decide to stay together, let it be a mutual thing. Take it one day at a time, and both of you go out of your way to show your faithfulness, even if you’re the only one there to see it. Just one day at a time. And if the two of you are really serious, see a counsellor.

Look, I’m not a therapist, just someone who learned the hard way with the man I eventually married, so I can’t tell you what to do or what you’ll feel. Hopefully this helps. But hey, if you’re still together a few years down the road, you’ll never look at petty couples arguments the same way again, take my word for it.

Sorry, nevermore. I know it hurts, and I hope you’ll be okay. :frowning:

12

I don’t think coming home from a drunken debauch and immediately calling your lover to confess is “brave” or even particularly “honest.” You wanted to get your forgiveness ticket punched. You called on her for this service, and then when you find out the cost, you want someone to tell you something to make it better for you.

Grow up. Be responsible for yourself, hold her responsible, and own what you do, and have done. Neither of you were “faithful” to the other. The confessions were both self serving. There is no credit due to anyone here for doing the “right” thing.

So far.

Everyone involved, including both pieces of meat that you used as weapons did what they did because that was what they wanted to do. Recrimination and breast beating is mostly drama. You did what you did because you wanted to, and if you haven’t realized that part, you can’t really make any changes in your behavior. Of course, you can change your mind. You can be more aware of your responses to temptations. But you have to decide to either forgive and forget, or hold the entire relationship hostage because of the things you have done.

Now, I can’t tell you if your lover is going to be faithful. You can’t even tell that for sure. That’s what trust is. You take a chance. And you are not owed anything because of it.

Lots of luck.

Tris

13

::golf clap::

14

HAD…past tense. Her life partner (or whatever) wrecked it.

15

You can forgive her if you want to. Infidelity doesn’t have to be the end of the relationship or the world. Sit down with her and decide if you both really still want this permanent, closed relationship and lay out the ground rules, no holds barred. It’s a crap shoot. But you can surive it both individually and as a couple.

16

Bullshit. Nothing is wrecked unless nevermore wants it wrecked. Is she hurt? Certainly. Is she entitled to feel betrayed? Yep. Is the relationship over? Not by a long shot. Some work needs to be done, and it will take some time, but they can work it all out if they want to.

Nevermore, the key to all of this is going to be communication. Both of you are going to have to be completely honest and open and forgiving with each other. Good luck. I hope it all works out for you both.

17

On thing that springs immediately to mind is that it would be a good idea for you guys to stop drinking

18

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I’ve read them all about twenty times, and I’m slowly assimilating them.

Quartz, yeah, the fact is we both fucked up. I do consider our fuckups on a different level, though, mostly because, well, I was completely drunk. I don’t remember kissing anyone at all. It wasn’t a conscious decision. That doesn’t excuse my behavior; if I thought it did I wouldn’t have even thought it important enough to tell her. But I do think it’s different from a conscious decision to sleep with someone else because you like them. Then there’s also that sleeping with someone is a hell of a lot more intimate than kissing them, in my book, but that’s a minor factor.

Also, it’s a lot easier to forgive someone for a drunk make-out session when you’re hoping to be forgiven for fucking someone else.

mojave, thanks for those words. I still can’t shake the sting of the soulmate comment, but maybe that will fade. I do realize how rare love like this is… I’ve never felt anything like it before, and if I left her, I think I could probably spend my life searching and never feel it again. It’s not that I really believe in soulmates, or "one true love"s, but I do think finding one of the probably six people in the world with whom you’d be that thoroughly compatible is rare enough that you should hold onto any one of them you manage to find.

featherlou… I guess what I want most is to be confident that this will never happen again. I’m pretty far from that point right now.

Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound great, but no relationship sounds great in the context of cheating. The fact is, we’re animals, and when we’re attracted to someone, how much we love someone else doesn’t always factor into it. It is possible to really, truly love someone, have a great relationship dynamic, and still fuck up, especially with us both being as young and relatively inexperienced as we are–I’m 24, she’s 21, and both of us have only been in maybe two other serious relationships.

thetruewheel, yeah, I really can’t imagine either of us doing that. When we’re around each other we barely notice anything else, but the extended periods of distance are pretty fucking lonely.

In response to your question, I don’t really care about her being committed to girls in general; we’re both bi, and I actually like men a lot more than she does. Somewhat ironic.

BlueKangaroo, yeah, same girl. Pretty tumultuous beginnings, but everything up to now has been smooth sailing.

Linty, it sounds good in theory, but I can’t really call it even when neither she nor I consider it even. I also seriously doubt my ability to just wipe the slate clean… the fact that these things happened will not go away. I think ignoring it or repressing it will just result in a lot of resentment and a general lack of resolution.

ok, guess that’s all I have time for right now-- I’ll update later. I think I have something of a working plan going, but I need to chew on it a little longer before I decide if it tastes right. Thanks again, guys.

19

In my experience, once a person cheats, it’s almost easier to start a new relationship from scratch with someone else. “This person cheated on me” will always be in the back of your mind. “You didn’t put down the toilet seat”…“yeah…well you cheated on me so I guess we’re even.”

20

So, actual forgiveness is not an option for you. Whether or not the other person is able to forgive; I concur with your assessment. Much better to move on.

Tris