She said other girls are ok. I eventually did. She dumped me. How to win her back?

[Malacka]

This could fit in a few sections, so I just put it in the general Dating section. Thanks for taking the time to read this... it means a lot to me:

 

 

I love a girl completely and totally. We've been together 9 months. We spend so much time together,travelled together,we talk so deeply and know each other so well. We've both been talking about spending our lives together, living together, everything. She's told all her friends I'm the one, she's never been as happy as with me, her parents are happy for her, etc

 

And for me, she is the greatest, most perfect girl I've ever known in my life. I have never been as happy as I am since I've known her. It's ridiculous to say, but my world was grey and bland before, but since knowing her, I see the world with vivid colors. And it keeps getting better and better. Tyukapu!!

 

She's in her late 20s, I'm 30s.

 

We started as very, very good friends. An instant connection. She told me about her previous relationships, and I told her about mine. She also guessed - correctly - that I've been with many, many girls. She joked it was obvious that I can get any girl I really want (I can't... but that's another story).

 

We started going out. It was beautiful.

 

For months and months, she told me that she was ok if I was with other women because she knows that what we have is so special and beyond physical. She set 3 rules for other girls: no emotional commitment, always use condoms, and the girl has to be good-looking. And she told me that although she was fine with it, she never wanted to know about it.

 

She told me this at least 40 times over months and months. She mentioned it to my friends. One time when I told her I'd fallen asleep early the night before and hadn't gone out, she told me she was disappointed because she assumed I'd had a nice blonde "or two or five" in my bed.

 

The incredible thing is, I didn't sleep with lots and lots of girls, despite what she thought. Even my friends were disappointed with me because they all thought I should have taken advantage of my girlfriend's rules... but I didn't because I didn't care and didn't want. They thought what she told me was a sign of European culture (she's from Europe; I'm American). As for me, I just thought it was a sign that she and I loved each other so much that physical contact with other people didn't matter.

 

For my part, I told her - and I meant it - that I didn't care if she was with other guys.

 

Once I went to meet her in a bar and found her in the upstairs very drunk, heavily making out with a guy, his hands in her clothes and her hands in his, and I didn't care. I even joked she had horrible taste (and the guy definitely was pretty bad haha!). I didn't/don't consider finding her making out with another guy bad. She was very drunk (and she handles alcohol very poorly) and was in a bar that is swarming with guys who prey upon drunk girls. I never made an issue of it because it never bothered me. Even when she dumped me, I never brought up this incident... it was 5 months ago, it was meaningless to me, and she was so upset when she was dumping me that to bring it up would have upset her even more.

 

I know what random hook-ups are: stupid and meaningless. I really, truly believe that the deep, emotional connection that she and I have is so much stronger than any random bar hook-up. So it never bothered me. I actually assumed that she probably hooked up with other guys when she was drunk and I wasn't around. And I didn't/don't care. And although she doesn't believe it anymore, that thinking is why I believed her when she told me that she also didn't care if I was with other girls.

 

As another example, the first time I met her was at a party in a venue. She was standing with a huge guy. I really liked her, tried to flirt with her, but wasn't sure what her relationship was with the guy. When she couldn't hear, the guy said that he had "picked her up in a bar, but she doesn't like to admit that anymore" (implying she was his girlfriend). He also kicked my feet several times to make me leave haha! Anyway, he was huge, I was disappointed she was his girlfriend, so I left.... and she went home with him that night and slept with him (although she says they did everything but didn't have sex... and I believe her). Turns out he was just a random guy she had only met once before.

 

I saw her a week later, we talked freely without the huge dude to kick me, and then we started going out.

 

For me, it was instant love. And it was - I was so disappointed when I thought the huge dude was her boyfriend, because I honestly thought that she would be an ideal girlfriend for me.

 

But for her, I joked that seeing me was such a heartfelt experience that it made her.. go sleep with another guy haha!

 

It's hard to convey through typing on a computer, but I'm LAUGHING about that story. I think it's funny. It doesn't bother me, and it actually really is funny to me. Why? It's because I'm so confident that what she and I have is so beautiful that no other guy, no other connection that either she or I can have is comparable.

 

I've been with lots of girls. The physical part of a relationship is nice, but it's the least important part... and even the physical part only reaches its true, most beautiful possibilities when the two people are deeply, intimately connected spiritually and emotionally. Which is why I can honestly say that the physical part with her is the greatest I've ever had with any girl.

 

So… now the bad part. You can see where this is going.

 

One night at the end of January, a friend dragged me to a bar. He was celebrating something. He got me very, very drunk.

 

A girl talked to us. I tried to get her interested in my friend. It didn't work. The more I tried to talk about my friend - his hair, his eyes, his smile - the more she was into me.

 

Finally, my friend gave up, said "She's yours. Your girlfriend doesn't care anyway". And next thing I knew the girl and I were making out in the bar. The girl was silly and drunk and completely meaningless to me.

 

The next day, I went to surprise my girlfriend at her work. (My visit had no connection to the night before. Remember, I didn't feel guilty because she had told me so many times that it was ok to be with other girls).

 

My girlfriend was very strange. She asked me if I slept well, she asked me what I had done the night before...

 

... and eventually, she looked at me and said that her best friend (a guy) had called her at 2 in the morning because he had seen me kissing a girl in a bar.

 

My girlfriend said she couldn't sleep. She was incredibly upset, disappointed, saddened.

 

Over the course of the next week, she dumped me.

 

She said she loved me more than she had thought she could love anyone else, had given me everything she had, but that the certain knowledge that I had been with another girl destroyed her and she couldn't deal with it. She decided there was no way I could change because it would be like putting a bird in a cage, and therefore the only thing to do was to dump me.

 

I told her I could easily change. After all, she had told me many times it was ok... but if now it wasn't ok, it would be no problem for me. It's just that she had told me it was ok. In fact, I'd thought she'd been with other guys, but it didn't bother me.

 

 

 

I apologized for hurting her, and I said many times that I was wrong in assuming what she said was true. But I emphasized that I didn't do it to hurt her, I didn't lie, and I could easily and completely guarantee 100% fidelity now that I understand what she really wants.

 

Her response: if I truly had loved her, I would have realized that it wasn't the truth when she told me 40 or more times that being with another girl is ok. I would have realized that she wasn't self-confident enough to tell me that what she really wanted was an exclusive relationship.

 

She also has experience of cheating on her partner. She had a boyfriend for 7 years from 18 to 25 years of age. Families fit well together, so both she and he thought they were forced to end up married, etc. But it was a loveless relationship for most of the last years. She said they only even slept together once every few months. She should have broken it off years before, but couldn't/didn't. And she had several short flings and one long-term 6-month relationship while she had a boyfriend of 7 years.

 

Eventually, her boyfriend introduced her to a colleague of his, she was intrigued by the colleague, hooked up with him, then dumped her boyfriend the next day. (The colleague eventually turned out to be a jerk, but she's happy that at least she finally had the courage to stop the loveless relationship with her boyfriend).

 

Unfortunately for me, her personal history with cheating also makes her convinced that you can't really love your partner if you ever hook up with someone else. I didn't realize she felt like this until AFTER she dumped me. After all, she told me dozens of times that it was ok for me to be with another girl because no physical hook-up could rival the emotional connection that she and I have.

 

Therefore, she decided, I can't be in love with her, I can't change, and (she told me) there is zero zero zero zero zero chance for us to ever be back together. She wants to be my friend, know everything about me, but she can't be in a relationship with me, she can't love me in that way, and she can never sleep with me again.

 

So...

 

I loved her and still do love her completely and totally. I see my life with her. We fit perfectly together (she agrees about that too!).

 

I want her back. I want the life we had back. I want our future back.

 

We had a few days of calm talk. Then a week of emotional, horrible breaking-up. We're now at the 2-week point and have entered the "no-contact" phase.

 

Thoughts? Advice? Help? Insight?

 

I know there's no magic, but god oh god, I love that girl so much and want a life with her.

 

- Malacka

[blueskyday]

Wow, where to start? You have to figure out what your values are, communicate them, and then be with someone who has the same ones.

 

She didn't communicate properly. And she blames you for an agreement that you both were on board with. But you really weren't, and you could have communicated that. She didn't tell you what she really wanted, either. She wanted you to "prove" yourself, even though she told you 40+ times that you could sleep with other women.

 

She said it because she was either sleeping with other men or wanted the right to do it. She has a past filled with cheating. Not good.

 

So, if you hadn't cheated and she had, would she have said, "Well, we agreed we could!"

 

The only hope you have is to move forward, with honesty about what EACH of you wants. Never agree to something you don't want. Didn't it bother you at all to see your girlfriend in a bar with some guys tongue down her throat?

 

I'm not sure where you can go from here. Maybe continue talking to each other about what you really want, and what you are really capable of doing.

 

Make sure you ask yourself if you want to deal with this. She sounds, at best, conflicted, and at worst, utterly dysfunctional.

 

Next relationship, be honest from the get go. Find someone who wants the same thing.

[Mme. Chaucer]

Didn't you get the help you needed on Yahoo Answers?

 

Frankly, that was too much of a tale for me. It would have worked better if you gave even one picture of your "beautiful" relationship besides just flowery cliches. As it stands, you gave quite a lot of pictures of a cheater, a bad drunk, and two people who spend a lot of time in sleazy bars. I never felt the magic, dude.

 

2 questions:

 

Why did the other girls have to be good looking if the girlfriend wasn't even supposed to know about it? I mean, if you wanted to bang Quasimodo, you would have had to tell yourself "no, man, she only allows me to bang good looking strange"? That does not really compute.

 

And, this:

 

The more I tried to talk about my friend - his hair, his eyes, his smile

 

Well, forgive me for saying so, but it sounds like you are pretty attracted to this friend of yours yourself. Maybe … ???

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Wow, that's bizarre.

 

I was in an open relationship once, and it seemed awesome until it was open both ways. I have a hard time with the idea that you can be OK with your girlfriend banging other guys, unless you're into swinging or something. I don't know, this is such a bizarre story, and she's clearly completely insane.

[Malacka]

Hi. I'm the Original Poster.

 

Thanks for your comments so far. I really appreciate.

 

Just to answer the questions:

 

- It really didn't/doesn't bother me to see her "with some guy's tongue down her throat", as blueskyday writes. Everyone is different, everyone has their issues. For me, tonguing down some guy in that type of situation - or sleeping with him - is purely a physical act. I'm not threatened by it or jealous of it. A deep emotional connection would very much bother me, though. Which is why her rule of "no emotional connection" made sense to me - she and I had talked through all of this, including my thinking that I just described - before, obviously.

 

- Why one of her rules was "only good-looking girls" has been asked by a couple of my friends to whom I've told this story now. I don't know why she said it, but my guess is that it was just as joke between us. She truly thought/thinks I can get any girl I want, so she expects me to get the best-looking girls around. Maybe a point of pride for me, maybe a point of pride for her?

 

- As for my friend... he's a great guy, but no, I'm not into him. Or guys at all. The hair, eyes, smile.. all that was things I was pointing out to the bar girl as I was trying to get her interested in my friend. As I wrote, the more I talked about him, the more the girl became interested in me.

 

- As for why she gave me the rules at all? And told me dozens of times over 8 months? In hindsight, I don't think it's that she wanted a free pass to sleep with other guys. I think she was honest when she told me the reason is that she wanted to be monogamous with me, but she didn't have the self-confidence to tell me. The irony is that I love her so much, it would have been an easy, obvious and wonderful thing if she had said that to me.

 

As for that I mainly write here about bars, cheating, etc, and not about the nicer parts, as Mme. Chaucer says... I could fill pages and pages about how great she is, about all the wonderful times we had and things we did and emotions we felt. But unfortunately, if it were now only the happy story, I wouldn't have written here. I'm here to ask for advice and help to get back to that wonderful joy she and I had, so that's why I focus on why she dumped me.

[daphne]

I'm puzzled as to why you really want her back. This was a very odd test that she put out for you, and you failed. It's called the mind reading test. Whereas, I think it was probably naive on your part to believe a gf wouldn't care if you slept around, she told you repeatedly that it was ok.

 

In my opinion, this woman has a rigid list of rules that you are to abide by. But she tells you to do the opposite of this rigid list of rules. Honestly, she sounds a bit nutty. What other kind of rigid rules is she going to tell you the opposite of next time? Do you really like that poor of communication/game playing/mind reading tests?

 

I'm at a loss on how to advise you how to get her back when she is so inconsistent. I don't know that she's going to respond like most. It's a really bizarre situation imo.

[ja123]

I'm puzzled as to why you really want her back. This was a very odd test that she put out for you, and you failed. It's called the mind reading test. Whereas, I think it was probably naive on your part to believe a gf wouldn't care if you slept around, she told you repeatedly that it was ok.

 

In my opinion, this woman has a rigid list of rules that you are to abide by. But she tells you to do the opposite of this rigid list of rules. Honestly, she sounds a bit nutty. What other kind of rigid rules is she going to tell you the opposite of next time? Do you really like that poor of communication/game playing/mind reading tests?

 

I'm at a loss on how to advise you how to get her back when she is so inconsistent. I don't know that she's going to respond like most. It's a really bizarre situation imo.

 

 

I agree.

 

It's just not right that she consistently said, "Go for other women," then she ball busts you for doing just that. It's like she was setting you up: I don't like those kind of games.

 

Sounds to me that she's really insecure and can't handle your past, so she was subconsciously sabotaging your relationship.

 

From my own experience, I don't say a whole lot about my past experiences now. All the new SO has to know was that I was in a LTR, didn't cheat, and things didn't work out for whatever reason. I did a little bit of dating here and there - but I do not go into details anymore regarding my previous sexual experience, numbers, hookups whatever. I find that people are not as open-minded as they say, and it gives them a mental picture to focus on (or obsess about!) and it fires thier already existent insecurity. The past is the past: he had his women (I don't need the details) and I had my men (I don't give the details), and here we are together looking to enjoy the now and maybe have a future.

 

Game-playing and jealousy really bores the cr*p out of me now, and I just don't have the tolerance for it.

 

So, I'd let this break-up n/c period continue. She needs to get her head together first, and that's her job to do solo. I've learned, too, from past experience that sometimes it's impossible to make someone's insecurities go away, even though I show them in thought, words, and deed that there's nothing to worry about. If they continue to be unreasonably insecure, then I now see that as their issue. I know what's in my heart, and I show it, but if I feel like I have to constantly prove it, or pass their ridiculous tests then I see this as a red flag and I just distance myself.

 

If ever, in the future, you two start again, then you can consider speaking about this in philosophical terms. You can even get her the book, "Le Petit Prince," by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry : in real life the writer was a cheater, but still loved his wife. She was the 'rose' in the book.

[ja123]

As an aside ...

 

OP: Are you Greek?

 

Do you know what your user name means?

 

LOL

[elaina]

Well, I think it's a lesson, a difficult lesson to learn, but a lesson nonetheless.

 

I don't think either you or her understand what love is yet.

 

I recommend you to learn some things about women and about love.

 

Both are mysterious, and both include more than just what they say.

 

You can say "I love you", but it's how you act that shows if you truly do or not. Words mean nothing without actions.

 

One thing that is so sad today is how so many humans waste their lives on being drunk and chasing after lust. I think being drunk and chasing after lust prevent people from learning what true love really is.

 

So, my advice to you is to stop the drinking and the chasing after sex, and focus on learning about love and about women. Remember, just because a woman says something, that doesn't mean she means it. About love, just because you say you love her, actions speak louder than words.

[Malacka]

Hi, I'm the Original Poster.

 

Thanks again for all the comments so far. I really appreciate.

 

Just in response to ja123's questions specifically:

- Thanks for the advice. In particular, it's incredibly ironic about The Little Prince. My girlfriend and I had spoken quite a bit about that book. She loves it, she used to write me quotes from it to illustrate how special our love was to her, how special I am to her. I had no idea about that detail. Let me know if there's anything else, it definitely is interesting to me.

- I'm American. My screen name just means Piglet (from Winnie the Poo) in Hungarian. The "c" in the word is pronounced as "ts", so it actually sounds quite different than the Greek word which you're talking about haha.

 

Thank you again to everyone who has read and given me their thoughts. I really appreciate, and I'd love any and all additional ideas that people would have.

 

I can't emphasize enough that I love this girl completely and totally. This note is about the break-up and my wanting to get back together, so I didn't write a lot about how great all the time we spent together is, about our connection, our emotional bonds, our happy times, our perfect fit. But I want to spend my life with her, and I'm open to anything I can to get back our life, our future, our love, our happiness.

 

Thanks! .