A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:What do you do when you really love your partner, who you've been with for many many years.. and he is crazy about you, but has decieved you?My boyfriend deceived me last year. He had a friend of many years, who he was confiding in. I was very busy with work commitments and he was going through a tough time and talking to this girl about his problems. He caught up with her for coffees and hung out without my knowledge. I came across her social networking profile (after doing some snooping) and found out they'd been meeting up.After nearly a year of talking about what happened EVERY DAY and driving him around the bend, I still feel haunted at the fact he went behind my back to see this girl. What happened was it was just a friendship, where the contact became more frequent. She wanted a full blown relationship and as soon as he got wind of how she felt, he quickly let her know nothing could ever happen. She tried EVERYTHING to change his mind, and he tried EVERYTHING to let her down gently. It was a nightmare for everyone involved, but mostly me when I came across her profile page and saw what she'd been saying about him. Let me tell you, reading another girl talking about her "boyfriend" when it's actually your guy does induce vomiting.I am confident now after almost a year of analysing that I know the full truth about what happened. But the trust is now damaged and I can't forgive him because he lied to me about all this.. even if it was to protect my feelings, it was still dishonest.I can understand why he didn't want to tell me. I had no time for the girl, as I always suspected she was hot for him for ages. He knew it would make me feel insecure and worried, when I'm sure he probably thought there wasn't a reason to be.. until he stupidly got himself into this mess. Then he tried to "fix it" he frequently says.Am I being too petty? This wasn't like a real affair. Advice is welcome. Thanks.
View related questions:
affair, insecure Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, dirtball  +, writes (18 August 2010):
 I was thinking of an answer until I read what Cerberus posted. He said it all.
He had an emotional affair at a minimum. I don't think it is petty of you to feel the way you do. The question that you have to ask yourself is if you think you can forgive him and move on. To truely forgive someone, you have to let it go, completely. Do you think you can do that? If not, then it may be time to step away.
What he did isn't right, but hanging it over his head for the rest of your relationship isn't right either.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (18 August 2010): All your feelings are natural, because he did have an affair with her, an emotional affair. It wasn't a real affair? So, as long as he didn't have sex with her but he pretty much romanced her in every other way and built a strong emotional bond with this girl behind your back, that's okay right?
Wrong. The reason you still feel like this is because he cheated on you. Okay there was no sex, or so he says if he was able to lie to you about seeing her for so long then I'd be wary of his honesty about that part too.
You're not being petty, you're being smart. Look at all the excuses and BS he has come up with to explain his actions.
Here's what he did in a nutshell. He went behind your back and went out on dates (yes those are dates) with this girl, a girl you don't like because you know she has a thing for him. A girl he too knew had a thing for him. A girl he met up with regularly to pour out his emotions to, a girl that if he actually did nothing with then he led on. He was busy building an emotional relationship with this girl while you were busy, he was turning to this girl for comfort instead of turning to you. Now that's all pretty bad stuff, so you've every right to be upset but the real kicker is the lies and excuses he made up to cover his own ass.
You like to think he's been open and honest with you but that again is another lie, you know this, this is why you can't shake this bad feeling you have over it. If he was completely open and honest with you, you wouldn't have this sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, you know there's things he's still keeping from you.
There is no way this girl would have thought that there was more between them if he hadn't said things to her to such an effect. I mean come on, he probably has you convinced that she's a bit of a nut that got the wrong impression. But you know in your heart there's no smoke without fire, unless she's actually clinically insane there's no way she would have just jumped to those conclusions on her own, you know this. Seriously, it's the oldest cop out in the book, "she's nuts, don't listen to her, I made it clear to her nothing would happen" The amount of times I've heard that I can safely say, if he made it clear to her then she would have listened. I mean come on, he said he tried everything to let her down gently, letting someone down gently basically means you try to get rid of them without making it clear to them you're not interested. Letting someone down gently means you try not hurt their feelings by telling them you're not interested, instead you string them along and hope they just lose interest on their own.
Trying to protect your feelings? From what like? From the fact he's been romancing another girl behind your back? From the fact he's been feeding off the desire and comfort of another woman and in turn feeding her own desires too? That to me is the biggest lie, "I did it to protect your feelings" If he really cared about your feelings then he wouldn't have gone near her as he knew how you felt about her, he did it to protect his own ass, then tried to make it sound like he was doing it to for your benefit.
You still feel this way because something still smells rotten about this whole thing, something is just still not right about it.
Look the facts are this, he shouldn't have done it but we all make mistakes, but then it gets worse because he continued it, worse again he did it for a while all the time lying to you about it, I still can't believe you bought the whole 'I'm only still seeing her to try and fix it, I have to let her down gently because I'm a nice guy and I want to protect her, I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to hurt you, because I was in a bad place in my life' excuse. Because it's not the truth, it's an excuse, make himself look like he's the good guy, but he's not.
...............................
A
male
reader, Cerberus_Raphael  +, writes (18 August 2010):
 He's not stupid. You shouldn't feel insecure. He thought she was someone he could confide in. He though she was okay with being just friends and obviously she wasn't. No one is at fault here. Well, maybe the girl is for not moving on but you shouldn't put any of the blame on him and he's right to tell you that you shouldn't feel insecure. Put yourself in his shoes. If anything, I'd still trust this guy because he kept trying to let her down easy and he never strayed away from you. He's loyal.
I hope that helps.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (18 August 2010): I had pretty much the same thing happen to me
I was in a long distance relationship with my now fiance at the time and every time we talked on the phone he said i seemed depressed so he wanted a break from us thinking he was the problem and that i was depressed because we were apart(stupid i know i still hound him on it to this day)
IT BROKE MY HEART
i cried for days
rewind
there was this "girl" wouldn't say woman(very inmature) who was absolutely OBSESSED with him and at the time he was managing a movie store
so she would come in and flirt with him and ask him out KNOWING he was with me
he would come home and bloat about it (flattered)
DROVE ME UP THE WALL
fast forward
we are on a brake and he comes to see me and we get back together THEN he comes out that her mother invited him over to there house for hot chocolate.. he went..that's all he says happened.. but it's the fact that he KNEW it would drive me nuts and he knew i didn't want him around her let alone at her house
IT BROKE MY HEART once again
i never really got over it.. he deleted her off his facebook for me but i still mention it every now and then and he just says get over it nothing happened..
just recently after he proposed this "girl"(once again) at his work became obsessed with him and started sending him provoking messages
i took it into my own hands and she said he didn't love me
WHOA WHOA WHOA
i wanted to kill her
he told me to let him handle it(he fought so much because of this and almost broke up) so he told her to stay away from him and she came back and said if your with her i can't be your friend
needless to say he told her to "fuck off we were never friends"
let him handle it
you seem to be very much in love even though you may never get over it(like me) he probably didn't do anything and to just trust him
communication is the key.. tell him it hurt you very much and your having problems letting it go you need to be able to get past this together not alone
...............................
|
