GF and Best Friend and a lot more

[whysper]

I found this forum after typing "Coping with infidelity" into google and working my way through the pages. I noticed the atmosphere seems to be supportive, so I am going to tell my story and see what a bunch of strangers have to say. Thanks in advance, this is sure to be long.

 

I found out my girlfriend of 6.5 years and my best friend of 8 had been having an affair for 8 months in the middle of February. I had my suspicions, but never really gave them any credit because who wants to think that the two closest non-relatives a person has can do that to them? I surely did not want to believe it, despite the signs and portents that in hindsight were all over the place.

 

The short version goes like this. Boy meets girl after spending 9 months in semi-voluntary emotional isolation. Boy needed to work on himself. Boy and girl get together. Boy (me) spends three years dragging his feet with the most wonderful girl he has ever known. She loved me despite my reluctance, because I never gave her doubt that I would love her eventually. After 3 years I told her that I was in love with her. All was good for a few months and then she moved about 2 hours away.

 

Long distance was very hard for me. I ended up breaking up with her because I was getting myself sick every time I left her, or she left me. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and the stomach clench in fear. Neither of us were happy. She went to therapy, I played video games. She kept trying to convince me to work it out with her. I would not leave, because I thought I had a good job. In retrospect, I have a crappy job that pays very well, and am too afraid to leave the safety of my hometown. It has sucked my soul away.

 

Eventually I decided to buy a house. I asked her if she wanted to live with me in my house and she said yes. The time she had spent living in the big city had not been spent "living," so she decided she would come back and go to school. I bought a house, and we moved in.

 

I did not know that sometime in the month before I bought the house she had gotten over me. I had not gotten over her, and I had tried. She moved in and became very depressed. She went through many different medications and different dosage changes. She slept 16 hours a day 5 days a week and made no effort to get a job or go to school. She ran out of money. We started fighting. A lot of fighting.

 

I now know that my behavior at the time was less than exemplary. I was not fulfilling her needs, and she was not full-filing mine. I crawled back into my video games. She eventually got a job. I never told her how much it meant to me. The money problem was still there, because she did not give me any on a regular basis as she had agreed to when she moved in, but it was enough to keep me in new games and a new T.V. She tried to tell me something was wrong, and I did not listen. She did not try very hard to convince me.

 

My best friend is a better looking, younger, and musically talented (not gifted, but passable because of his looks) version of me. He has a lot more experience with women than I do, and generally knows how to have fun. He is married with two kids. His wife cheats on him to hurt him, he cheats on her to cause himself pain. He never listened to any of his friends and married her anyway. I never thought that he would ever do something like this. I asked him to hang out with my GF when she was in her depression because I worked a lot and at night. I thought it would be good for her depression.

 

It sure was, and I never saw it coming. 8 months later I find a poem/song that she had written to him about there 6 month "anniversary." Around the same time as their "anniversary" I had asked her if she really wanted to be in a relationship with me. I was not happy, she was not spending any time with me, and it was apparant that she was not happy with me as well. She cried and convinced me that we could work things out. In retrospect, I read too much in her tears, as I have done many times since.

 

So I find out and kick her out. I give her two days to get her stuff and leave. I go live at my parents. Two days pass and she leaves me a note. I call her at work. I ask her if this is how she wants it to end. Three days later I write her a letter telling her everything that my friends and family have to say, and that I do not give a damn what they say, I want to see if we can work things out. I start going to therapy.

 

Therapy is great for me. I was reintroduced to myself and realized how much I had changed after taking my job and her moving away, and most of it was for the worse. I started to see my role in causing her to stop loving me, and even worse, not be able to fall back in love with me when she moved in. I did not cause the affair though. That was their choice.

 

Her and I start talking. I go and see her. She sends me a letter which gives me hope. I find her and tell her the conditions that I would set for working things out. I tell her that we can discuss most of them, but I make it clear that any and all communication with him has to stop in order for us to try.

 

So we start, slowly at first. It speeds up a little too quickly because of my revelations in therapy. A few weeks pass. She is spending most of her free time away from work at my house. Then I get a wild hair up my but and check the history file on her account on my computer. She is still talking to him. I confront her. She cries and begs and tells me that we can make it work. I leave taking my key but return shortly and give it back.

 

I ask her to tell me what I would find if I were to look in this new secret e-mail account she has. She tells me it is mostly just her saying that she will be sending him her goodbye letters and some other stuff. I tell her she has about 5 hours to send him her goodbyes and carbon me or it is over between us, then she has to give me her passwords. She does. I was so unprepared. Everything I had been waiting to hear for myself was spread over 9 e-mails to him. It slayed me. I once knew the depth of her love, but now it was for him. I could not believe that she had fallen for a womanizing (and he is, though she does not want to believe it at all, I used to cover for him to his wife) married man who made it clear he was not ever going to leave his family for her. Everything I had been waiting to hear, but had not because I thought she was still suffering from depression.

 

It is now almost a month later. We have made little progress as a couple because she is wanting to work things out in her head. She is living here, though she has an apartment that she never goes to. I am back to waiting for her to come out of whatever depression she is in now. We went to a couples councilor this week, but he does not want to see us again until she is in therapy. I have told her that she can leave at any time if that is what she needs to work on herself, and she does not go. Instead, she complains that I do not give her enough space to work on herself.

 

I am really trying to make this work, but she is still focused on herself and not the relationship which is driving me nuts. I know logically this is what she needs to do, but I still feel like complete garbage pretty much all the time. I lost my best friend. I lost my girlfriend (although that happened a long time ago and all she has been for over a year is a roommate.) I have found myself and am working to regain my soul, and will get it back with or without her. I just need some advice on how to handle myself while she "works things out." I feel broken all the time, and all of my friends hate her now, so they are not much help at all.

 

Sorry for the book, and any spelling/grammar mistakes

 

-whysper

[Tony T]

And why are you wanting to beat a dead horse???

 

I normally don't read long posts because I don't like short stories but I actually read this three times looking for clues that this girl even likes you...and I found none. It's over, terribly over between you and this whatever.

 

A woman who loves a man doesn't screw his married best friend for eight months. (And you were the one who was so kind to put the two of them together...eeewwww, YUK) What will it take for you to come into reality?

 

OK, remember Humpty Dumpty? All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again. Your relationshxt is over, as painful as it may be to you. It can NEVER be put together again in a form that comes anyway near resembling healthy. You were betrayed not once, but over a LONG period of time. Yeah, by your lady and your best friend.

 

Just how long do you have to live on this planet before you learn you don't go back for seconds when things like this happen?

 

If you actually think this is going to come together...that she is the love of your dreams...then go for it. There are a lot of forums and psychologists who will pick you up repeatedly when you get screwed over.

 

Exactly how do you think you could ever trust this lady again in all your days on this planet?

 

What is it about you that you're not telling us? Is your self esteem so low that you think you can't find a lady with more class, more morals, more ethics, etc. to love you. A lady of the street will be more forthright and honest with you.

 

Please, I won't sleep until I know you have sought professional counselling. Get to the root of why you would want somebody in your life who screws your best bud, lies through her butt, is not a good companion, takes advantage of you, uses depression as an excuse for screwing you over and screwing your buddy, etc. And while you are there, learn more about what good, solid, trusting relationships are all about. I don't think you have a clue.

 

It takes so very much more than one-sided love to come close to making a relationship. You can't possibly love her, either. Love is loving somebody's behavior. If you actually love what she has done to you, well...mention that to the counsellor too.

 

When you get yourself all sorted out, you will be ready for real love. What you have on your hands now is a lot of crap!!!

 

I know you said you came here for support and I'd love to give that to you. But it would be unconscionable for me to support you in your efforrts to get back with this sleeze. But I do care about you and your happiness and that's why I have taken time to read your post three times, get sick for the afternoon over it, and reply in such a way that I hope the information gets to you.