3 year relationship, losing a baby and now she's cheated on me...

[Guest]

Sorry, bit of a long and complex one but I'd really apprecaite some advice because I haven't got any friends who have been this involved before and hence they can't understand. I have been seeing and living with my girlfriend for the last 3 years. Within a few months of us getting together, she got pregnant and was due at the beginning of my final exams at university. Unfortunately she has a smaller than average uterus and our baby boy was born much too premature (7 months) and he could not survive very long after being born.

 

Because I wanted to do it properly next time with a job and a place of our own, I have refused since to entertain having another baby together until I can afford to support a family comfortably. I have come a long way career wise since but am still not ready and though she has begged me countless times in tears and had many fights about it, I have always tried to reason with her about not doing it until I am finacially ready because we will still have those complications of prematurity but I want to be ready for it so we don't have to suffer through that again.

 

As a result she has become clinically depressed and feels that I have not given her enough emotional support and though she loves me, has ended up resenting me. In October she started an affair with a ex colleague from work who having had a turbulent history himself, their bleeding hearts attracted and she felt he understood her pain more than me. This lead to many lies and discreet meetings while she was still living with me,she was suddenly very depressed and I was suspicious. When I found out about this I confronted her and she still denied it but when I showed her my proof(emails between them) she left and said she was staying with a friend.

 

A month or so later we saw eachother at the end of a holiday and ended up having a really good chat like old times when she was carefree and not depressed and started seeing eachother again and she lived with me, but being back at work and facing life made her depressed again. I also was suspicious because she kept hiding phone calls and text messages from me. I confronted her again she denied the affair was ongoing and she left again to stay with 'a friend,' but when she got her own place a month later she invited me around to see it and again it was like we were meant to be together so we have been now even though we're living apart which was fine.

 

She went away last weekend to see some friends but while we were on the phone I heard a male voice call her and she hung up...I refused to speak to her until the Monday and told her that I had had enough of her lies and deceit as it has gone on for too long and I am being used. She replied and said she had been stupid and she knows why it had happened because she needed that extra emotional support. She said she only wanted me and called this other bloke-that I find out she was living with whilst away from me and told him she can never speak to him again. Wanting to make sure of this I confronted him as well and he assured me that she had called it all off and he was out of the picture for good.

 

My problem is that I do love her and want to be with her in my heart, but my mind is a wreck,I hate the thought of them having sex and the lies that went on while she was seeing us both. She says it has all changed now because she knows what caused it but she was only with him because she wanted more from me and that she wants to make everything better between us and that she will definitely never cheat again. I believe that she won't but I just can not get those images out of my head of them together and am disgusted whenever something reminds me of that. She's now waiting for me to tell her whether I want to try again and start slow to fix all the problems from before.

 

I am still not ready for a family, and despise the thought of having to compromise like this for a life partner while she's had her fun and I will never be with anyone else. She has seen a Dr. though and started anti-depressants so she should be getting back to her more cheerful self and be more reasonable about starting a family so young(we're mid 20s). So my question is, should I go back to her and will I ever be able to get these awful images and thoughts of them out of my mind? I'm not shattered by this as it has been ongoing for awhile but I just don't want to lose everything we had. I don't think I could find all that again easily with someone else.