My girlfriend kissed another guy and can't forgive herself

[TenaciousDan]

I'm in a relationship with a girl I've know since college (we've been dating for about a year now, a really solid relationship or at least i like to think so) and we've both moved onto University now so we've been doing the long distance relationship thing since September now. Generally it hasn't been too hard, i travel up to see her (and vice versa) every couple of weeks at least and we talk every night. It hasn't really seemed to put a scratch on our relationship. Obviously we've had a few ups and downs (to be fair, who hasn't ?) but nothings ever seriously got under mine or her skin and any problems are usually resolved with ease and we move on stronger and wiser. That is up until now !

 

About a month ago i was back at home (fairly close to my Uni, girlfriends is fairly far away) and she called me up and told me she was going out clubbing with a few friends from uni, i said i trusted her and wished her a good night out. The next day i call her up to talk and can immediately tell somethings on her mind, i ask what's wrong and tells me that she got fairly drunk the previous night (to the extent she was ill the following day....silly) and kissed another guy, apparently it was just a quick kiss and she feels this other guy took advantage of her. Regardless i was quite hurt, naturally but she felt devastated and told me straight away and i feel that, ok, although she did kiss the guy i can work on forgiving her, worse things have happened in the world.

 

A month later I'm trying to reassure her that I'm ok with it, we both realize it was a mistake and it wasn't meant to happen. We're both really close and care greatly for each other but she can't seem to forgive herself. I went up to Cardiff (location of her uni) to visit her but she just ended up telling me to leave and kicked me out and told me that she didn't deserve me and that she can't trust herself anymore and that she wants up until Easter to try and work it out but doesn't want me to get hopeful that she'll be able to figure things out in her head.

 

This has left me absolutely devastated since this girl means the world to me...I'm willing to forgive and forget, give it another try and to be perfectly fair I've conquered things in my head that we're ridiculing me and i don't see this quick drunken mistake eating me up in the future, because that's what it was. A mistake. We all make them, it's just how we treat them afterwards that makes the most difference and she instantly drowned herself in regret and guilt. I just wish there was a way for me to show her that she's being too hard on herself and that she shouldn't throw what we have away because she doesn't feel she can trust herself anymore. I feel no resent against her and want to help her work things out but she continues to tell me that i'm too good for her. It's just not true. I feel she's already given up fighting it.

 

I just wondered if anyone has any advice for me or for her that i can pass on to help her heal and see that's she's potentially making a large mistake.

 

Thanks a lot for replies !!!

[westernxer]

...she wants up until Easter to try and work it out but doesn't want me to get hopeful that she'll be able to figure things out in her head.

 

What's there to figure out, unless she's having second thoughts about the relationship, now that she's experienced the excitement of kissing new men.

[TenaciousDan]

What's there to figure out, unless she's having second thoughts about the relationship, now that she's experienced the excitement of kissing new men.

 

I don't know, I suppose I'm just confused, i guess she is too. I don't think she's having second thoughts about the relationship through excitement of kissing new men since she's been hurt badly in the past in previous relationships and hurt herself emotionally over it. I think she just feels that she's now hurt the only faithful partner she's had and that she doesn't deserve me back and she needs to punish herself.

 

I just feel she's just being too hard on herself, i love her to bits and probably care about her too much (i really don't want to loose her) and it breaks my heart to hear her say that kind of stuff to me when i feel we can move past it.

[norajane]

She may have done more than just a quick kiss, but hasn't told you about it. Or she may have really liked the feeling of being attractive and attracted to other men. Sometimes a kiss is not just a kiss.

[guin_girl]

Maybe she's having the same thoughts that I did when I was at her age and I kissed someone else other than my boyfriend. I was overwhelmed with the thought that there was someone who I was attracted to enough to kiss. I loved my boyfriend very much at the time and it threw me for a loop. I too confessed to my boyfriend and I had a hard time reconciling in my mind that it didn't mean more than an innocent kiss. And it did bother him in the long run... I'm not saying the kiss broke us up, but it started the wheels churning... I went off to college and he stayed home, he ended up moving on with someone else, as I found out when I came home to perform (college band performance) and he showed up to watch with his new girl friend he failed to tell me about. at least I had a HUGE support system... the band was 450 members...

 

But I digress, more than likely she is thinking about why it happened, what made her inside allow it to happen. It's not about the other guy at all, just an internal dialog she's trying to work through. (BTW, that guy and I did try again several years later... he cheated again... but it wasn't the "kiss" or the other guy that broke us up...)

[lovelorcet]

There is a good chance that she slept with this guy.

 

Let her go and give her some space. You need to pull away from her and let her be.