Am I crazy for wanting to try again?

[Jeff Douglass]

What’s up y’all? I was cheated on by my girlfriend. I wanted her to be my wife at some point in the future. From my standpoint, our relationship wasn’t bad. Of course every relationship has its flaws. We’d always work through everything. Here’s my story. I was working a job and was extremely unhappy and becoming depressed and frustrated as the days went on. I got my bachelors degree and was making chump change realistically. It was to the point where I was ready to change careers, and I began to do research in to data analysis. I was getting more and more interested over time and even started taking a few courses here and there. Fast forward….there was a young lady that started working at this previous job and she checked all the boxes..looks, personality, and intelligence. We got cool over time, but nothing was ever sexual. One day after introducing myself to her. I liked a pic on her story… and she seen it.. and then put me in her close friends on instagram (BEFORE EVEN FOLLOWING ME). My ex seen that she’d like a story or two back of mine & she would ask about it and I would say it’s nothing, because I genuinely felt like it was nothing although I knew I was attracted to the co-worker. Fast forward, she posts that she’s moving and was trying to get some ideas for her new place. A few days later, I seen her walking back into the building from her lunch and brought up the moving process for her and that I thought of a pretty cool idea… one of the customized doormats. I was honestly just trying be genuine because there were only a handful of intelligent, interesting, and young people around our age there. Fast forward, I bought the girl a gift & tried hiding it…& my ex found out and devastated because she felt like me and the girl had did something and there was nothing that would tell her otherwise. Also the girl and I were cool for about 6 months from maybe December 2022 to May 2023. Ff….my girl went and cheated on me w/ an ex but I hid it from me until I found out a day after thanksgiving. When confronted she was straight up and I apologized, but I left shortly after. Ff …. We were still kinda communicating up until February 19th 2024….but I just randomly stopped communicating w/ her. I miss her, and have the urge to reach out just to speak because she was basically like my best friend (during the relationship, not before). We’ve had conversations about prior to not communicating & we’ve both taken accountability for our I left a few details out because it’s very long already. 

[d0nnivain]

There were things missing in your relationship with your now EX GF.  Those missing pieces drove you both to others:  you emotionally & her physically. Because her response to thinking you cheated was to engage in revenge cheating rather than discussing this situation with you & showing you how toxic your friendship with this other woman was tells me your now EX GF has poor conflict resolution skills. 

You can reach out if you like but she may not be wiling to talk to you.  She may already be dating somebody else.  

Generally I think it's better to not go backwards in your life.  I suspect you are reaching out not so much because you want her but because you are bored.  

[Jeff Douglass]

3 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

There were things missing in your relationship with your now EX GF.  Those missing pieces drove you both to others:  you emotionally & her physically. Because her response to thinking you cheated was to engage in revenge cheating rather than discussing this situation with you & showing you how toxic your friendship with this other woman was tells me your now EX GF has poor conflict resolution skills. 

You can reach out if you like but she may not be wiling to talk to you.  She may already be dating somebody else.  

Generally I think it's better to not go backwards in your life.  I suspect you are reaching out not so much because you want her but because you are bored.  

Honestly, I don’t feel like it’s out of boredom. We broke up in November 2023 and were able to communicate up until February 2024 and take accountability on both ends of the relationship. We’ve both acknowledged where we fell short and how we ultimately failed each other. Pertaining to the last few times we actually talked, it seemed as if we were best friends and it felt like we were working towards a new normal almost.

[mark clemson]

IF you get her to agree to give it a shot, pay careful attention to the things that caused the problems in the first place. You can be friends with people of the opposite sex without having to hide gifts you buy for them, etc. She should know if you're buying a female co-worker a gift before you even buy it, so she can let you know if she has a problem with it.

IF you try again, once the initial lovey dovey phase wears off, perhaps think about whether she's who you truly want to be with LT. Look with fresh eyes. If she still is then perhaps bring up couple's counseling (if that's feasible/affordable for you) so that you can develop good "coping skills". As someone in a 25+ year relationship I can tell you life will throw you curveballs and you both need to be able to ride them out/support each other through them, etc.

One lesson from all this is that you didn't handle problems that arose well together this first time around, so if you're going to give it another go be sure to learn from that. "Never waste a crisis."