I have been dating my girlfriend for almost two years now and recently found out that she cheated on my with her ex 4 months into our relationship. She then did it again a month later. I found out when I was staying with her and her parents and someone gave me a tip when we went out to a bar together. After checking her texts (I know this was wrong) I confirmed that this tip about infidelity was accurate. To say I was stunned was an understatement. My girlfriend and I had become quite close very quickly and had moved in together after 6 months of dating. Outside of this we have had no real fights or anything. I am also very close to her family and have talked to her Dad about it (He wasn’t in on it and only found out when I confronted my girlfriend about it). He said that while he know it was fucked up he thinks we can work through it because we’re so close and it happened so early on. When I confronted her she initially denied it all but came forward when she realized I knew it had happened. She started crying and saying she will do anything to make it work and that she knows she fucked up. I decided to try and work through it but have been struggling for the past two months since I found out. I still feel so betrayed and confused about why it happened. Finally, I decided that I wanted a break after continuing to feel shitty about the situation. So now I have two weeks before we talk again and I need to figure out if I can make this work. I realize that if it is to work this can’t be something that I constantly bring up or hold over her head.
I thought I truly loved this girl and wanted to marry her. Finding out has absolutely broken my heart. Now I wonder if I would be better off breaking up with her as I am still having a hard time with forgiveness.
Should I try and make it work or end things?
6 comments
Only you know if you can try and make it work. Her dad knew about this?? I think the important thing to me is understanding why? Did she tell you why this happened? Why she never told you? If I understand the timeline correctly, this wasn’t that early in the relationship. It was at 4 and then 5 months, right? And then you moved in a month later? That doesn’t seem “early”
Did she have full on sex or was it just a kiss or dare or something?
I don’t subscribe to the once a cheater always a cheater, so I don’t want to say just dump her. But damn, cheating at the beginning of a serious relationship seems odd to me. That’s usually the best time in a relationship!
> Now I wonder if I would be better off breaking up with her as I am still having a hard time with forgiveness.
You have tried OP to get past this and you are now coming to the realisation that you are not able to. The past two months have been spent with you questioning the how’s and the why’s of what you can do and all that you have come up with is the same conclusion – you can’t get over this.
And you know what? That’s OK. What you are going through is perfectly understandable and whilst we like to think that these things will never happen to us, let alone affect us, the true test is when it does.
But this test is not one where you succeed or fail, rather it’s where you find out something about yourself, about who you are as a person, what your boundaries are and what you wish to have – and not have – in your life.
No one here can make up your mind for you OP but I have a feeling that your mind is already made up. The hard part then is going through with this knowing that you will be breaking both your hearts in the process.
Sadly though, her actions will be the thing that has caused this relationship to fail. We can talk about “if she had not done this” and “if only she had done that” until the cows come home but it will never detract from the fact that she did do it. She can no more go back in time and unfuck her ex than you can in finding it in your heart to move on with this knowledge.
So OP, you tried to work through this and you have found you couldn’t. And at the end of the day that is all you need to understand.
It’s time to end things.
Please look after yourself, be as empathetic as you can when you tell her and go back to no contact immediately. Work on getting yourself better again and above all else, look after yourself.
She didn’t come to you with the information. That’s the deal breaker to me.
>He said that while he know it was fucked up he thinks we can work through it because we’re so close and it happened so early on.
When it happened doesn’t really matter.
Time to move on.
You dump cheaters. That’s it.
Well reconciliation can be a fine line between sacrificing all of your self respect and potentially her seeing you as weak, and creating something lasting and beautiful with her. However the later is less likely to happen. If she can cheat then, she can cheat later too.
As always it’s good you will get a range of advice. Mine is to end things. I _never_ see any hope when the person doesn’t immediately come clean on their own. I would never trust the person is actually remorseful – if you can just go on living your life with no signs at all I don’t believe you are remorseful -I believe you regret getting caught. Beyond that how do you even fully trust someone you know can betray you and hide it so well. I also give zero consideration to it happened early in the relationship (personally it makes it _far_ worse and the inevitable suggestion it matters less because it was ‘so long ago’.
So cheated multiple times, hid it, and unless your not saying anything about it didn’t remove her ex form her life. I’d be out.