she cheated on me.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Oh nevermore, how hard. I really am sorry for your pain.

In this instance, it’s hard for me to see how continuing with this girl is a good idea, in part because I remember what she put you and her last “forever” person through. It wasn’t pretty then, and it isn’t pretty now.

There’s a lot to be said for putting the past behind us, but there’s also the point that we learn from our past experiences. She put you and her ex through a wringer before, and she’s doing it again. Even if this is does feel like “marriage and kids” for you, she’s said it before to someone else.

To me, it just sounds like she commits too deeply, too quickly. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve done that, and I can’t tell you the number of hearts that were broken and relationships that were left as scortched earth. It’s about being mature, I think. I had no relationship maturity, I only had what I thought I “should” want. I suspect she’s in the same boat.

I know it’s up to you, and I know you think this is now and forever. But I think everyone else is right; at the bare minimum, take some time and space. Better to take a breather now than to try to force it, one way or the other. I know my advice is to get the hell out of dodge, but to forgive as you do so. Still, take the time and space, at least.

22

I can forgive easily enough. It’s the trust issue that’s more difficult. Always in the back of your mind will be “oh she’s late again…hmmmm.”

23

Sorry, if you still don’t trust her, you haven’t forgiven her. And are not likely ever to do, given your own assesment. She’s better off trying to find someone else. You may always find something to undermine your trust.

Tris

24

I think you may be confusing forgiving with forgetting. Forgiving is like, hey, you fucked up, I think I can be ok with that, let’s try to make it work. Forgetting is like, it never influences your thoughts or decisions concerning that person anymore. That’s a lot harder to do than forgive.

25

And I think you are confusing remembering with some sort of emotional parole. If I really forgive you, then your past “transgressions” really "never influence [my] thoughts and decisions concerning that person anymore. Yes, it is harder to do than offering a parole. But that is forgiveness.

Tris

26

ok, round two:

bonobo, it has a lot to do with that. I can’t conceive of how she’d keep this from me for half a damn year when I’ve always said I’d support her in anything as long as she was honest with me. I think I finally drove that point home when I talked to her the night she told me… for the first time it felt like she really heard me and understood what I meant, instead of just an “oh, that’s so sweet” reaction.

lavender, as I said in a response to someone earlier, I agree with you that our actions weren’t equal. Even she agrees they weren’t.

About the time/space thing… I think that’s pretty impossible for me. This is long distance, and basically if we stop talking, the relationship stops existing. That may sound like a good thing, but I’m extremely adaptable… if I get used to not talking to her, I won’t have much inclination to reinitiate contact. If I stop talking to someone for a month, at the end of that month, not talking to them is just a fact of life. I don’t want that to happen here.

Naz, thank you for your encouragement. It’s good to know that it can eventually be ok with some work.

Tris, uh… seems like you’re attempting a probably well-intentioned “wake-up call” of some sort, but mostly it really just sounds accusatory. My motivations for telling her about what happened weren’t to “get my forgiveness card punched”; I fully expected her to leave me and I never asked her to stay. In my view of relationships, honesty is critical. I do not want to hold a partner captive to a relationship in which they would not be happy if they had all the facts. If I have any reason to believe that any fact about me would make me an undesirable partner in their eyes, they should by all means know it and be free to choose a partner who will satisfy their needs, as should I. Who I am includes all I have done. If they wouldn’t want to be with me knowing something I’ve done, they don’t want to be with ME. I could never be happy in that sort of relationship. That was the motivation for my honesty.

I am grown, and I am responsible for my actions. What I did was wrong, regardless of whether I remember it; I admit this freely. I don’t agree that I did what I did because I consciously wanted to, though I definitely got drunk because I wanted to. Whatever parts of my brain left intact at the time must’ve wanted to, I guess, but what I consider to be ME, my actual consciousness, had no such desire. I can still change my behavior, though, by not drinking so damn desperately, so that I don’t get to the point where I lose the ability to make higher-level judgments.

I know there’s no way to be absolutely sure she’ll be faithful… hell, there’s no way to even be sure that I will. But I do want to get to a place where I at least have a reasonable confidence. I don’t have it yet, and I think it will take some (possibly a lot of) time.

As for forgiving/forgetting, guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I see a pretty clear distinction between the two, but obviously to you they are one and the same. Potayto, potahto. shrug

msmith and silenus, I don’t think she necessarily wrecked it. Maybe temporarily, but I’m leaning towards the idea that it can eventually be ok with some work, and definitely some time.

Kalhoun, with respect to the permanent, closed relationship, that’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I think I finally came to a conclusion, though I don’t know if it’s the right or final one, and I’ll talk about that in a minute.

Binarydrone, yeah, I’m definitely going to be watching my alcohol intake from now on. I doubt I’ll just stop, but it’s not going to be something I take lightly anymore. The same doesn’t really apply to her, though… she wasn’t drunk. I know what she means by tipsy, and she means she had two or three drinks, just enough to loosen her up, but definitely not to change her ability to make reasoned judgments.

BlueKangaroo, that’s a huge can of worms… yes, it was fucked up, but I don’t think it was her that put us through it; we all made our own decisions. You’re right, she did talk about marriage and kids with him… there was a minor difference there, in that he brought it up with her, and she brought it up with me. I think once he mentioned it to her she became enchanted by the idea of marriage, and since then she’s just had that sort of mindset, but honestly, whether it actually results in marriage and kids isn’t that important to me. She actually talks about it a lot more than I do, and personally, I think marriage is bullshit, but I’d do it for her when the time was right, because I know it would make her incredibly happy.

You may very well be right about her being too quick to commit. That’s one of the things I considered in making the decision I’ve made… I’m hoping her actions within this new paradigm will be pretty indicative of what she actually wants, rather than what she thinks is appropriate.

OK, and finally, this is what I’ve tentatively decided. I’ve been talking to her the last couple nights, and I think the best thing for us, or at least for me, right now, is to scratch the monogamy. I don’t want to cut her out of my romantic life entirely… I think that would be a criminal waste, and something I would likely always regret. But we’ve both done things that defied the monogamous nature of our relationship, without it affecting our feelings for each other… so maybe it’s just better if we don’t impose these restrictions on each other when we’re so far apart. Thinking about this over the last 24 hours has helped me so much not to go insane about her and this guy… if I don’t think about her as mine, I don’t feel nearly as violated and disgusted by the thought of someone else touching her. The only thing that scares me is that I don’t know the future… I don’t know who I’ll meet or who she’ll meet, if we’ll drift apart or closer together, if we’ll want to live together in a few months as planned or just keep our separate lives. A lot is still up in the air right now, but I think if we just take it one step at a time, things will work out.

This is our working plan, but I’m far from sure about this, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all for your help and support thus far. I heart you, Dopers.

27

For what it’s worth, here’s my $0.02:

  1. It ain’t about being a lesbian, or in a same-sex relationship. That has zip to do with this relationship, as far as I can tell. To a large extent, these things invariably have nothing to do with sexual identity, or sexuality or anything like that – it’s purely a human thing.

  2. Cheating is very hard to forgive. Intellectually, it’s likely to be something you can acknowledge and choose to ignore. Living up to that commitment is much, much harder. There’s something visceral about infidelity that is far too often the death-knell for a relationship, sadly. Long distance relationships are all the worse for that niggling doubt that pretty much has to surface when the slightest imperfection inserts itself between you.

  3. All warnings from me and others aside, it is also possible to get past something like this. I know nearly as many couples that have successfully survived this as have been split up by it. It sounds like you have many of the ingredients, in particular the sense of the worth of the relationship, to make a serious go of it. One thing that positively, absolutely has to happen is a confrontation with her over your feelings about it. It cannot work if you do not tell her everything about how it makes you feel, even if it’s in the context of how to move forward.

That’s probably enough babbling from me. Good luck!

28

You can’t compete with sausage. Donuts are nice, but a nice piece of sausage satisfies.

I know, I know. I’m not really trying to be a dick, but I thought I’d surrogate. I’m talking about the elephant in the room. Is this really what bothers you? IANA psychologist, but this must play a part, no?

29

I know lots of people on these boards will disagree with me, but a long distance relationship, for the most part, is much harder to maintain, particularly when you aren’t working toward common goals. You like or love each other. That’s fine. But you aren’t really sharing your lives beyond your innermost thoughts and feelings. If you are buying a home, commuting once a month, making real life decisions together, etc., that’s one thing. There’s a finite end to the separation. But if you’re just “into each other” and aren’t interweaving your lives in a tangible way, what’s the point? Now, you may or may not be doing that (if I missed it in your posts, I’m sorry).

I think you should either physically be together or move on to a relationship that involves more than simply caring about the other person. If you can’t do that within a reasonable amount of time (say 3-4 months), for whatever reason, then you are only in a partial relationship. Let yourself enjoy the benefits of a full on adult love with someone you can actually share with.

30

Funny how I read alot of threads on here where someone is only suspecting thier significant other is thinking of cheating, everyone comes in and tells them to dump the person, cut thier losses, etc. etc.

Now, everyone is being supportive and saying its going to be ok and things could work, and this after the significant other really did cheat.

And I have to wonder if that is becuase its a lesbian relationship and the partner had sex with a man?

Can you imagine if some straight guy came on and said his girlfriend screwed some dude? Everyone would be telling that guy to run away as fast as possible.

Why is this different?

PS - Someone cheats on me - they are gone. No excuses.

31

Cerowyn– yeah. I definitely feel that “visceral” aspect. I can’t even think about her naked anymore (something I used to do quite frequently) without seeing his hands on her. I’m really hoping that will fade with time; otherwise there’s no way I can stay.

devilsknew– I’m really suppressing some pretty acerbic remarks I could make to that, but I’ll just stick to no, and how completely ignorant of you.

Kalhoun, well, previous to this, we were working towards the common goal of living together after we both graduate in a few months. We visited each other as often as possible (usually about once every month & a half - two months), and we were both applying to teach English in Japan. Now, though… nothing is really for sure. I don’t think I can devote myself completely to her right now, knowing this. I may get back to where I can, or I may not, but I think it’s too soon to make that judgment right now.

32

I see nothing in this thread that’s different from most threads, except for the fact that this is a long-distance relationship and (in my opinion) hasn’t actually “launched” yet. That may be why people are less inclined to tell her to dump her. I don’t think the lesbian angle has anything to do with it. Everytime there’s a cheating thread, people from both schools of thought chime in to give the ol’ thumbs up or thumbs down.

Not forgiving cheating under any circumstances? That stikes me as unreasonably rigid.

33

Fair enough. Guess my feeling has been different in most threads. Heck, there is a thread out there about a guy who’s girlfriend had dinner with an ex (nothing sexual happened) and more people were telling that guy to dump her than is happeneing here. I found that odd, and wondered if it was due to the nature of the parties sexuality, perhaps - as in, people, in an attempt to be open minded and fair are being less harsh than they otherwise would be.

Again, fair enough. To me its more than just the fact than the person cheating on me is having sex. It also indicates they don’t really care enough not to, or don’t have enough self-control, etc. Then combine that with the lying and deception. These are personality traits in a person that I don’t want in a partner. I can’t think of a single excuse for cheating that would make up for that.

34

I need to try this with my girlfriend:

“Honey, don’t be angry about me hooking up with those strippers. Can’t you see that it just made me love you more? That’s a POSITIVE thing!!”

35

Well, in my experience (and it’s pretty vast in this arena), cheating can be a symptom of other problems in a relationship. And people are human. That’s not to say that all cheating can be forgiven…but lots of it certainly can. It depends on the circumstances.

36

I would only counter by saying that there are other options of dealing with the problems than by cheating. Confront the problem, talk about the problem, or if you can’t, or your partner isn’t willing then leave him.

37

Uhm…

I once was in this relationship for 9 months, of which I spent 2 away; these 2 were quite at the beginning and I assumed that he wouldn’t spend them wistfully looking out the window. I didn’t have a problem with that at that point in our relationship.

FFWD to D Day. He wants us to stop using rubbers; he’s been telling me for the last 3 months that he wants me to be the mother of his children, he wants us to get married. Fine and all, I’m in love and I want to be the mother of his children. I’m not planning on being the unwed, graduate-student mother of his children, though, so the rubber stays on. He pouts and tells me the other girls don’t mind.

The WHAT?

Turns out Mr. I-want-us-to-stop-using-rubbers-because-anyway-you’ll-be-the-mother-of-my-children has been going out and inserting his not-rubber-wrapped penis into every orifice that agreed to make itself available.

Now, that I was not ok with. Part of it was, if you’re talking marriage, I assume fidelity unless explicitly mentioned otherwise (I know, I know, don’t ass-u-me); but mostly it was, if you want to be the father of my children, you better make sure your health can pass ANY test known to man! OR WOMAN!

From “in love” to “I don’t want to date you anymore” in 10 seconds or less.

I know people who consider “looking at someone else” to be cheating, I also know people who have lived with a roaming SO for over 50 years. If I’d still loved that guy after I’d found out about his roaming habits, I would have married him.
Your relationship has the added drag of being homosexual in a world which has a lot of problems with the concept; while this makes her cheating with a guy more painful to you, it sounds to me like she wasn’t so much “testing” her relationship with you as… whether there was something else for her (your words, eh). It won’t go away easily, but you love her, she loves you, and that’s the real sticking point… the real reason for sticking around. You need to talk things out but so long as you can talk things out I think you’ll be fine.

(Sorry if my command of English isn’t good enough to convey my actual meaning)

38

Yeah, I guess I can see your point. I’m with the others on taking a hard line on infidelity. I’m a zero-tolerance guy myself, and I have brought the curtain down on one promising relationship for this reason. It’s like they say: You can’t unscramble the egg.

Good luck, nevermore. Whether the relationship continues or not, I hope you two stay friends and get over this.

39

Fat Chance, you make a good point. A possible reason that we’re giving different advice here is that I think we try to give advice that is helpful to the person asking - different situations create different responses.

nevermore, I would suggest that you do what is best for you, and leave all thoughts of soulmates and such out of it. I don’t think we should make decisions based on fear, and it sounds like your fear of never finding another good match is influencing you too much here. If you do stay in the relationship, make sure you stay for the right reasons, and fear isn’t one of them.

40

Word, honey. I’m in my mid-thirties now, happily married to a wonderful woman, but I remember my first “serious” relationship like it ended last week. I was 22, and she was 20, and neither of us knew what we were doing. Infidelity was a factor, and yes, the relationship ended very badly. I don’t remember it because I particularly want to see her again, but because I still can’t believe that we fucked up that badly. All the brains in the world, and none of the sense.

I don’t mean to turn this thread into “It’s All About Meeeee!!” but I do want to let you know that I know where you’re coming from.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer some advice, based on the assumption that this is the first time you two have been at this level of trouble. If you do decide to end the relationship, realize that you are probably going to feel that psychic/friendship/sexual connection for quite a long time to come. This is the connection that is driving you crazy right now and causing you to want to beat your head against a wall to drive your girlfriend’s name out of your head.

This connection will make you want to get back with her, if only for losing yourself in physical pleasure. I promise you, it’s going to happen even if you end the relationship. Do not give into it. I’m not telling you never to go back to her. I’m saying that you shouldn’t go back to her based on this connection. You have to make a rational decison. I might very well have wound up at least being friends with my ex if we could have just kept ourselves from consumating the break-up. Sex is like that, particularly at your age. When you get to be my age, you’re able to view sex with a much more jaundiced, less hormonal point of view.

Once again, nevermore, I wish you luck.