I've cheated...and I dont know what I want anymore

[confused_boy]

I've been dating my girlfriend now for 5 years and it's come to absolute breaking point.[/FONT]

 

We have known each other since we were 15 but she was with one of my friends at the time. I always fancied her and she was one of the only girls to show me any interest at that point in my life which made me like her even more. Although slightly infatuated, I never made a move on her and we both went our separate ways at 18 to university. Then, in my final year (3 years later), she got back in touch via and after a number of weeks emailing each other, I found out that her then fiancée was physically and mentally abusing her. I was furious that this had happened as I still had feelings for her and told her to end the relationship immediately. She did and we got together immediately afterwards. I was slightly weary of this as I didn't want to be the 'rebound' guy but my feelings for her completely overrode this and I wanted to be with her so much. She had only just started another course in a completely different city, away from all of my friends and family, but I didn't care and agreed to move there with her to live. The first few months of the relationship were amazing - we were inseparable and we had so much fun with each other

 

However, this was all to change quite quickly. She told me that her head was still messed up over her previous relationship (which was fair enough) but that she needed a break from us. Bearing in mind, we were living in a one bedroomed flat and I was in a city where I didn't know anyone and was struggling to find a job, I was pretty devastated but agreed to give it a go. Then, one morning after she had been out with friends, she came in to the flat, got into bed with me and proceeded to tell me she had slept with one of her mates. She said she completely regretted it and wanted to get back with me straight away. This absolutely destroyed me, I didn't know what to think, I didn't have anyone to turn to and I was still madly in love with this girl. So I forgave her. I've never been able to forget about that which I think is part of my problem. Anyway, we continued to live together, I would say quite happily. We laughed, we joked, we had fun and I had got myself my first job out of uni so things were on the up. She was still going through emotional trauma from her previous relationship. I tried to support her as much as I could but it didn't seem to be helping so I managed to convince her to go and see a physcologist. She was very reluctant at first as she had been to see several before but got very negative feedback from them. However, this time it seemed to be slightly more successful and she got on with the counsellor well. I also started to find that we had some major differences in opinion. Watching TV was a nightmare as she was so reluctant to give certain things a go, especially with films. This caused some tension but we were able to laugh it off. I was quite happy to give in to her wants to keep things happy.

 

It was around this time that we started to argue more. We were in a very small flat and were on top of each other all of the time. I was also turning into a lazy fat slob so I decided to get back into playing rugby (I lost interest when I started uni after playing all the time at school). This was great for me as it gave me a base of friends in the area and I felt better about myself as I was getting fit. However, it didn't seem to ease the tension between my girl and I. We moved into a bigger flat in an effort to make things better but things had become so difficult that we decided to take a break again. This was a mutual agreement although it didn't really work as we were living together and saw each other every day. Then a couple of weeks later, she came home from another night out only to tell me she had met up with some guy she had met on Myspace and got back to his flat and slept with him. Plus she had kissed one of her other friends on a night out. I had never been so angry in my entire life and was ready to walk out the door. However, when she told me she was sorry I could she that she truly meant it and decided to give the relationship another chance. This seemed to be a significant turning point and we started to get on a lot better. We are both quite passionate people so we did tend to erupt every now again but apart from that things were good.

 

Then in March 2007, I lost my job and this put another massive strain on the relationship. My confidence was completely shattered and I was struggling to find any positives in my life. My girlfriend was also going through a stressful time with university and the massive workload she had which really tested our relationship. We decided it would be best of I moved back to my parents to save me from getting into debt and find a job there. She had decided to move back home also to be closer to me and try and mend our broken relationship. Then, a couple of weeks later she found out that her dad had cancer. This was absolutely awful as she was so close to her dad and she was in total shock. I was devastated for her as I couldn't imagine being in the same situation but at the same time was struggling with how i felt about her and our relationship. We went on holiday together try and patch things up between us but the arguing just got worse and I decided that when we got back that i needed some space and went on a break. I felt like I needed to know whether if I was away from her whether i would miss her enough to want her back. I did meet another girl during this time and kissed her but it just made me realise that I wanted to get back with my partner. After some long talks, she took me back although she was very unhappy that I had met someone else in this period and continued to let me know about it. This really made me angry as she had done exactly the same before but that anger soon went away as I really wanted to be with her and support her through the most difficult time in her life.

 

The next six months were probably the most sustained happiness we have had in our whole relationship. We laughed, we joked, we were really intimate with each other, we supported each other really well. The odd argument here and there but nothing to shout home about. I was playing rugby again for my local team and was really getting into it again which gave me bags of confidence. One thing which was getting to me was that even though the doctors had told my girlfriend’s dad he may not have long to live, the whole family ignored this advice, hoping and praying the doctors had got it wrong. Don't get me wrong, I don't know how I'd react in that situation but by ignoring it, they were in total shock those 9 months later, he had died. I vowed to stand by her through everything, knowing that things may get ugly. However, I don’t think I was prepared for what was coming my way. The first six months she spent in shock and denial. I felt that I was coping with supporting her and even decided to get our own place as I felt that I really wanted to make a home for both of us. I started to get a lot of pressure to move the relationship on further than just living together. She felt she was ready to start talking about marriage but I wasn't so sure about the situation. We talked about it on a number of occasions but I felt that my opinion was seen as obstructive and she reacted furiously when I told her I, personally, wasn't ready to be married. This made me very angry as I believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and not be judged. However, I was furiously judged and given the cold shoulder for it too. Given everything that had happened in the past and the fact I just wanted to have some fun, marriage was not on the cards. This just added to the list of issues in our relationship. That’s when things turned really ugly.

 

I specifically remember a couple of nights before Christmas, she had gone round to see one of her friends and got completely drunk. She came back in a foul mood and I tried to calm her down by taking her to bed. She completely lashed out, scratching my chest making it bleed and telling me how useless i was. This left me completely disillusioned about the entire relationship and even though she apologised the next day, it really made me think about whether I was up to the job of supporting her.

 

A week later (January 2009), we moved into a brand new flat and I was full of optimism that this was the beginning of a new era for us. However, this was quickly dispelled as she descended into complete depression over what had happened the previous year. She would become manically depressed quite regularly, tending to sit in the corner and crying. She did not open up to me at all which made it harder and harder for me to support her. I felt really harsh but I could not help feeling like my patience was wearing really thin. I started to become outwardly frustrated which ended up in truly gigantic arguments which even resulted in having a knife thrown at me at one point. I didn't want to upset her but the more and more she pushed me away, the more useless I felt and I started to give up helping. I even walked out on two occasions telling her that I couldn't cope with supporting her on my own anymore. On both occasions, she threatened to kill herself, once by holding a knife to her throat and another she held a piece of broken glass to her wrists. This was complete emotional blackmail and I hated her for it but felt that she was that much of an emotional wreck and she might go through with it. I didn't want to be the cause of this so I stayed. Ever since these moments, I have felt a small part of that resentment has stayed with me and I don't really know how to get rid of it.

 

I started to take out the frustration on myself as I feared that if I didn't, i might react towards her. I would hit myself in the head repeatedly and lock myself away in the bathroom if I couldn't cope with her actions or our arguments. She would get angry at me telling me that I was being really stupid and she would completely cut me off if I reacted in this way. This made me even angrier as I felt she really wasn't trying to understand what I was going through too. All of this combined made me feel like I was completely falling out of love with her and I didn’t know how to stop it. All of the little things that I used to be able to laugh off started to get to me too which didn’t help the situation. She demanded a lot more from me as a boyfriend such as reigning in my nights out with my mates at the weekends, treating her like a princess, sweeping her off her feet and generally devoted my attention to her. She wanted a perfect boyfriend - I am far from perfect and the more she was disappointed when I didn't deliver, the more I resented her for demanding this level of effort from me at all times. Not only that, but I was tired of trying to make things work and felt like just giving up on the whole thing. However, i didn't have the guts to turn around and tell her this wasn't what I wanted anymore so I just carried on as normal

 

Six months later, we decided to move to my girlfriend mum’s house to save some money as her job wasn't bringing in enough to properly survive and to save for a possible deposit on a house. This was another massive strain on the relationship as we relinquished our personal space in favour of saving some extra pounds. This was especially difficult for me as it wasn't my house and I wasn't used to the way that her family lived. However, I thought it might be good as her family would be able to chip in to support her through her bereavement. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one who found her difficult to cope with and this result in arguments between the family too. I was rapidly losing faith in our relationship and, although she had begun to build a strong set of friends, I was still feeling the immense strain of trying to support her. She wasn't coping well in her new job (as her boss was quite a handful), she stressed about money a lot and was still immensely missing her dad. She then decided to go and see a life coach which I though 'Fantastic, finally something which is going to change her life round!'. From this, she realised that she was following a career she wasn’t interested in and quickly turned that around by landing a better paid job in a better profession for her. Her life was changing for the better, but it still didn't help our relationship. I was now beginning to find little things really annoying that generally wouldn't have bothered me in the past. Leaving mugs and cutlery around, not throwing away dirty face wipes, the constant piles of clothes dotted around the house, an obsession with leaving things in different bags etc. On top of that, I could probably count on one hand the amount of times we had had sex that YEAR which was incomprehensible to me. I thought 'I'm 25, as horny as hell, and I can't remember the last time my girlfriend slept with me. What the F&@K?' It wasn't like i hadn’t tried either; she just didn't seem interested in me anymore. I had never been in better shape in my life (from all my training for rugby) yet I was getting less attention than I ever did. This was really confusing for me. As a result, I found myself getting excited when someone showed an interest in me when I went out with my mates. I didn't act on these impluses but it made me feel good about myself. I did flirt back if flirted with and I wasn't harming anyone so what was the problem? Deep down I knew I should of removed myself from those situations but part of me didn't want to either.

 

Things came to a head just before Christmas 2009 when she caught me messaging one of my sister’s friends on facebook. It was a flirty conversation in which I had told her she was 'beautiful' and my girlfirend flipped (and rightly so). I felt awful as I had went behind her back for my own enjoyment. We decided there and then that things were gonna change and we were gonna put everything into our relationship. My heart wasn't in it though and a week later, I bumped into the same girl I had messaged on Facebook on a night out. I was very drunk and still feeling pretty lowabout myself and ended up kissing her. One thing led to another and before I knew it, we had slept together at my parents house. I was feeling massively confused about what happened. Although I was guilt ridden about cheating on my girlfriend, I was so excited about having sex that I didn't want it to end. So a few weeks later I contacted her by email to organise seeing each other again. The wierd thing was that over Christmas and New Year, my girlfriend and I had a really good time together (although there was no sex).Everything was so messed up and my brain was so battered from everything I was doing but I carried on like a completely selfish bastard. My girlfriend then disocvered my secret when she logged into my email account and found my deleted messages to her.

 

I am completely remorseful for what I have done. Whatever has gone on in the past, she didn't deserve to be treated the way I have treated her. I have betrayed her trust 100% and done something that goes completely against everything I wanted to be. Things couldn't get much worse at this point in time. I need to tell her how I feel completely becuase if I don't and we do end up sorting this out, then I'll just end up in the same resentful place I was before. How do you tell someone 'I love you but, gotta be honest, I dont like the way you are with me'? She is a very sensitive person and takes offence very easily so it's really difficult to have a heart to heart with her - I'm not the best person with words and she knows that. The question is do I have the love left and the patience to give this relationship the second chance it deserves?

 

I don't know that answer to that question but I need to find that out quickly.

Edited January 8, 2010 by confused_boy

[norajane]

Well, I read through all that, and you didn't ask for any advice, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. It's time to move on. You're desperately holding onto something that should have ended a long time ago.

 

You two aren't making each other happy, and both of you have a lot of resentments and anger and pain built up between you. A "second chance" is more like a "10th chance" considering all the crap you've put each other through.

 

Relationships aren't supposed to be this hard. You need to understand that having been together a long time doesn't mean you should continue to be together when your relationship brings you down instead of lifting you up. You cheated for a reason - this relationship has run its course and is no longer right for you, or for her, if it ever was right in the first place, which it doesn't sound like it was.

 

Continuing to be in this relationship only means that you will get more of the same. It won't change for the better. It will likely just get worse and worse.

[Clep]

Well I don't see this as ever being a healthy relationship. This is an extremely disfunctional relationship in my eyes and I believe it would be best for both of you if you were to end it. If it were me I would seek some professional help for myself and leave it for her to do the same if she so desired. I think you both need to find who you are before you are able to be in a healthy relationship.

[Joe Normal]

You should break up as you're clearly not seriously interested in this relationship. Your brain is saying one thing but your heart and genitals are saying another. Any relationship between 20somethings where sex happens once every 2 months is just totally doomed - there are 60 year old couples who get laid more than that. Move on and save both of you a lot of wasted time.