TL;DR — GF of five years had amazing times together and she helped me become a better person and grow out of an abusive childhood, but first three years I cheated on her, last two years I started to be a real ‘bf’ after I got over my abusive childhood, but she has now cheated on me and is starting to be abusive. What should I do?
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My GF and I have been together since 2016 and moved in together around 2017. During the first few years of our relationship, I cheated on her three times and was caught and we made up. However, this was because she was my first GF and I grew up in a severely broken and abusive household and didn’t know what I real relationship meant. In the past couple of years, I was faithful and started to realize what a real relationship was, and changed to become a good boyfriend.
During this time, I caught her cheating twice. Once during a company holiday party when she went home with another guy she was attracted to and stayed the night with him. She claims to this day they ‘kissed’ and ‘slept in the same bed’ but didn’t have sex. In a separate instance, I caught her when she was upset on a dating app. These events were during the time I was cheating, and I forgave them bot given I was guilty as well.
During the past six months, however, things have started downhill. She came from a privileged Northeast elite family and is liberal, I came from a working-class family in the Midwest and am apolitical, but she started insulting me and my background at one point calling me ‘trashy’ during an argument, despite me not identifying with conservative Midwestern culture.
Most recently, however, a couple of things happened. First, she pays the rent bill and I pay her (I pay most of the rent) and she took the rent money I gave her and spent it in Miami with her friends, but also on some things for the home upstate I was building for us (around 50/50), leaving the landlord, harassing me since the lease was on my name. She finally paid after the landlord threatened legal action and I asked her multiple times. Finally, I just paid it and she paid me back only after I caught her cheating and demanded it.
That leads to the final cheating instance. I was recently rehabbing a home for us outside the city and would leave M-F, I did this for a couple of weeks. The first week I came back and our relationship was deteriorating because of what I mentioned earlier. The second week, the rent situation came up while I was away. A came back on Thursday to spend the extended weekend holiday with her (4th July) and when I was back she lied to me that she was going to see a female friend, leaving around 9 PM ish and didn’t come back until 1 AM ish, leading me to suspicion, I discovered she spent the time with a neighbor in our building whom I later discovered she had a crush on. Confronting her, she continually lied until presented with irrefutable evidence to the contrary.
Now, the complicated part. She helped me to become a better person during this period and appreciate a ‘real relationship’ and come to know what that was, despite ultimately destroying it. Yet, I am not innocent, given I started the cheating trend. The broader context is her general immaturity, being 26 and me 30, not ready for a true relationship. I do believe she loves me, and I suspect her cheating is a result of mine originally, though this is NOT something I would ever do to someone now that I know what a real relationship is supposed to be like and frankly I can’t imagine a person without this trauma doing it…
Hence the question is should I kick her out of the apartment or let her keep it and stay on as a guarantor so that I can still have it in my name, but travel around and do what I want while keeping my things there? Should I have a clean break and never speak with her again? Or, should I take a break and have her work on herself, study for graduate school to be more mature, and keep the door open for getting back together and trying to reset our relationship from the start? Normally, I would say kick her out and block, but she helped me to become a better person, and for that I feel indebted.
We have also grown apart as our status as well, as her company is tech employer is going bankrupt and she has a low skill degree, and I my business has grown drastically and I have a STEM degree from a top engineering school, which I wouldn’t normally have an issue with, but the circumstances make this increasingly irritating.
2 comments
If this is what you think a “real” relationship looks like…then I have bad news for you. A _healthy_ relationship doesn’t have cheating in it, for starters. Nor does it have disrespect — and your relationship has both of those in spades.
She calls you “trashy”, you think she’s immature and “not ready for a true relationship”.
I mean, you ask these questions, but what is your gut telling you to do?
* _should I kick her out of the apartment?_ — means relationship over.
* _should I let her keep the apartment and stay on as a guarantor so that I can still have it in my name, but travel around and do what I want while keeping my things there?_ — is the apartment under both your names? Who’s paying for it? If you’re the only owner, why would you let her use the space you paid for?
* _should I have a clean break and never speak with her again?_ — same as the first situation.
* _should I take a break and have her work on herself, study for graduate school to be more mature, and keep the door open for getting back together and trying to reset our relationship from the start?_ — there is no such thing as “resetting your relationship”; your history will always be a point of comparison. Graduate school is not “become more mature” school. Plus, this option means sticking around and enduring this (frankly miserable) situation on the off-chance that she’ll have an ah-ha moment and become mature enough for you, I guess.
>she helped me to become a better person, and for that I feel indebted.
And you both treat each other like trash overall in this relationship. Are you only in it to keep score and “make things even”?
As u/pandemonium91 says, this isn’t a “real” or normal relationship. Cheating is too common in our world, but it shouldn’t be considered anything but selfish and destructive.
You two seem to only hurt each other. I don’t think there’s anything positive in remaining together. I think a clean break, yes. Never speak to her again? You don’t need to plan that far ahead, but you can’t let her remain in your apartment and you can’t be “friends”. If you move out, change the lease to her name. She’s already shown that she’s irresponsible with money – don’t let her screw up your credit. Don’t trust her to protect anything that’s yours.
And work on yourself. You haven’t gotten past your awful childhood – it’s not that easy. Therapy would be a great idea. Do the things that you want to do, for yourself, and move past this person where you share a toxic environment.