on the first date she asked if i had dated anyone before. when i thought of the question i remembered a really bad relationship i had (tldr it went horribly for everyone, and it wouldn’t look great on me at all to tell her about it either because it was mostly my fault).
I didn’t want to talk about it, so i ended up saying no.
but i really meant to (and later realised that i should) say, “i don’t really want to talk about it.” it’s been about a month since then and i’m not sure what to say or do now. i feel like i should tell her because she will probably find out eventually anyway but I’m not sure how to go about it
should i tell her the truth and how much should i say exactly. i’m 100% certain (and i mean it) that she would break up with me instantly if she knew what happened in that past relationship. Uegh.
2 comments
Just be honest with her and explain the situation to her. If she really cares about you, she’ll understand.
You didn’t accidentally lie. You lied deliberately, on purpose, in order not to have to discuss something that you didn’t want to discuss. IN short, you lied to make yourself look better. On purpose.
And here’s the thing: you don’t owe her an answer to that question, but the right thing to do in situations like that is (as you already mentioned) to say “I don’t want to talk about that”.
Stop pretending that it was an accident. Part of being an adult, which you will be soon, is taking responsibility for the choices that you make. And you can’t take responsibility for something by pretending that a choice was an “accident”.
If you decide to tell her, then you need to do a few things as *part* of telling her:
1. You need to be honest and direct,
2. You need to own up to what you did as a choice and not an accident,
3. You need to tell her that you won’t make that choice again (if, in fact, that is something that you have the strength of character to follow through on, and
4. You need to say that you’re sorry (again, if that’s true) and ask her for forgiveness.
Something along the lines of this will accomplish all of that:
“[Girlfriend], when you asked me if I had dated anyone before, I panicked, because that was a subject I didn’t want to talk about, because I was afraid you would think less of me. So I chose to lie to you about it, rather than being honest with you. I’m sorry, and I apologize. In the future, if you ask me a question I do not want to answer, I will tell you that I do not want to talk about it, instead of lying to you about it.”
Then, the ball is in her court; she can choose to forgive you and trust you again right away, she can choose to forgive you and then spending some time deciding whether to trust you again, or she can choose neither to trust you again nor to forgive you. Whatever she chooses to do, *you have to respect it*, because it was your choice that created this situation, not hers, and so you have no right to be frustrated with her because she isn’t handling it how you want her to.