She cheated 2 months in, is it crazy to give her a shot?

[aukonak]

I made the mistake of posting this on Reddit, having to remember people aren't exactly forgiving in a lot of those subs. It's not that I was looking for reasons to validate staying with her, just more empathy for both sides would be nice.

 

I met a girl on a dating app a couple of months ago, and we hit it off immediately. A minor red flag that I registered and filed away early on was that she was a year out of a 7+ year relationship; she'd been the one to end it but they still talked occasionally. She later admitted he still bugged her at times to get back together. Still, she seemed refreshingly open and things were moving along so well with us I didn't really worry. We had the exclusivity talk a little early on (maybe ~3 weeks) and at the 4-5 week mark did a staycation at a timeshare I was going to use either way. It was a great weekend...

 

This was about a month ago. Around this time she'd let her ex know she was seeing someone (he had known she'd been dating in general) to presumably set some boundaries that might not have been there in the past (red flag). Well, he didn't take it well, and apparently over the course of 9 days he hammered her with texts, sent flowers to her work, gifts, notes on her door. He basically pulled out all the stops, trying to get her to at least hang out one last time to talk things over before she takes any "next steps" with me.

 

Well at the end of that 9 day period she gave in and went over to his place, and they hooked up. I didn't find this out until two weeks after the fact, when he (who predictably wasn't going to go away despite promising he would) was threatening to come over and tell me all about it. She swears she was about to any day but was terrified of losing me when in her mind she'd chosen me even if it'd taken all of that.

 

So when she told me about it she made it clear that she knows she messed up, but I don't think she originally had enough clarity to take full responsibility. She kept saying she let it happen "for closure", that she only realized afterwards how much she succumbed to his manipulation, and that her feelings for me were constant and she was guilty and remorseful once she showed up there and stuff started going down.

 

I've told her that it's very likely that we're done and this is something I can't forgive, but she's been pretty sincere about wanting to do whatever she can to understand and fix this. After more discussion I've gotten her to admit that all of his romance did make her want to make sure that that door was really closed with him, which makes more sense to me than "closure". At the end of the day, her not telling me about it until she had to, her lying to me the night it went down, and hooking up with him when there were gazillions of opportunities to head all this off show a lot of confusion and a serious lack of judgment.

 

I've been cheated on before in my distant past, and I guess I can say I'm giving her a little more slack based on the circumstances than I normally might. I'm the first guy she's been really into since this one and I know 7 years is a long-ass time to date someone. I know it very likely might not be worth salvaging, but I don't see the harm in at least seeing how things roll for a couple weeks.

 

Has anyone ever been in her position? I'm so sick of hearing the "once a cheater, always a cheater" epitaph, and I don't believe it. If she's taking active efforts to make sure she understands why she screwed me over and to make sure it doesn't happen again (to me or anyone else), isn't that a positive thing? She also immediately had a talk with him finally just telling him he's out of her life, that they cannot be friends or talk anymore.

[beldar]

Your title asks .... She cheated 2 months in, is it crazy to give her a shot?

 

 

 

 

In a word, YES.

[beldar]

Two months dating. Not much time invested, really.

 

 

Dating is like a prolonged job interview. She failed the interview. Big time.

 

 

And it didn't take very long either.

[mark clemson]

I'm not sure it is cheating unless you two had discussed being exclusive. If you did then clearly that is an issue since she doesn't have good boundaries.

 

However, putting that aside the orbiter ex will be a thorn in your side if you try to progress this. That would be less of a big deal if she wasn't open to pressure from him. Since she clearly is, it's IMO a waste of time to date her.

 

Walk away and find someone without this baggage.

[elaine567]

You are a fool if you continue to buy into this.

She cheated with her ex, when the two of you should only have had eyes for each other. You were exclusive and you had just had a great weekend away...

If she can cheat on you when things were going well, just imagine what could happen if you hit a rocky patch.

 

She is still involved with her ex, her ex is going nowhere too as no doubt he still loves her, stay away is my advice.

 

Your ego thinks you are superior and she will choose you, she probably won't...

[elaine567]

I'm not sure it is cheating unless you two had discussed being exclusive.

 

We had the exclusivity talk...

 

They were "supposed to be" exclusive...

[Marc878]

Not relationship material if that's what you're looking for.

[DKT3]

I wouldn't give her a second chance. Not because she had sex with someone else after knowing you for 2 months but because she has poor boundaries and she isnt over her ex.

 

He still has a pull on her. Just move on, maybe some time down the road you can revisit it with her.

[PRW]

I made the mistake of posting this on Reddit,

 

I've got two Reddit subs I just created yesterday and today. They are fresh, so zero traffic right now.

 

We had the exclusivity talk a little early on (maybe ~3 weeks)

That was where the real mistake happened. Exclusivity should not be happening until around 2 months if the situation involves two emotionally healthy people. If it would have happened that way then you wouldn't have been exclusive and she technically wouldn't have been "cheating" because you would both have still be free to see other people.

 

The other guy's over-the-top behavor (flowers, practically stalking, etc) is part and parcel to what broke them up in the first place. He was a needy clinger that managed to hang on for 7 years,...or he was/is a Narcissist that has his claws embedded in her pretty deep (method of operation is similar). They will just break up again even if they get back together.

 

You should just stay out of the dust cloud till the dust settles, but personally I don't think there is much of a future there.

[schlumpy]

I think whether you stay with her or not depends on your viewpoint on sex. Do you consider sex a recreational activity or do you consider it an expression of love?

 

If the former then you should be able to get by this. The only reason for an understanding of exclusivity with a person who views sex as recreational is disease control. Otherwise it has no relevance.

 

If you see sex as an expression of love and exclusivity as a bond that can be broken then it's going to be much harder if not impossible.

 

If you stay with her expect this behavior to be repeated in the future.

[snowboy91]

For most people 1 year should be enough time to get over a ~7 year relationship. I was in a 6 year relationship and after it ended, I got over it within a month (I know that is fast, but it does happen).

 

For whatever reason he still has some influence on her life and she is still attracted to him enough for this to happen. She may say she wanted to make sure it was really over, but this is the sort of situation that if you know... you know. If there is any doubt then something like this does happen - and her actions aren't matching up with her words.

 

To me she isn't 100% ready to move on from her ex and into a new relationship. That process takes time, and for some it's more time than others. And that's OK. But I'd say you don't want to try and start a relationship while she's still healing - he will still get in the way.

 

I'm sorry I couldn't offer a better outlook, but I hope this is a little more forgiving.

[MsJayne]

She lied to you until she was forced to come clean. On the one hand the lying shows she's into you and didn't want to lose you, on the other it's a massive red flag that she doesn't get how important respect and honesty are in relationships. Her ex may well be one of those guys who needs a helping hand, (potentially balled into a fist), to get out of her life, however, and I speak from experience here, only she can get rid of him by shutting down on him completely. Chances are she's a bit of a softy and has trouble being hard on people, but in this situation she put her ex before you, and I don't care if it's two months or two years into a relationship, she showed really poor judgement, (seriously stupid in fact), and did a really crappy thing to you. It's hard to turn your back on someone who you've become emotionally involved with, especially in a situation like this, so I would say give her one chance. I recently had a brief relationship with a guy I met through a date site, and 4 weeks in I realised he was still active on there, even though he seemed super keen on me. He'd stood me up on a Saturday night and it seemed sus to me, and that was why I checked the date site. He told me he was "just chatting to friends" on there, and that I was wrong to jump to conclusions, but that was the end of our brief thing. If he'd been as into me as he acted he would have done something to change the situation. At least your girl has the decency to own her dumb actions in the name of trying to save what you had between you, so I say give her another go if she's told the ex to get out of her life.

Edited September 12, 2019 by MsJayne

[Mrin]

The fact that she went and had wild monkey "closure" sex with a 7+ year ex isn't surprising for anyone who has been in a LTR and broken it off.

 

The fact that she did this while dating you for two months also isn't that surprising. I mean, you're a two month guy.

 

The fact that she lied about it also isn't surprising. What's she gonna do - slip that little tidbit in there at intermission when you're out on a date?

 

What IS surprising is that you're even considering sticking with her. Have some self respect man! Have some situational awareness that she's probably really bad news. She's not over him. She has serious honesty issues. Serious boundary issues.

 

Move on. Life is too short to waste your time, resources and heart on women like her.

 

End it quickly and walk the F away.

[lacktose]

Honestly, unlike all yall negative humans in LS, i think you should give her another chance if she is really apologetic about it. if everyone thinks in the direction of "once a cheater, always a cheater" , it also means that humans dont deserve a second chance. ex-convicts should stay in jail because they are gonna commit the same thing again. if she's really sorry and she loves you and you love her as much, why not?

 

maybe she didnt mean to cheat, establish some boundaries. maybe you didnt give her enough attention? idk. relationships are about compromises. to me, if my partner cheated but she was drunk and she felt sorry, ill be sure as hell to help heer through it. its not being stupid, its about loving someone and love is unconditional. many people search their whole life for love and they dont get what you did, you wanna just give up straight away?

Edited September 13, 2019 by lacktose

[Fair]

I did not read all that. Except that she gave you some lame excuse.

 

If she cheated, she was already trying to find another partner by doing so. She didn't just mess up.

 

She doesn't respect you. She's using you until she finds someone who'll keep her after she sleeps with them.

 

Move on and I'm saying it with kindness. You can do better.

[aukonak]

Thanks to everyone for your comments. Following my original post, we talked more about it, I took space, then finally broke it off. It was tough because I believe the girl cares about me like she says she does. I believe she's learning some hard lessons here too and maybe this won't be a repeat thing for her...but she's still shown enough resistance to actually owning her behavior to make it impossible for me to even consider giving her a second chance.

[beldar]

You did the right thing.

[Marc878]

You didn't lose much. Just more drama and pain down the road.

 

Cheating is a decisio/choice it just doesn't happen and it is a part of who she is.

[preraph]

It would be too much for me knowing that he can still make her fall into bed with words. He'll be back. He got the big payoff.