A
male
age
41-50,
*ayc1982
writes:I'm writing about my story about how I can't let the past go and how it has crippled my life and the way I live. My story begins when I met a girl at 26 years old she was 24. I just have fallen very much in love with her and she betrayed me and it has crippled who I am. Ever since I met her and after what she did to me I have not been the same. I met her a few months before my deployment to Iraq and right after I lost my brother to cancer, so it was a very difficult time in my life. The way I met this girl just seemed like it was meant to be like it was God himself guiding us to meet. It was unexpected and she pretty much came out of no where. She was the kind of girl I connected with very deeply and it just felt as though I had knew her from a previous life. Her and I dated before I left and she has expressed many times how much she loved me and wanted to marry me when I returned home. Before I left for my training I knew I wouldn't be able to see her very much and I became very distant because I didn't want to put her through the pain of not knowing weather or not I'd be coming home alive. She insisted on being the one for me and that she was going to wait for me no matter what. I left for training and it was just so hard to speak with her because I was busy for 12-16 hour days and when I came home I was just so mentally and emotionally exhausted from the training and traveling. Through this time while I was in training she was sleeping around behind my back with close friends of mine in college. They were fraternity brothers of mine and she was just passing her body around to them. I came home for break from training before I officially left for Iraq not knowing the extent of what she was doing. We spent time together through my break. I was happy to see her but just still felt scared and distant. We were both Catholic and she had this rosary that was blessed by the pope so she gave it to me telling me to bring it back to her when I get home. It was very special to me and meant a lot that she gave something deep and sentimental. My plane ride over seas, I just couldn't stop thinking of much I wanted to make it home and start my life with this girl. A few weeks into my deployment I just had this strange gut feeling that something was wrong with this girl. I just felt like she was being unfaithful and sure enough I confronted her and finally squeezed the truth out. She had been sleeping around with multiple guys through my training and even while I landed in Iraq. Through the mental torture I was put through by this I wanted to try and stick things out with her through the deployment and try and make things work when I got home. She promised to never again sleep around and to be faithful from that moment on after I found out. Through being over seas and talking on the phone I became resentful, and jealous and pretty much not myself the way I felt and talked to her. She ended up leaving me and continued to sleep around except now she had the excuse of telling herself were not together which made it ok in her mind. The rest of my deployment was depressing and mentally torturing for me that i felt so betrayed and blind sided by this girl. As soon as I came home she contacted me and asked if we could meet and talk so we did. She really wanted to work things out with me so I don't know why I did but I started dating her again. Even though it was all in the back of my mind I couldn't trust her I just felt so happy with her like I have never felt with anyone before. After 2 months of dating again and having amazing times with her I just left her out of no where because I just couldn't deal with what she did to be and how she betrayed and embarrassed me by screwing my friends and so many other people that I didn't know. I just felt like such a chump in life by staying with this girl.During my time with this girl she suffered from a sever eating disorder (Bulimia) She was very sick and through everything she has done she would justify all the hurt she did to me by putting the blame on me. Never has she ever said her sorry for what she has done to me. The pain she put me through has changed me and will continue to hurt for the rest of my life. Even after we broke up she was just such a cold person and just over all not a good person. She did whatever she wanted with out caring about consequence of how her actions would hurt other people. She would make herself out to be the victim and blame me for her cheating on me! Her eating disorder and her drug habit was just so painful to deal with because seeing her suffer through this emotional disease it has cause me to suffer greatly. I loved being with her and I loved being around her because when things were good between us they were amazing. Still I have never connected to someone the way I connected to her. Now over a year later I still think of her and what has happened and I still can't get over it even at 28 years old. I just am so jaded; I can't even connect to anybody in a normal relationship and suffer from just so much anxiety/depression. I just can't trust anyone and even if I met someone I could never love someone the way I loved this girl who has put so much pain in my life I still think of how much I love her and miss her but I also think of how much I hate her and how much of a disgusting person she was to me. A double edge sword. I know what some people might comment, that I should get help well I been there done that I hate going to see a professional and talk to them because it doesn't help at all! My whole life has changed because of this girl. I haven't talked to her in over a year and it still circulates in my mind every day of my life like a horrible curse that just keeps the dark pain from never ending. I just can't get over the past and all the pain it has caused me. I feel sick because of it. My questions too all of you are...-Has anyone ever been hurt betrayed and cheated on by someone they so deeply loved and have they found love after loving someone?-Is it possible to love again as deeply?-Is it possible to find happiness and full fulfillment through all this?-How can I move on and heal from this terrible pain?-Apart of me just wants to talk to this girl and forgive her and find closure but she is just such a horrible person that she would never allow or want to have peace and closure because she is not sorry she hurt me, so how can I find closure if I can't directly get it with her?-Do you think that she ever thinks about me and what she has done?-How does this girl live with her self after leaving me in Iraq and sleeping around with so many guys who knew and hurt me?-What goes on in the cheaters/betrayers head and how do they cope with hurting someone so deeply?
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (1 February 2011): "she suffered from a sever eating disorder (Bulimia) She was very sick and through everything she has done she would justify all the hurt she did to me by putting the blame on me"
First off, forgive her, and realize that you walked into a mess and didn't cause it.
Nothing you did had anything to do with this craziness.
People who have this history, random sexual partners, sexual infidelity, eating disorder, blaming others, all in the same package, have major underlying issues that you don't know about yet.
She almost certainly has a history of abuse, neglect, and probably worse...almost certainly worse than you can grasp because she is keeping it all hidden. You may have triggered something in her when you met her, but she needs some serious deep and long term therapy in order to resolve these problems. You can't be there, because she still isn't safe to be around...really, she isn't safe to be around yet. She will burn you to the ground emotionally unless she gets and uses help well.
The best anology is that men are like a lit match for her, and she is an open tank of gasoline.
Rest assured that you don't need to punish her, she already had that done by someone much earlier. Something bad was done to her, probably more than once, and she isn't going to tell you about it.
Just forgive, move on with your life, keep her out of it, and no matter how good the sex was don't get her pregnant. If you do, there will be hell to pay.
A
female
reader, chigirl  +, writes (1 February 2011):
 Cheaters are selfish people. That is what is going through their mind when they hurt someone, all they think about is "me me me". But, no matter how much we try and understand them it doesn't chance the situation: cheating is not acceptable. And there is little point in trying to understand them, it won't help. Just know that they are selfish, and leave it at that.
How to move on without closure? I never understood this idea of "closure". What is it actually? Why do you need to speak to the other person who hurt you so much in order to get "closure"? If I think back on how I felt myself after a break-up, what I felt was no need for any "final talk" or anything. Being able to agree on the break-up could have been nice, but often you break-up because you can not agree, and you are hurt, and there is anger, and peaceful conversation would be far fetched.
So, find this closure within yourself. You don't need the other person to do that. I think what you mean is that you want to come to peace with what happened. You can perfectly well do that on your own. In fact that is how you do it, you first find peace within yourself, and then perhaps one day she too will find peace and you will be able to have a normal conversation together. However, that is far into the future. And regardless of how she feels towards you, you must find that peace within yourself and move on.
You said you think about her every day of your life. It's been a year. A year is not your entire life. You can't say you thought about her every day of your life until you're on your deathbed and this is what you have done. Let me tell you something. When me and my then fiancee broke up I was devastated. It's the worst pain I have ever felt. I thought I was supposed to be with this man until I died. And my love for him was so passionate nothing has ever come close to it. When we broke up I cried for him, for your relationship, many many many times. I probably also thought about him every waking moment. But one year went by.. and then I thought about him a little less. Two years went by.. a little less. Still after three years I was still unable to face him, my heart would jump if I saw him, I could get very depressed by thinking of him. It took it's time. But there were many days now that I didn't think about him at all. Other things filled my mind. After 5 years he was completely out of my system. I've met him recently, and felt absolutely nothing. He's not in my life, I've not seen him for years, and it's like he's a person I don't know at all. I don't think ill of him because the person he is now is probably very different from who he was back then.
My point is that even though it's been a year, these things take time. You've been deeply hurt. You know that a serious wound takes longer to heal than a small cut. Don't think it's all over just because you can't see any signs of healing just yet. Slowly you are healing, because time will pass whether you like it or not. And with time comes healing.
Now, is it possible to love again as deeply? Like I said, my love for my ex-fiancee can never be matched by any love for anyone ever. But that is not to say that love was the best, or strongest, or deepest. It was a love unique for him and me, and for what we had together. It was passionate beyond anything I ever felt before, but it was also like a burning flame that in the end set fire to the relationship. I know I wouldn't have been happy in the long term with him. When be broke up, I imagined the type of love that my heart did seek, and it wasn't the passionate flame-like love. It was a deep and calm and strong love, a love that doesn't rock the boat but carries you gently and steady through the years. It's a very different type of love. Not as passionate... but that doesn't mean it's ranked lower. And how deep it can get? I don't know. Im still trying to figure it out, and this is something you have to live and love to see for yourself.
A last thing I want to tell you is that this girl was sick. She wasn't "normal" in her head. She was sick, in the pure medical meaning of the word. She had bulimia. You do know the depths of bulimia, or other eating disorders, right? It's deeply psychological, you're not a rational being, often there's depressions involved, on top of whatever social setting that caused the eating disorder as well that they still need to deal with. Im not excusing her in any way. But you need to remember that she was sick. And that not all women are like this at all. Stay away from women who are sick in the future as you have been hurt too greatly by one already. Of course it is possible to have a relationship with someone who suffers from any mental illness, but it takes so much more out of a partner. And right now you do not have the capacity to deal with that again.
As another example from my own life, to illustrate this point. I once dated a gaming addict. He played online games all day and all night, and I was effectively put at the lower end of his priorities. After a year and a half of that crap I was pretty hurt. I'll never date a gaming addict ever again. Or anyone who just plays more than I am comfortable with. That has become a deal breaker for me. In addition I have a family that is full of depression and emotional immaturity. I simply do not have the strength or energy to deal with another person with a mental illness. I'd try and be their friend, but I wouldn't ever consider them for dating. This because I know my own limits.
So I advice you to do the same: know your limits. If you meet a wonderful woman, but she is mentally ill, know that as much as you'd love to date her if she was healthy, and as much as you and your ex could have had a wonderful time if she was healthy, it wont work when they are ill. And step away. Find someone who is good for you, not someone who will suck all energy and life out of you. Use good judgment, don't write people off as friends just because they are ill, but choose your partner carefully.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (1 February 2011): I was crushed by my first love, and I will never be able to thank him enough because I am now happily married to my second love who's my first true love. My first love was my appetizer. My second love is my meal. In hindsight, I feel silly for crying over my first love when I compare that to my scrumptious hubby!
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A
female
reader, Jen1689 +, writes (1 February 2011):
 Your post rings a lot of bells for me, mainly because I'm with someone who's been where you've been, and I am a person who's been where you've been. My fiance and I both have drastically different stories, but we've both found each other and have found the truest form of love that I feel can exist between two people.
When I was seventeen, I fell deeply in love for the first time with a guy who I knew things wouldn't last with. He came to my small town for the summer, and got a job at the movie theater where I worked. I was attracted to him at first, and soon we began hanging out as friends. I soon became absolutely smitten with him, but he felt no such spark. He dated other girls in the area and never showed any interest in me. One day a friend of mine told him of my feelings for him, and he acted on them. He kissed me at daybreak one morning after we had just spent the night together simply watching movies and talking. That night, we went out and had a blast. I told him I loved him in a drunken state, but he did not respond. The next night, he left me at a party where I had passed out. I was violated (mildly), and couldn't believe what had happened. After that night, he distanced himself from me. We didn't hang out as much. He avoided making plans with me. He nearly broke all contact for at least two weeks. When he was about to move, we spent one more night together. It was as if we had never parted ways. We cuddled, we kissed, we watched the Notebook. It was perfect. But then he left. I was broken for months. I cried myself to sleep at night. Two years later, I still couldn't forget my summer romance. I would write poems about him and cry over him, and this was after having been in another serious relationship for a year and a half. I had even moved across the country to be with my ex. But nothing removed the feelings I had for my summer romance. I even refused to watch the Notebook with my ex because I dedicated it to that boy.
My fiance was with a girl who was just as an Aunt responded, a sociopath. He was with her for two years, on-and-off. She was fourteen or fifteen at the time he met her, and he was eighteen/nineteen. She was the worst kind of person you could imagine. She cheated on him, manipulated him, lied to him, emotionally and mentally abused him, blackmailed him, threatened him. You name it, she did it. Whenever he would end it with her, she would go out and sleep around with others, but then she would call him sobbing, threatening to kill herself if he didn't take her back. Once he was back with her, she would manipulate him with sex or self-harm to get him to stay. She slept with a number of his friends (a few multiple times), and was heavy into drugs and alcohol. She was even going to AA meetings at age sixteen. She would start fights with him just to have drama going, but then would start sobbing once she realized she couldn't win. She victimized herself over and over again to make it seem as though my fiance was in the wrong for her actions. She's now nineteen and has a two-year old with a guy who's left her and has a house with someone else. She still does drugs and parties constantly. Her own father doesn't even want to deal with her.
And now: us. We met about four months after both ending things with our previous partners. He pursued me for months, but I was unsure of anything serious after my last serious relationship ended so badly. I finally decided to give it a try, and we've now been together for over two years. We're as happy as can be and are both doing very well. As for my long-lost summer romance, I've forgotten all about him. I don't think of him at all unless I see a random Facebook posting from him. What feelings I thought would be irreplaceable weren't replaced at all, they simply paved the way for something MUCH greater. I didn't forget about what I felt for that boy. He helped me to experience things I never thought I could, but I've now got something genuine and true.
What this girl put you through sounds like it was awful. She's definitely manipulative and sounds like she's got a LOT of growing up to do. Please do not let this girl's actions justify the kind of worth you credit yourself for having. She's lost, and no matter what you or anyone else says to her, she's not going to change for anyone but herself. And most of the time, people like that don't want to. She's going to get what she wants always because she knows how to manipulate people's emotions. It's no wonder she played the pity card when it came to her bulimia. I've struggled with bulimia for seven years, and I know for a fact that it's no one's fault but my own. I can get stressed out by a situation, but it's no one's issue to have under control but my own. However, I also know that it's an easy way to victimize yourself. I've done it before when I was young and irresponsible.
Please DO NOT feel like you have to forgive this girl. She does not deserve your forgiveness. I know you want closure from the whole thing, but truth is: contacting her again or forgiving her is not going to get you that. You need to learn to forgive yourself. I know that you probably don't think that's what this is about, but you said yourself (a couple times) that you "stupidly" took her back. Her flaws are not your problem. Her arrogance and conceitedness are not your problem. You cannot save her from who she is, although I know you want to. Please learn to love yourself and respect yourself enough to know that this girl's issues are not because of you, and you cannot change her. You WILL find love. And by that, I do not mean you will find love again, because what you felt for this girl was not love. I know you wanted it to be, but you will find something true and genuine that you can easily recognize as love, because it will be reciprocated and more.
Hope this helped. And good luck.
Jenna
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (1 February 2011): I've personally never been through this, but my boyfriend had a girlfriend of 3 years who he gave everything to who just ended up breaking his heart. I don't know how long ago this breakup happened, but I know it's at least been a few years. He went through a lot of girls after her and just ended up getting played more or he just wasn't that interested and broke it off. However, with me, he said he's never found someone he clicked with so well and he loves me more than he's ever loved anyone else. He said I'm perfect for him and I'm what he's been searching for. I mean, our relationship isn't perfect, but it's definitely the kind that we want for life. What I'm getting to is, he found love again with me...something he thought he'd never feel with anyone again after that particular ex. And not only did he find love again, but it was better than the love before.
You will find someone else. It just takes time and the right girl. Don't ever settle or you won't end up happy. Just give it time and go with your gut feelings. Good luck.
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A
male
reader, shawncaff +, writes (1 February 2011):
 First of all, thank you for your service. Your question hit me deeply because I am wondering the same thing. My situation is different than yours in many ways but I also was betrayed by someone in whom I invested a lot and who does not care at all about any hurt she gives others. I am still struggling with these feelings that don't seem like they will ever go away (which is why I come to Dear Cupid for catharsis).As for what I have learned thus far from others and from my own reflection is that, first of all, there is no way to make someone like this feel remorse. She sounds like a sociopath. You might want to look that up if you are unfamiliar with the term. People like that do not EVER feel remorse. There is unfortunately nothing you can tell her to make her understand: you will speak them and they will be clear and sincere to you, but they will come out sounding totally different to her. As a military man, you are obviously familiar with the concepts of honor and duty, which makes this doubly painful, since there is no way of conveying this to her.In order to gain peace, you need to ACCEPT THIS. ACCEPT that she feels no guilt. No, do not read this, and say, "Aw, I appreciate what he writes but he doesn't know this girl." You are right: I do not know her. But from what you write, I know the type. SHE WILL NOT CHANGE. When you accept this, you will begin to move on. The pain you are feeling comes from the clash of your still active desire to reconcile with her and the reality that she will never be someone you can rely upon or trust.While I am still in pain from my experience, I have begun to heal because I have finally cut the possibility of any relationship occurring. I have labeled her in my mind as someone who is not trustworthy, flaky, devious and selfish. When thoughts of her sweetness and her beauty and her caring enter into my mind, I consciously remind myself of the qualities that made me miserable. I even wrote down all the times she hurt me to remind myself in moments of weakness.As for finding love again, I don't know. People tell me that yes, there are better people out there. I do know that this experience has taught me more about what I need and what I want to look for in a woman. So it was valuable.I am sure you will find someone worthy of you soon.
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A
female
reader, chigirl +, writes (1 February 2011):
Is it possible to love again? Absolutely. I don't even need to read your question to answer you that. The heart is able to heal, time heals all wounds, and when your heart is big and your body filled with love, you can love again. You'll never be who you used to be as all life experience change us. And the love for one person will always be different to the love for another. But yes, it is fully possible to love again, and deep and strong.
I will come back to this question later and read it through more carefully and see if I can answer your other questions as well. But for now I want to just say this.
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