This may be a long one:
For context, I’m M(25), and girl is 23. I know this girl from college about 4 years ago, we became very good friends and we’ve had sex a couple times, I always kinda liked her but never made that step to pursue a long-term relationship. Well, she ended up meeting another guy (I know him, he’s a scumbag) and dating for 3 years. Over the years, my crush on her grew, and she started to really get in shape and look good (she still looked good before, just much better now). I notice her and her boyfriend (now ex) were not posting together, and her boyfriend (now ex) was hanging out with another girl he used to date. My thoughts: this is my time to make my move. So I start texting/messaging her until we eventually hang out, and we hit it off pretty good. However, when we first started hanging out again, she was still living with her ex-boyfriend, and they were still having sex. I looked past it, because I knew she was planning on moving out, and we had started having sex too. As you can tell, this girl is very sexual, much more than I am (I want to be, I’m just not as experienced). I’ve never had a long-term gf that I truly liked, so I’m pretty inexperienced with romantic/intimate relationships, and just kept thinking this could finally be it.
Fast forward a few months, we’ve had some good times together, and are getting close/spending more time together. The bad part is the timing, she just broke up with her bf of 3 years and has made it clear that she does not want to jump back into a relationship, but I’m having such a good time I turn the blinders on and ignore the messages. Well, our sex hasn’t been good. Due to me not having many romantic/intimate relationships, I haven’t been able to provide the sexual pleasure she is looking for. I was just gone for vacation out of town for a week, and get back to find out she has fucked someone else. I was extremely drunk when I found out (we’ve had good communication, I suspected she had so I asked and she confirmed) and I felt completely betrayed/hurt. We were out at the bar and I just became an emotional wreck, angry, and things were not good after. I dropped her off at her place, and left.
I know I have major blame because the writing was on the wall and I ignored it, and because I couldn’t provide the sexual pleasure she needs. We do great and enjoy each other’s company, and are really good friends, but I have no idea where to go from here. I obviously have some things to work on internally, and she didn’t deserve the overreaction from me.
I’ve often heard the saying, if you love her let her go. Does that apply here? Do I need complete space to work on myself? I can still get sex and value out of our relationship, so do I instead take a major step back in terms of my emotional investing, and continue to be friends ?