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Mandatory throwaway account disclaimer (for obvious reasons)
I (40M) have been with my girlfriend (29F) for nine months now and I love her, but she did some f’d up stuff that I am not sure I can get over. We were at her place, bantering and reminiscing about our “situationship” period and she playfully said that while she was already only seeing me, I was still on the apps (to be fair, we were not exclusive and she had not deleted her account yet). Ok, fair enough, but then she asked if she could tell me something funny and made me promise I wouldn’t get mad. Well, the “funny” thing is that she created SEVERAL fake accounts on dating apps to match with me and talk to me pretending to be other girls back when we started seeing each other. I remembered talking to some girls that suddenly disappeared, but damn. I was taken aback and just excused myself and went home.
My girlfriend is a wonderful, thoughtful person but although she is very independent and responsible with things like work, she looks and acts like a 21yo. In the beginning I did not want to date her at all because of the age gap (I felt a little bit like a creep) and tried to friendzone her, but she was very keen on being with me and eventually I could not ignore our great chemistry anymore.
For clarification, she is neurodivergent and has some trauma, and she does have some “quirks”. Also, she did hide in the beginning, but she eventually opened up about some emotional struggles inclusing a couple psychiatric holds and an attempt on her life that led to an ICU stay. That’s to say, she’s a very sensitive person.
After the “confession” (keep in mind that she thought it was hilarious to troll me) she blew up my phone while I drove home. I just sent her a text asking her to go to sleep and that we would talk later. The following day we met for lunch at a restaurant (I did not want to risk a meltdown) and I asked for some time away to reorganize my thoughts. She looked very sad but understood where I was coming from.
It’s been a week since this happened and I feel like an idiot because I know she is very depressed and missing work. I try to check on her everyday, but she is giving me curt replies and dry texting. I don’t really want to break up, I just feel like I need to teach her a lesson somehow. How do I deal with it?
tl;dr: Gf used to have fake accounts on dating apps to catfish me. I asked for a break. I want to stay in the relationship but I don’t know how to forgive her.