Met my girlfriend when she was with someone else. Has the same thing happened to me?

[freddienonose]

Well, here I go....

 

Nine months ago (early July) I began a new job in my hometown of Dublin, Ireland and met a beautiful American girl on my first day. We hit it off in a very big way. There just seemed to be an amazing connection there - a real meeting of minds. Anyway, second day I found out she had a boyfriend back home in the States and on the fifth day we kissed...

 

From that moment on we became inseparable and simply began conducting a relationship. We spent every spare moment together and I stayed at her place every night. This went on for the six weeks she had left before returning home. I felt really awful that we conducted this intense relationship while she had a boyfriend at home and worried about what this said about her character. She told me that she had never loved her boyfriend, it was never going to work out with him anyway, and that she wasn't going to miss the chance at happiness that I afforded her. I accepted this. She also said that she thought that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me and that she had never felt about anyone the way she felt about me.

 

So, she went home and planned to come clean with her boyfriend and end things completely. I tried to give her the space to do this but almost two weeks later she still hadn't told me that things had ended with him. I put it to her over the phone and she became very, very upset and said that it was going to be very difficult for her to hurt him so much. She had been vomiting at the very thought and was not hesitating because she was unclear about what she had to do. Basically, she was just a coward.

 

Next day she sent me an email telling me that she had broken up with him, although she had decided not to tell him about me yet. She also told me that she had successfully managed not to sleep with him since she went back. They had kissed and cuddled but nothing more. I accepted this and we began our long distance relationship.

 

She came back to Ireland to visit me in October, stayed for 10 days and everything was great. When she went home again, however, I began to detect holes in some of her stories and, consequently became jealous and controlling. This caused huge problems between us and we nearly broke up numerous times. During this time I started to become very close to another girl at home (a girl who my girlfriend had been friends with in Dublin when we met) and we began to develop feelings for each other.

 

I went to America in January to visit her for two weeks and on my second day I told her about this situation, that I had discussed it with the girl in question and that we had decided that we may not be able to be friends anymore. She accepted this and began to enjoy my visit.

 

A few days before I left, however, she came clean about some things. She hadn't broken up with her American boyfriend when she told me that she had. She now said that she had in fact broken up with him 10 days to two weeks after she told me that she did. She said that she lied because she panicked, she was terrified to do it and she was afraid that she was going to lose me due to this fear. She tried to buy herself some time. She also admitted that she had continuously lied about her interactions with him after they broke up. She told me that they had no contact. It turns out that they had been conducting a close friendship and she lied to me about it because she was afraid of my jealousy. She had lied about specific things to me too. Things I had asked her about directly. Dinners, parties etc.

 

Anyway, I broke up with her and then changed my mind the day before I returned to Ireland. The next month was horrible. I became nasty and controlling and treated her like crap everytime we spoke. We broke up four weeks after I got home. She had booked a ticket to come and see me in March but cancelled it after we split.

 

I've been trying to get her back ever since and found out a few days ago that she's been kissing someone else, although she says she hasn't slept with him. This began just under four weeks after we broke up. It did happen for the first time, however, the night after we had spoken on the phone and I told her that I had fallen in love with the girl that I told her about in January. The other girl being attached also, we had now decided to cut off our friendship for good.

 

Now my ex seems to be coming around to the idea of us getting back together but says she needs more time to think about things. I'm now comletely paranoid about this new guy, though.

 

She met him in a bar just before we broke up and told me that him and his friend had invited her and hers to a happy hour he was hosting. She ended up dropping by for five minutes alone. At the time, I said I thought it strange that she would go to this alone unless she was interested in one of the guys. She said that she simply wanted to expand her horizons and meet new people, people who weren't studying law (she's a law student, they were engineers). I thought this might be a cultural clash since I know that Americans do actually socialise in this way and she is an extremely sociable person and very open to doing new things.

 

Anyhow, she says that he found her email on the college website and began emailing her. He then invited her out with him and his friends and she began socialising with them. She says that she was never interested in him while we were together, that she only wanted some new friends and that she went to the happy hour completely innocently. She said it was only after we broke up and she didn't want anything to do with me ever again that something happened. She says that she's still not all that interested in him, that he doesn't compare to me, that it was only a kiss, that it meant nothing and that it was partly motivated by the fact that she would never be seeing or speaking to me again and that she hadn't kissed anyone since I returned to Ireland two months previously.

 

I do love her and I know that she loves me, too. It may be too damaged to retrieve, though, and I'm afraid that she may be a serial man-eater! Of course I know that I was not an innocent and told her something that was incredibly hurtful for her to hear.

 

What does anyone think? Can we salvage this? Was she interested in him when we were together? Do Americans genuinely begin platonic friendships this way?

 

If you managed to get to the end of that whole sorry tale, I'd appreciate some advice.

 

Fred.

[vickimonster]

It all sounds a bit messy if I am being totally honest. It sounds like you have quite an intense relationship with this girl, but it also sounds like your relationship is full of she did, i did. It sounds like you need to get soome space and some perspective. Probably not want you want to hear, but my advice would be to take some time out, think about what you really want an initiate a period of NC. I hope you work something out.

[freddienonose]

Thanks, Vicki.

 

You're right. There's a lot of "she did, I did". We both ****ed up in major ways. She lied, I became an a**h*** and developed an inappropriate relationship with someone else.

 

I did think we could work through these things until I found out about her desire to befriend this man who she has now been physically affectionate with. I am left wondering whether or not this was her plan all along. Or if she did begin the friendship innocently and he was simply there and willing to comfort her after we broke up.

 

The way Americans date, socialise and interact tends to confuse me quite a bit. We do things very differently in Ireland and England and these misunderstandings have caused many problems between us.

[tokyo]

Your relationship started with lies and it's lies that seem to be a faithful companion in your relationship with her. Long-distance relationships are hard enough without having this constant mistrust and jealousy.

 

I'm not really the kind of person who likes going out on dates and I always thought that Americans are kind of obsessed with this dating thing. My opinion concerning your girlfriend is that she very very likely knew that he wanted to date her, people are not stupid. Just the simple fact that he looked for her email address on the internet should tell you that he was quite interested in her and I just can't believe that she hadn't been aware of this. I think people sometimes go out with someone even though they are not interested in this person just because it's good for their self-esteem, but you can bet they are never hoping or looking for a friendship.

 

I don't think that continuing this relationship is a very good idea. I have strong reservation towards people who cheat on their partners or string someone else along without feeling guilt. I don't give much for their apologies and tears after. People with a conscience just don't switch it off when they are in a difficult situation. Maybe she's not a bad person, just immature, but that still would make a relationship with her difficult.

[RecordProducer]

That girl is full of sh*t! She is not your girlfriend at all and she does act like a man eater.

I clearly see that she is not in love with you and she doesn't know what she wants. If she loved you, she would have acted like that. A woman who is in love doesn't lie, kiss, cuddle, and sleep around. She acts like a guy who pulls girls' noses all the time.

Take your chance with the local girl you've developed feelings for and forget this scum once forever!