My girlfriend cheated - 2 questions.

[James-London]

Dear All,

 

I would be really grateful for all of your thoughts on my situation. I am at 32year old guy from London and met this beautiful 30 year old Polish girl lastsummer. Although we are both very different people, I always felt there was astrong attraction between us.

 

About 6 weeks into our relationship, I see her flirting with a guy at a party.I was jealous but had no reason to mistrust her. Within 3 weeks she said shewanted to break up. She didn’t say much – just that we were not compatible.

 

4 weeks later, she really wanted me back. I had no idea she was seeing this guyduring that time, I still missed her, so we got back together. Apart from those4 weeks, we have been together about a year – last summer to this summer.

 

Pretty much for the whole year, she has felt that I do not spend enough timewith her. I would call her maybe 2 or 3 times a week and see her once on theweekend. For a few months before Christmas, I might see her only every twoweeks. I was like this partly because I was too obsessed with my own problemsand work. Also, she was not giving me enough affection, and I was not sure ifwe were really that right for each other either…

 

These are not good excuses on my side – I should have spent more time with her. AND SHE DID TELL ME that she neededmore attention, but I was too wrapped up in my own problems. All I can say isthat I have learnt a big life lesson from this.

 

For the last 3 months we have spent more time together, and we have both beenhappier. I felt we were finally going somewhere.... However, I just found out (2days ago) that a) she left me last summer in large part to be with him, and b)she SLEPT WITH THIS GUY TWICE around Christmas last year – AFTER we got backtogether. She says that these things are my fault because I was not spending enough time with her at that time, and she felt abandoned. She says she loves me and not him.

 

Is it an excuse to cheat if someone does not spend enough time with you? If she was so unhappy before Christmas, maybeshe should have left me before sleeping with him? After all, that is what shedid the first time last summer…. Finally, is there any way I should forgive herfor cheating on me given that I did not see her enough, as she asked?

 

Thank you to everyone who has read this, and sorry for length! I am massively grateful for all your thoughtsat this very difficult time.

[montykatzy]

In my opinion, she's using you and the other dude to get herself some action. Why is she blaming you for her shortcomings? If that was me, I'd tell her to leave instantly.

 

Think about this: what would you do if you walking in on them two shagging, then she had a go at you for not being around?

[Legatus]

You DON'T FORGIVE.

 

Come on. She left you to have "a little" of him while she was with you. Do you think you can rebuild your trust?

 

If someone is unhappy they should SAY something, explain, leave if necessary and say why, not sleep around.

 

If you really like her, see if you can rebuild your trust. You don't have to forgive her straight away. She should respect if that takes time. If you can't do it ,can't forget, forgive, trust... then you'll have your answer

[Chi townD]

Sorry dude, her cheating on you was HER fault NOT YOURS! You did nothing wrong, you didn't ask for that.

 

Look, you can own up to 50% of the problems in your relationship and she an own up to the other 50%. But, her cheating on you was 100% on her. That was a choice that she made.

 

What she's trying to do is blameshift. Making her cheating on you your fault. It wasn't your fault. It was her choice.

 

Dude, you need to drop this girl. Regardless if you "feel" responsible for her cheating. She still gave herself to another man while she made a commitment to be exclusive to you. That fact isn't debatable. She did it. She willingly did it to you.

 

You deserve better dude.

[jphcbpa]

She is gaslighting you into thinking you could have done something to prevent this. Her guilt is making her say these things. She cheated, it was her choice.

 

You are best to move on. She is not the type of woman you could ever trust. She gets "lonely" and "needy" and finds another man to fill that void. She is not able to fill that void on her own.

[CarrieT]

About 6 weeks into our relationship, I see her flirting with a guy at a party.

The relationship was over at this point.

 

Within 3 weeks she said she wanted to break up. She didn’t say much – just that we were not compatible.

You didn't see the signs at six weeks and should have let her go three weeks later.

 

4 weeks later, she really wanted me back.

This was really the breaking point of game-playing and now you are beating yourself up for a years' worth of immaturity.

 

Move on, my friend...

[anythingbut]

Sorry matey, but there's NO WAY you should forgive this girl.

 

Alarm bells for me would have been the break up after 10 weeks so she could get with the other geezer. F**k that for a laugh.

 

...The you got cheated on at christmas? To answer your question, a lack of attention is definitely not a good enough reason to cheat on someone. Sounds to me like she wanted to have her xmas pudding AND eat it.

 

You definitely deserve better than this, and for me she sounds like the sort of girl who doesn't value loyalty highly, and will repeat this kind of behaviour many times over into the future.

 

You deserve better than this, so give her the sack NOW, learn from the situation, and find yourself who won't cheat on you.

 

All the best x

[JDPT]

I love how she wants absolutely no part of this and dumps it all on you. And later on down the line when she continues to sleep around it will be all your fault too. As stated previously you must kick her to the curb immediately. She isn't worth the time and by the looks of it never was. Embark on your recovery journey no need to keep wasting your time.

[Keenly]

Cheating is never the victims fault. That's assinine.

[aliveagain]

Regardless of the state of your relationship(which you both own 50% of all relationship issues) cheating was 100% her choice. She left you for other man(OM), tested him out, found out he wasn't what he represented himself to be and came back to you. She came back until someone better comes along in my opinion. She is blameshifting, she hasn't accepted responsibility for her cheating, that is not remorse and makes her a very good candidate for a repeat cheater. She is very poor girlfriend material, you can do better than this, why waste time with her find someone that is committed to you. Many on this site will argue that your one night stand was just as bad as her full blown affair, you too have boundary issues and need to get help so it never becomes an issue again. Move on she is a waste of time.

[AMusing]

Christ, neither of you two seem capable of owning up to your own bad behavior. She actually blames you for her cheating on you? It tells me that if you start getting distant again, you better expect her to cheat again. She should've dumped you in December for giving her way less than she needs, but since she didn't, she can't blame anyone but herself for her actions.

 

And you... you are no better than she is. You made a "mistake" by "accidentally" sleeping with another girl.

 

You two are great for each other. Hope you're using protection.

[Bito]

Hopefully you can learn from this and make sure next time you make better choices

[James-London]

True. I didn't own up to it either. I do feel there is a difference where you do it one time and feel bad about it. She, on the other hand, has feelings for him, and slept with him at least 3 times. possibly she has been seeing him the whole time.

[AMusing]

True. I didn't own up to it either. I do feel there is a difference where you do it one time and feel bad about it. She, on the other hand, has feelings for him, and slept with him at least 3 times. possibly she has been seeing him the whole time.

 

Do you though (feel bad for cheating, that is)? It certainly doesn't come through in either of your posts. I'm not condoning her behavior, or saying her cheating is your fault. But it sounds to me like you're excusing your crappy behavior because she did something crappy too, and that is not helpful to you or your relationship.

 

Anyway, my question for you: why are you spending your energy trying to convince yourself (and us) that her infidelity was worse than yours? You both acted horribly. You both have reasons not to want to fix your relationship. You two are very broken right now. If it were my relationship, I would end it immediately and spend a good chunk of time figuring out my own issues before I started dating anyone else. You need to figure out why, when you were apparently satisfied with your relationship, and unaware of her infidelity, you chose to sleep with someone else. If you don't, you are destined to repeat that behavior.

[AMusing]

Definitely not saying he should forgive her, but check OP's other thread on this topic. He also was unfaithful. This relationship is toxic on both sides.

[Keenly]

The couple things I just noticed right off the bat is she gave him her contact information and then she told you she wasn't interested. Does that make sense ? She went out of her way to make sure they could talk again.

 

 

Also, classic chester behavior, she is shifting the blame onto you with this " I felt abandoned by you " nonsense.

.

If she wanted to act like a grown adult, she could have talked to you about her concerns, instead she wanted to be a whore and gravitate to the closest attention source like a snake to heat.

 

 

You deserve better.

[Chi townD]

 

 

 

After that, he went away for a few months, and came back early this year. She says she has not cheated this year (although she says she had many opportunities if she wanted to). She says she is sorry and could never hurt meagain, especially now we have become so close in the last 2 months.

 

 

The bold is the reason why you should drop her like a bad habit.

 

What girlfriend puts herself in a situation where an opportunity to cheat exists?

 

That tells me that she's flirting with other dudes. That tells me that she's entertained the opportunity to cheat. So, how serious is she about this relationship? That means, that she probably HAS cheated on you (just not intercourse). A good definition of cheating is doing or SAYING things to someone else that you wouldn't do infront of your significant other. So, she was probably cheating with her "opportunities".

 

She has lied to you about this guy. She was BOLD enough to give this guy her email address WHILE YOU WERE THERE!!!!

 

On top of EVERYTHING ELSE!!! She's still friends with this guy and I speculate that she won't give up this friendship for you. She'd probably tell that he's no threat and nothing more than a friend now. But, always remember, she's choosing a friendship over a boyfriend.

 

Dude, you need to let this one go. There are plenty of girls out there that won't cheat on there boyfriends. You need to find one of them.

[James-London]

I guess so, but is that never forgivable?... actually the more I think about it, I suppose not. I mean, she was with me and specifically chose to give her information to another guy who was hitting on her. I should have let her go back then.

[Coolit]

I cheated on my H and will never do so again. I cheated for many reasons but one reason it felt good at the time was because being persued again felt good. I was a selfish idiot. But my point is. Your GF cheated on you when all those pheromones and sparks flying should have held her attention for sure.

 

And that is just the first red flag and IMO the only one you need. You guys have no foundation to build on. And you know what you can forgive someone without letting them back in your life. You can wish her well, hope she learns from her mistakes and makes some OTHER guy a good girlfriend. And then find a girl that during your "honeymoon" stage isn't keeping one eye on the playing field and lying about it.

[James-London]

Thanks for your post. But is that never forgivable to give your information out? What would she have to prove in order for me to take her back?.... The stuff in December is more serious - I don't know how that could be forgivable, if at all?

[JustJoe]

I would be much more worried about her f**king him than about the address business, if I were you. You are sweating the small stuff and ignoring the huge red flags in front of your nose.

[NXS]

 

b) She still cannot explain why she chose to stay with me, and what her current feelings are for him. She has said that this guy likes to have “lots of girlfriends”. So, I guess this means he could not offer her an exclusive relationship. But then she quickly changed her mind and said that she wanted to be with me, regardless of what the other guy says. It’s all pretty confusing!! I still do not know if this guy is really unimportant to her, or if I am basically the 2nd prize here.

 

Sorry but you are the 2nd prize here, she has basically told you that she would be with him except that he has lots of options, and then she tried to backtrack by saying she wants to be with you anyway. Based on what she's said I don't believe her, I think she would go back to him in a heartbeat if she thought she had a chance.

[Chi townD]

Okay, lets look at it this way. She blatantly gave her email to this other dude. She told you, no PROMISED you that she wasn't interested in this guy. That was a lie. While she was in a relationship with YOU she secretly started and emotional affair with the guy "she wasn't interested in". Well, how deep was their relationship? As soon as an opportunity to be with him physically, she went. Willingly! Several times!!! Was she thinking of you when she went? Were you even a factor?

 

Dude, she was never fully, your girlfriend. She never committed herself to your 100%. She had two boyfriends.

 

Can you forgive her? Sure. You can forgive her as a person, but as a girlfriend....I think she crossed a line.

[road]

 

One more thing – is it not a bit odd that she has remained friends with him? If she really loves me (as she claims), how could she even look at him after what happened last year?

 

 

 

She refuses to go NC with her OM is a bad sign.

 

Dating is a the road test for marriage. She crashed the car into a bridge and watched it burn. She failed the test.

 

You are young. You have the time to find someone better and you will. There have been too many stories where the BH was cheated on by his WW before they married. Instead of running for the hills he married her.

 

Only to have her cheat on him again.

 

Not married, no kids, no financial connections. Get out of Dodge before you wind up on Boot Hill.

[NXS]

She refuses to go NC with her OM is a bad sign.

 

Dating is a the road test for marriage. She crashed the car into a bridge and watched it burn. She failed the test.

 

You are young. You have the time to find someone better and you will. There have been too many stories where the BH was cheated on by his WW before they married. Instead of running for the hills he married her.

 

Only to have her cheat on him again.

 

Not married, no kids, no financial connections. Get out of Dodge before you wind up on Boot Hill.

 

Road, I like all your driving analogies