How do I trust this girl? (LONG)

[The_Face]

I dated this girl for about a year. She is 20. I am 27. Never really saw a problem with her age for the first couple months. She talked a big game about getting a new job and helping me out with the bills, was getting back into school soon, and seemed very level-headed and well-spoken. Only now am I seeing some traits of the girls I dated in high school. The liar, the manipulator, the uncommitted girlfriend.

 

We broke up in the middle of May. I could see that she had been pulling farther and farther away from me the month prior, she began going out alot more often, a good deal of those times she would stay the night somewhere else and not come home until the following day. Conveniently she was always at the same friend's house every time (the default "safe" friend) who I had never met but she talked about from time to time. I began to get suspicious. One night in particular, we were hanging out having a boring Saturday at the house. She seemed especially distant. Around 7 or 8, she asked me when I had to work the next day. I said "5am". She immediately asked when I was thinking of going to bed, and when I was going to wake up to go to work. I told her, and then I asked why she wanted to know. She never asked those questions like that. It was something in the way she asked, I can't really explain. But I could tell something was up. That's when she told me she just got a text from her friend (the only one she ever talked to, apparently) telling her of a goodbye party for their close male friend. A friend she never talked about once to me, but whatever, that wasn't the wierd part, so much. It was how desperate she was to go to this party. I told her it was late and I wasn't too thrilled at the idea, because she would have to take a two hour bus right at night, at some sketchy areas to get to this party. She knew I wouldn't offer a ride at that point in the night, so she didnt even ask. Then she threw out something about one of her girlfriends coming to get her halfway in their car? It seemed wierd. She got super frustrated when I told her my honest feelings that I didn't like the sounds of it. All I ever heard about this house was kids taking acid and growing pot, basically a flop house. We got into an argument, to which she ended up going to the party.

 

Fast forward a week. We break up. She apparently thinks she can't give me what I want. The whole noble bull**** speech, how she doens't want to hurt me and I deserve someone better than her. Anyway, she leaves, and I don't see her for a week. When she comes back, she is acting strange. We hook up, and she then tells me again that she doesnt want to work on things, how she isnt ready to start over, blah blah blah. I am super confused at this point. I end up checking her phone and she has a ton of messages from this guy she was going to the going away party for.

 

"I love you, babe.", "I can't wait to have you back in my arms again, babe"

and a ton of other gushy crap are going back and forth between the two. I am sick to my stomach. There's even a picture from not even a week after the breakup and she is making out with the guy. I almost threw up, but instead I confronted her. Admitting what I did was pretty low and desperate, but what I had found out was much worse. I was suspicous, sure. Paranoid, even. But all the little things that made me that way were true, after all. When confronted, she just sits there on the floor staring ahead all pissed off looking, focusing purely on the fact that I stooped to reading her texts.

 

A month after that, she finds out she is pregnant. I immediately question paternity. That's when she FINALLY admits she slept with that guy, but refuses to admit doing anything with them before we broke up. I don't give a **** if she did it after, because there was only a 6 day window of time in which she could have fallen in love with this guy, and I don't buy that being possible. She was fooling around, at least emotionally, with this guy long before we broke up. You don't just hook up with someone you have no feelings for, and in less than a week reach the point of saying "I love you" like a bunch of high school kids and having sex (more than once). She was having an affair. She refuses to admit that.

 

Basically, she lied so many times trying to cover her tracks with me. And every time something was exposed, she would admit to only a portion of the truth. She constantly omitted things. It really makes me sick when I think of how many lies she had to tell after our breakup. And then I think about how many she could have told while we were together. How much of a role her sketchy behavior caused in our demise. And now look, she's pregnant.

 

How am I supposed to ever trust this girl again entirely? Part of me thinks if she could just admit to every last lie that I tell her I know about then I might feel better. But so many things I found out were lies, she still refuses to admit. And she swears up and down that they weren't in love. And how she doesn't want a relationship with him, even though they both had apparently big plans of a future together. It's all bull****.

 

The other part of me thinks the only way to trust her is if I just let go of the past entirely and move forward. Believe her about everything from here on out. I want to say I can do that, but sometimes I don't think so. Its hard to trust someone after they betray you. If I let my gaurd down and assume she feels bad for what she did and would never lie to me again, I do leave myself open for more emotional pain if she lets me down again. And she is 20. NOt to mention, a good looking girl. So I know alot of guys will gladly want to have sex with her, and I don't think she can turn down someone who makes her feel like she's in love again. The whole "honeymoon" thing gets to her, I think. So she may be with me now, but all it takes is a better looking guy, probably a musician, to steer her away from me again.

 

I don't know what needs to happen so I can trust her again.

Or, if it's even possible at all.

[Balzac]

I think if my reading comprehension serves me well, this pregnancy is of you? I'm also reading that for this reason you seek to convince yourself of a need to trust her? Help me out here.

 

While you focused on her behavior, reprehensible I might add, why did you tolerate this acting out? What within you motivated you to accept the disrespect, aggression and lies? What common values and intellect do you share with her?

[The_Face]

I guess the only reason I am trying to trust her now is because she wants to live together after the baby is born.

 

On the one hand, I want to, just so I can experience the most out of this pregnancy and the birth. I can know that I am there everyday for this amazing time. But on the other hand, I feel like I'd be putting myself in a bad spot, if I was to live under the same roof as someone I'm not sure I can trust.

 

I don't know why I tolerated any of it. I was in denial at first, I think. Then I convinced myself I was just not trusting, and I was the one with the problem. I've wised up a bit since, in that I no longer put her on a pedestal like I used to, where I thought she could never do me wrong.

 

I wish I could just have this baby and not have to worry about her at all. That would be so much easier than this. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Still have that aching for a paternity test. Who knows? The kid could be someone else's. And that fear comes from the loss of trust with her, and some of the stuff she finally admitted to doing.

 

BLeghhh

[Balzac]

Honestly I cannot reason how you'd be able to move forward absent a paternity test. For the reason that a child is deserved to know paternity. As an adult you may choose to accept responsibility for a random child, many do.

 

Truthfully, I would seek to invest time&funds into individual counseling. I would also seek a consultation w an attorney experienced in paternity rights. If this is your child, the child is entitled to and benefits from nurturing and access to both parents. Medically/scientifically paternity can now be established prior to birth.

 

The relationship sounds very tenuous but you have a desire to try so why not? You'll need rules and boundaries but most of all you need a parenting plan.

 

I think your doubts and lack of trust are normal and indicated. The real question is what attracted you to this immature, impulsive gurl? Now she may have provided half the DNA of your child.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Balzac
Engage a capable attorney.

[Balzac]

I have two additional Qs.

 

Do you live together now?

Is she employed?

You stated living together after birth of the child. If that is not possible you need to develop a plan.

[The_Face]

I looked into pre-natal paternity testing, one doing by drawing the mother and possible father's blood. It costs $1,500 bucks. I can afford that in the next two weeks, but that is just so much money it feels horrible paying all of that because of some doubts that she is responsible for. Pretty sure I'm just going to suck it up and pay for the damn thing. It would almost feel like less of a waste of money if the kid wasn't mine. If it is, that's just $1,500 bucks I could have put towards medical bills, baby stuff, etc.etc.

 

Does anyone know of any other options? Living in WA state, if that helps any. I read of a couple other pre-natal tests, all of which are very invasive and come with serious risks to the baby, and possibilities of miscarriage. So we can't even consider those options, too bad they're cheaper, too.

 

Balzac, I think what attracted me to this girl was her looks, first off. She is a pretty girl. I was also blinded by how much she was attracted to me, how much she seemed to really love spending time with me. And she does have alot of fun elements to her personality, she likes good music, etc. etc. It took dating her for 9 months to see the parts about her I had been so missing when we first met.

 

No, we do not live together currently. I took her off the lease in the apartment we were sharing, and she moved in with her mom, more than 2 hours away from me. I moved back in with my dad for the next couple months to save up money, after basically going broke paying for the two of us to live together, without any financial assistance.

 

She says her mom has lined her up with some part-time work where her mom works, but I have yet to hear of her actually working it yet. Not to mention, she usually stays over at my place a couple nights a week. (We have a weekly pregnancy/ parenting class we attend once a week, and it makes some sense for her to crash here on those nights.) But otherwise, we don't technically live together now.

 

I could really consider living with her again, under many major conditions. 1) She gets a job after the baby is born and helps me with the bills 2) The baby is proven to be mine, of course.. this should be number 1, really.. and 3) If we were to reach a point where we both genuinely wanted to become exclusive again and work on our relationship as mature, growing adults.. Problem with all of those conditions is the first two are going to take some time to see come to fruition, and the third condition, I'm not even sure how much work would go into realistically making that work.

 

It's kind of a mess right now. But at the very least, I'm not locked into any lease with her right now, so that's good. So if things don't work out, in whatever way, I can still have my own place of peace and sanity to hide in, away from her.

 

Thanks Balzac, for any and all of your advice, questions... And to anyone else who can help me sort some of this stuff out!