My girlfriend and I have been together for just over a year. We’ve known each other for 4 years (met at work) but just started dating last March. I do love her but I have some concerns that are increasingly worrisome.
She was married at the time, and I was recently divorced. She let me know that she was working on filing for an amicable and mutually agreeable divorce, so I decided to go with it. She officially got divorced 2 months after we started dating and moved into her own place. Together since.
Throughout our relationship, she’s let me know things that caused some pretty large red flags. First, she let me know that she had cheated on her ex-husband a handful of times. She told me about 4 times:
-Once at 25 with a friend. It was a 4-month fling, purely physical.
-Again at 26. It was a one night stand.
-Then at 30, and she told me it was just a few hookups with a friend she met while out.
-Another time with a woman.
-And I guess technically with me, while she was just about to divorce, since she was technically married.
She told me she that she cheated because her ex-husband was absent during her marriage and she was checked out for 15 of the 20 years they were together. She said it was a dead bedroom. He was a Marine, and was always either training on the base or deployed in Iraq. Stayed because she was dependent on him and didn’t want to disrupt the life of her small child at the time. She filed for divorce once the kid moved out for college.
In the last few months, however, some of these stories have evolved into more than they were presented to me. I had to press her on these. She denied that there was any more to these stories but then it was trickle-truthed to me as I asked more and more questions:
-The fling at 30 was revealed to not be someone she met while out, but actually a coworker. Then, a month ago, she confessed that it was actually a 3-month affair. THEN, 2 weeks ago, she admitted that it was for an entire year and they met up several times a week for sex behind her husband’s back while he was on the military base.
-She confessed to me that she had another fling with a mutual coworker of ours shortly before we started dating. I had no idea about this. I even asked her in the beginning if she had hooked up with anyone at our office and she said no. I actually went into her old phone due to a suspicion and found messages that proved this. When I confronted her, she admitted to this. Not proud of my snooping, but I feel justified. A few weeks later, she also drunkenly confessed to sexting him while we were hanging out in the beginning but not actually dating or exclusive. But she was telling her she wanted him and told him she wanted to give him oral sex via text message literally while we were at dinner together.
-She also confessed to kissing/making out with 5-10 different guys throughout her marriage while out with friends at bars and stuff.
-The other thing she told me, which wasn’t too big of a deal (other than the fact that it was a lie) was that she lied about her number of sexual partners in the past. She said she had a series of hookups in college to get revenge on her boyfriend during a break. She had sex with her boyfriend’s friend and his friend’s brother. In addition to some random oral sex performed on different men.
-She also was caught in a lie involving her ex-husband recently. He texted her asking to go on a lunch date and she told me about it weeks later, stating that she declined but also deleted the message so I wouldn’t be cinc
All of this has trickled out throughout our relationship and at this point, I’m not sure if I can recover from this. Whatever happened before us is her business, but the fact that she lied to my face when I asked her questions about these things, then gave me trickle truths, are very unsettling and it makes me question whether I can trust her.
Also, the more I think about her infidelity, I get concerned about her ability to remain faithful to me. She swears that she doesn’t ever see herself cheating on me, loves me like she hasn’t loved anyone before, and tells me that our sex life fulfills her in every way possible.
When I bring these things up to her and tell her I’m hurt and have some concerns, she gets super defensive and says that I’ve lied too. Which I have… I got caught several months ago ordering DoorDash for my ex-wife because she texted and asked me to send some food to the house for the kids because she was busy. I hid that from her and she brings it up to prove that “she isn’t the only one who has lied”.
I love this woman, and I’m trying to reconcile who I thought she was with who I have learned she is now, but I’m having trouble doing so. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to trust her, and that she won’t be able to be honest with me about things. She’s shown that she can lie to my face. She told me she lied only because she was embarrassed, ashamed, and felt guilty about these things and didn’t want me to judge her for her past.
Do you think it’s worth trying to make this work? I absolutely love her, but I’m afraid I’ll begin to resent her lying eventually. I’m hurt and feel (objectively) that I may be making excuses for her behavior and shouldn’t be.
Tl;Dr: Girlfriend made me aware of her previous affairs in the beginning, but has slowly provided more and more details and events as I’ve pressed her for more info. She lied to my face about many details that have gradually been brought to light.
16 comments
Ok, so she has lied or kept things from you multiple times, has a history of cheating, and literally texted another guy something sexual while you were at dinner together. You are both too old to be doing this type of sneaky sh*t and having to worry about being jealous and snooping. Also, sending door dash to your ex is not the same as cheating.
You know she’s not to be trusted. If she was fully honest about her shady past instead of lying to you, it’s forgivable and you can decide whether she’s a changed woman or not. She’s already lied about multiple important things.
I think your parking pass is set to expire shortly.
Not a good sign. She has a history of infidelity. Why would she not cheat on you when the going gets rough?
dump her old ass. once a cheater always Cheater
I’d be wondering how many men she had been with since you started dating. It seems like she’s incapable of being truthful and that would be a huge issue for me.
Definitely not worth it, she’ll cheat on you too.
Someone who was ok with cheating in their past relationships is probably going to be ok cheating on you too. You are correct to question her loyalty after everything you’ve learned. Personally, I think this is her telling on herself; she’s waving the red flag for you.
She could’ve just been a cheater and liar to her ex husband but she decided consciously to continuously lie to you. Move along.
Might want to get a std test
My guy, she’s 41. She’s not going to change now without some sort of radical life transformation.
Confirmed cheater and liar.
Why are continuing a relationship????
The only reason to trickle-truth like this is because she knows you (and any reasonable person) would’ve dumped her if she told you what actually happened up front.
By slowly moving the goal posts, since you’ve already accepted X, it forces you to ask whether X+20% really enough to break up over, and then keeps doing it, over and over.
Aside from the repeated, decade-long period of multiple year-long instances of cheating (fucking hell, as if another word could be needed beyond that?
Aside from the secondary break-up worthy aspect of taking away your ability to actually evaluate her and the relationship and make informed decisions?
There’s more! It also means she’s completely eroded any trust you can possibly have in her! You’ll never know if you’re getting the full story, you’ll never know when the other shoe is about to drop, you’ll never know if she’s hiding something. And there’s no such thing as a good relationship without trust.
I think it’s time to cut your losses and move on. Her past infidelity is already a red flag, but the fact that she continues to trickle-truth you shows that she is not capable of being honest with you. Trust is a fundamental aspect of any relationship, and without it, there can be no true intimacy. You deserve better.
You ordered food for your kids and their mom, you didn’t fck another person. For her to lump that in with her habitual cheating is a ridiculous way for her to deflect.
She has cheated in the past and is trickle truthing it and has lied about it?
My man. I think you know what you do.
I mean, people do cheat. But she was a baaddd cheater. And selfish, and hasn’t seemed to grow from it.