jackinthebox Posted March 9, 2006 Posted March 9, 2006 [sIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]I screwed up and I don’t know what to do. Over the weekend I fooled around with another guy – no sex. I am getting married in less than three months and I am not sure what to do. I am so depressed. I can’t tell anyone. Even if I decided to tell my fiancé, which I want to do in the worst way, I can’t. I see this other guy once a month, in a group I am commited to and can’t get out of. If I new I would never see this other guy again, I would tell my fiancé in a heartbeat. He is already very insecure and if I tell him what happened he won’t let me out of the house. I just don’t know what to do. I love him so much and I can’t believe I did this. Everytime I look at him, I want to cry. I know he would never be unfaithful to me and I can’t believe I hurt him. I am not into the wedding planning anymore and I can’t stop thinking of what I did. Please help…..how do I get it out of my mind, I can’t tell him! [/FONT][/sIZE]
whats wrong with me Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 possibly... DONT THINK ABOUT IT!!! you sound like you really love your fiance, and I hate to say it but what he doesn't know wont hurt him. Have you spoke to the other person (the one you were messing with) about it? try to act like it didn't happen. maybe if YOU through plan a suprise bacholer party for your fiance (with strippers and all) it will help you to not feel so bad. I really hope you can get over this for your fiances sake....and final word of wisdom (ha ha) DONT DO IT AGAIN!!!!
michelangelo Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 you can't have secrets with your fiance. It is his life you are playing with. If you had sexual contact with another man while engaged to be married you have an obligation to let the man you ostensibly said you'd marry and love above all others to know that you are not committed to him yet. Yes, he may dump you. Or he may do nothing. Or he may delay your marriage. But you owe him honesty. What exactly did you do with this man and why do you think your commitment to this group is more important than your commitment to your fiance?
climbergirl Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 I think you need to figure out why you did this in the first place. I think the fact that you did fool around while engaged is a HUGE red flag that you're not ready to get married. That said, don't tell him. If you had had sex w/this guy my opinion would be different as there could be health ramifications that your fiance should know about. However, if you haven't (had sex w/other guy) then telling him will only make yourself feel better and make him feel horrible.
michelangelo Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 I speak from personal experience. My wife cheated on me when we were engaged and i didn't find out, had no clue, until 16 years later. At that time we had kids, a house, a life. i would have much preferred to have known while engaged than when we had all these hooks together. So he feels bad, so what! Better to know and process it and deal with it when you have not fully enmeshed your lives.
climbergirl Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 I speak from personal experience. My wife cheated on me when we were engaged and i didn't find out, had no clue, until 16 years later. At that time we had kids, a house, a life. i would have much preferred to have known while engaged than when we had all these hooks together. So he feels bad, so what! Better to know and process it and deal with it when you have not fully enmeshed your lives. I'm going under the premise that she won't let it happen again, will remember how she feels right now about betraying her fiance, and she said there was no sex involved. I'm in no way condoning, but not wanting to sound judgemental. I'm all for honesty and suffering the consequences of our actions, however, people do make mistakes and sometimes learn from them immediately. I still think that the bigger issue is why it happened in the first place. If you are so committed to this guy that you are going to marry him, doing something that you know is going to hurt him (esp. since you know he's insecure) ,to me, calls into question how much you really love him.
michelangelo Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Ok, I thought it meant they didn't have intercourse. However, what exactly is "fooled around"? We're not talking about joking arond are we. Any sort of sexual contact is something that should be addressed with her fiance. My wife thought she'd keep it secret. But you know what? 16 years later when she cheated again the same things that made her cheat engaged to me made her do it again while married. These types of secrets are poison to a relationship. She should give him a chance to deal with it.
climbergirl Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Ok, I thought it meant they didn't have intercourse. However, what exactly is "fooled around"? We're not talking about joking arond are we. Any sort of sexual contact is something that should be addressed with her fiance. My wife thought she'd keep it secret. But you know what? 16 years later when she cheated again the same things that made her cheat engaged to me made her do it again while married. These types of secrets are poison to a relationship. She should give him a chance to deal with it. I agree-secrets are poison. But I'm skipping over that........fooling around in any way while engaged means to me that you shouldn't be getting married. And I am re-thinking my original statement to the OP-I guess my main motive here is getting to the crux of her situation which is why she did it when she supposedly loves him. Last summer, my boyfriend and I broke up and I slept with someone else. When he and I got back together, it was never a question that I would tell him, because I have enormous amount of respect and love for him and to not tell him would be starting our re-newed relationship on a false foundation. I know......different situation, but when I told him I knew there was a strong possibility that he wouldn't want to be with me, but I had to own up and take that chance. I personally couldn't have lived with myself had I not told him. Wow-the contradictions! When I read the OP's post, however, I never got the sense that she was worried that he would leave her if he found out.........only that he would be more suspicious when she went to this group. In that case, (that she knows he'll stick around) this info will only hurt him. And was the fooling around maybe kissing? Michelangelo-just curious-would you have gotten married to your wife if she had told you what she had done immediately?
michelangelo Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 I would have cancelled the wedding and completely re-evaluated our relationship. I may have EVENTUALLY married her, or maybe not. But I was kept out of the decisionmaking process by my secretive then fiance's decision to exclude my imput on our combined fate. She was so good at lying and having a secret life that I had no clue. Knowing this about her now has killed off a lot of feelings I thought i had for her. See, the person i thought I loved did not exist. Illusions of my wishes aided by her deliberate deception. she emphticaly denies all tht, but it is true. selfishness at it's "best." You did the right thing in telling him. whether to marry her or not was not the most important decision I should have faced. I didn't have the facts of our relationship.
Bryanp Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Hello, If the roles were reversed, wouldn't you expect your boyfriend to be honest with you? Your engaged to be married and you "fool around" with another man. I know it is difficult but you need to show honesty and respect to your boyfriend by telling him the truth. Your marriage should rest on a foundation of trust, honesty and respect and not be based on lying, dishonesty and disrespect. There are consequences to actions and these are one of them. I do think it is a huge red flag that you were willing to fool around with another man before the marriage and it ought to tell you something. I think you need couseling.The bottom line is that if you truly love and respect the man you are going to marry then you need to tell him the truth. If you do not then you are continuing to disrespect him and what you are doing by withholding the truth is simply self-serving on your behalf. Either you truly respect your boyfriend or you do not. I am afraid your answer speaks volumes. I wish you luck.
Tiny Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 You nailed it. Some people have a very strange idea of love and respect
climbergirl Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 I would have cancelled the wedding and completely re-evaluated our relationship. I may have EVENTUALLY married her, or maybe not. But I was kept out of the decisionmaking process by my secretive then fiance's decision to exclude my imput on our combined fate. She was so good at lying and having a secret life that I had no clue. Knowing this about her now has killed off a lot of feelings I thought i had for her. See, the person i thought I loved did not exist. Illusions of my wishes aided by her deliberate deception. she emphticaly denies all tht, but it is true. selfishness at it's "best." You did the right thing in telling him. whether to marry her or not was not the most important decision I should have faced. I didn't have the facts of our relationship. Thanks. Not to say that this subject hasn't been brought up on many occasions--but he has a right to work through it. I f'ed up and it's my job to help him work through it. But I will say that he trusts me and that is, I believe, the cornerstone to all good relationships. I've given a lot of thought to what michelangelo has said and his experience has made a big impression on my original advice. JITB--you messed up and you have an obligation to your relationship to own up to your sh#t. If what your afraid of is your fiance distrusting you and 'not letting you leave the house', well that's kind of the bed you made for yourself. Good luck---I do hope things turn out well for you both.
Sal Paradise Posted March 11, 2006 Posted March 11, 2006 If you don't tell your fiance then you don't deserve his love. And I don't want to hear you can't get out of this group. You can do any thing you want (including telling your fiance). You're making excuses to let this continue.
KOTG Posted March 11, 2006 Posted March 11, 2006 The timing of this event is what concerns me the most, the fact that you are in the middle of planning your marriage tells me that you really need to re-examine the strength of your relationship. You have years, and years of trials and tribulations you must work through to make a succesful marriage. Remember, you made a mistake, but it dosen't mean the end of the world, or necessarily the end of the relationship. I think in your heart you know what needs to be done, good luck in making the right choice, i wish you both the best.
Vertex Posted March 12, 2006 Posted March 12, 2006 I am SO sick of this "what he doesn't know won't hurt him" advice! You need to tell him. Just because you don't explain a cheating-session doesn't mean there aren't underlying issues that may not be so obvious. He deserves to know. Just because there are other things at stake doesn't excuse you from your actions -- even if you wouldn't want to know in his shoes, that may not be his preference.
whats wrong with me Posted March 14, 2006 Posted March 14, 2006 If you tell him and then marry him your future together might suck. He could always be look down on you, never trusting you. What kind of marraige would that be. Also, I've been looking at you situation as if this was your "last" fling before getting married. A bachalor party is the same thing ... the end of being single. Because you didn't have sex w/ the other guy, try to look at the situation as if it were your bachalerette party.
electric_sheep Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies. -Pietro Aretino A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. -Robert Quillen ---- @whats_wrong_with_me I hear what you are saying. Some people can keep secrets like that better than others. In my experience, the keeping of secrets like that causes me to slightly disconnect emotionally and spiritually from the relationship. Since keeping secrets of that nature is not in keeping with my ideal of love, to keep such a secret subtly lessens the magic that should infuse a truly loving relationship. If I were to let that secret go however, there would certainly be risk involved, but if I was forgiven I'd be able to fully engage in a loving relationship again ... and this is what I deserve and what my partner deserves. Of course, the whole thing becomes complicated by the fact that in general people are not such good forgivers when it comes to sex. She has a better idea of what his reaction would be than we do. I guess she is going to have to balance the guilt/pain of harboring this secret vs. the possible damage of telling the truth. Not always an easy thing to do. p.s. I think sometimes "fooling around" can be a sign that something is not right, but other times it is just a sign that we are erotic beings that are hardwired for sex. I guess that is another question she is going to have to ask herself.
tikigods Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 your future husband deserves to know what you did. You made a choice to do something and its now his turn to make a choice as to what he wants to do with you. If you did love him you would tell him, the fact that you want to hide this from him (and the fact you did it) tells me you aren't ready to be married
whats wrong with me Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Hey everybody...I'm not condoning it (her fooling around) I dont think its right. BUT from my experience (in a past relationship) I screwed around, felt extremely guilty and didn't want to build our relationship on lies...then I told him about it. I was very sorry and told him I understood and didn't blame if if he didn't want me anymore. I loved him more than anything I could explain. 3 years down the road he was an ass...staying out all night, no job, pot head, hitting me. 2 years later I left him. 8 years after that I found out that he treated me like crap because of what I did before we became "serious". Looking back I should have never told him, maybe we would still be together and I wouldn't be with the dickhead I'm with now!! Basically I feel like I screwed myself and him out of 13 years.
electric_sheep Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 That is a seriously good argument for not telling him. Fact is, many of us are not considering the obvious ... many people are too weak/insecure to break up with someone, and instead internalize sh*t and sort of ruminate on it forever. They stay with the person, but their respect for that person has gone down, and this comes through in how they treat the person, and how they feel about the relationship later on down the road. Sad, but true. Probably true far more often than we would like to think in fact. I know this from personal experience.
catgirl1927 Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Also, I've been looking at you situation as if this was your "last" fling before getting married. A bachalor party is the same thing ... the end of being single. FWIW, if I find out that my BF does something like this at his bachelor party, I will cancel the wedding. By the time you're to the point of being married, you're not single any more.
Blind Illusion Posted March 17, 2006 Posted March 17, 2006 If it was an isolated mistake, i'd say move on like it never happened. Before doing so though, I'd examine why it did to begin with. If all you come up with was a foolish solitary error in judgement, call yourself human and move on. Why open a Pandora's box for no reason at all? Even therapists will advocate that revealing is not always the best thing to do. You have to weigh it out.
Recommended Posts