She's been sleeping with someone else but is in love with me?!!

[freddienonose]

Me and my girlfriend of a year (we're both 26 and were planning a marriage) broke up four months ago amid much mistrust and arguments.

 

She's American, I'm Irish and we met in Ireland. She had a boyfriend back in the USA but we began a relationship, anyway. I believed that she should tell him about me and end things but she insisted that she would do it when she got home and I accepted this. Anyway, she went home and after much hesitation (which almost broke us up) she eventually plucked up the courage two weeks later and we began our long distance relationship.

 

She admitted months later while I was visiting her in America that this was a lie and that she didn't actually split with him until two weeks after she told me she did. I initially broke up with her but then changed my mind. This was the start of all our problems...

 

My trust was gone and, after I got home to Ireland, I began to treat her very, very badly. This lasted around four weeks then, during one particularly vicious row, I ended things. Two weeks later I began to try to get her back but failed miserably. She said that she couldn't handle the pain anymore and she spent a lot of time crying and telling me that she couldn't risk being hurt by me again.

 

Anyway, she's in college in NY and the week before we broke up her and some of her friends (a mixed group) met some guys in a bar who began to hang out with them and invited them to a happy hour that they were putting on. One of the guys looked up my girlfriend's email address on the college website and emailed her to remind her and her friends to come along to the event.

 

She went to the event alone...

 

I was annoyed at the time and told her that this guy only emailed because he was interested in her. She said that she had no interest and so, even if he was, what was the problem? She just went to meet some new people from outside her law school because they seemed nice. We broke up two days later.

 

Just under four weeks after we broke up she told me that she'd become friends with the guy and that they'd kissed. I was devastated and believed that it confirmed my previous suspicions. She denied this, said she was never interested and that, after we broke up, she got to know him and things changed, although she still wasn't that interested.

 

Another three weeks passed and she told me that something had happened between them again but she had stopped it because she was still in love with me. After this conversation, we stopped speaking for a period of two months but still exchanged the odd text or email.

 

Anyway, it's been four months since the break-up and we got back in touch over the last few weeks. She told me last night that she still loved me, that she's never stopped loving me and that she's been thinking about us getting back together.

 

Unfortunately, she also told me that she's had a relationship of sorts with the same guy. They've become very close friends, they've regularly been physically affectionate and they've had sex. She said it never became a real relationship because she couldn't get over me and didn't want to do that to him. She says he knows that she still has feelings for me.

 

Anyway, she seemed to still want me back after this conversation and said that nothing's happened with her 'friend' for a few weeks now.

 

I still love her but feel betrayed. Is the fact that she slept with this guy a good enough reason for me to reject the woman I love?

[LucreziaBorgia]

Is the fact that she slept with this guy a good enough reason for me to reject the woman I love?

 

That's something only you can answer. I can tell you this though - it isn't unusual to be sleeping with one person and in love with another. Some people can compartmentalize the two - some people can't. It could well be that while she was sexual with this guy, she wasn't as emotionally intimate with him as she is with you. Perhaps that's why she wants you back: to re-establish that emotional closeness and intimacy that she had with you, and that she was lacking with the guy she was sexual with.

 

I guess it depends on how much importance you hold sexual activity over emotional intimacy. If you can't get over the physical part, regardless of how much you love each other - then there isn't much of a chance for your relationship. Maybe it would be best to give it some more time.

 

She had a boyfriend back in the USA but we began a relationship, anyway.

 

This may be part of the problem too. Once you as the OM took the place of the boyfriend, I'm sure there was something nagging in the back of your mind - wondering who would take the OM spot and when. It isn't easy to establish trust with a person, when you met them under the pretense of betraying someone else's trust.

[freddienonose]

I don't know if it's as simple as that. She told me (although, I really didn't want to know) that they've only had intercourse twice and that, while it was good, she didn't, well...you get my meaning. She also said that they're close, that he's been a great friend and very supportive, but that she doesn't have any feelings for him beyond friendship now. So, the relationship was obviously a little more nuanced than a solely sexual one would be.

 

I suppose what's really causing me problems is the genesis of their relationship and how it occurred while we were still together. She says that she had no romantic intentions towards him while we were still together and her motivation for getting to know him then was purely friendship. If she is lying to me, then clearly I shouldn't go anywhere near her but I have no real way of knowing. We also frequently disagree about social interactions. Things are done very differently in Ireland so I don't know whether I'm over-reacting or not.

 

Also, if I'm honest, I do suffer from a terrible affliction familiar to many men - sexual jealousy. I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't make me sick to my stomach to think that she's been with someone else. I wanted to be with this girl for the rest of my life, to have children with her and, when I looked at her, I genuinely saw my life partner.

 

She's also a lot more sexually experienced than I am and we'd fought before because I felt that she entered into sexual relationships too casually in the past. She seems to have done it again and it makes me question her capacity to be faithful.

 

I'm interested in what you say about the compartmentalisation. I know it's not something I can do. She texted me to tell me that she loved me a few times when, unknown to me, she was involved with this man. Do you think it's possible that the hurt she experienced as a result of our split, drove her into the arms of this 'nice guy'?

 

I suppose when I look at it coldly, her sleeping with some guy who, according to her, has been very good to her, is not the worst thing that could have happened (I've slept with someone since our break-up, too), but I've spent the morning vomiting and crying at the very thought and I find that, at the moment, it's killed my sexual attraction to her.

 

Do you think I could ever get over this?

 

By the way, I'm delighted that you responded Lucrezia. Pound for pound you give the best advice on this board, and I've gained a lot of strength from some of your posts on other topics.

 

Thanks,

 

 

Fred

[freddienonose]

This may be part of the problem too. Once you as the OM took the place of the boyfriend, I'm sure there was something nagging in the back of your mind - wondering who would take the OM spot and when. It isn't easy to establish trust with a person, when you met them under the pretense of betraying someone else's trust.

 

You're right. This was a huge problem. As, if I'm honest, was the fact that she tried to sleep with me the first night we kissed. I refused.....

 

Had she done the honourable thing and told him immediately upon returning to America, it would have been much easier, but she didn't. She also lied to me about when she really broke up with him and, when she finally did, didn't tell him about me, just that 'it wasn't going to work'.

 

Perhaps we were doomed from the start?

 

I have issues with trust, anyway, but my experience in this relationship has taught me that, while trust has to be earned, sometimes you just have to make a decision to either trust someone or not. There have been so many lies in this relationship, a relationship that began with deceit, though, that I don't know if trust is truly possible.

 

Having said all of that, I'm hopelessly in love with her. As my tears and vomit this morning will testify.

 

And therein lies the rub. How can you walk away from someone who you love that much?

[Sal Paradise]

She cheated on her bf to be with you. Never expect honesty from someone who engages in infidelity. You have no one to blame but yourself.