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I cheated on my boyfriend 4 years ago and he knows about it. I told him a few weeks after I did it. I was 17 then and I hated myself during and after. I still feel bad about it and I've been thinking about it alot recently. I don't know why. Especially today. I think Valentine's day resurrected it in my brain. I want to stop thinking about it because it's not helpful or relevant anymore. We have a good relationship now. Nothing unhealthy. He loves me. I love him. I keep thinking about how he should've left me 4 years ago but I got lucky. I'm glad he stayed but I also feel kind of bad that he did because he's such a sweet person and he deserves the world and I think if he believed that then he would've left. I don't think I deserve anyone or anything I have in life. There are better people in worse situations. I need to do better. I can't stop thinking about how he cried when I told him. I had never ever made anyone cry before that day. It was shocking. Broke my heart too. It's been so long and I'm still not over it. Karma I guess
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Hey. You did something very wrong and your boyfriend forgave you for it because he loves you and has a kind heart. I think, for the sake of you and him, you should try to feel grateful instead of guilty. You deserve forgiveness because you were forgiven. Sure, you believe that you should’ve been punished more so you’re choosing to punish yourself by not letting it go. Let it go. What happened won’t define you unless you let it. Good luck.
ReplyYour boyfriend forgave you to move on from the incident completely. By fretting over it you are keeping the dark hurtful shadow in your heart and so inevitably on your relationship, which will only manifest in more harm in the future. You are sincerely sorry and will not cheat again. You can’t do anything more than that. You can’t change the past. So, as the other person said, just practice being grateful. Your boyfriend forgave you so the only thing left is for you to forgive yourself. Forgive yourself.
ReplyMiddle aged male here. I was married once for ten years, got divorced, and have been in a new relationship and married for over five years.
This first girl I was with, I remember knowing in the early days that the relationship would work out. From stories I had heard from others, too many had gotten a divorce because the relationships were great until they got married and then moved in together. Many of these divorces were less than a year after marriage. But, this was different, between the two of us because we were living together first. It was an unusual set of circumstances in which we were roommates that developed a connection for one another. And because we had lived together for a few years first, I just knew the marriage would be fine.
I asked her to be my wife and she said yes. We began planning the wedding and it was then, during that window of time, that she confessed to me that she had been cheating. She only confessed because she thought I knew about it (I didn't). We went our separate ways and three things happened - I found myself depressed and feeling as though I would never find love again (stupid thing to assume when you're in your 20's), she realized she had made a mistake, and we wound up back together.
I accepted her apology, verbally, but I was still hurting inside. I had just spend the last few months telling people how horrible this all was and what she had done to me. Everyone was in awe. Now that she's back in my life, I'm having to explain to these same people that I'm giving her another shot and I find that friends and family this go round aren't so supportive. Confronting them all again was one of the hardest things I had ever done but I did all that, and went through all that pain, so that I could have her in my life again. For the next many years, I was plagued with trust issues. I kept trying to convince myself that if we pushed forward and did what "other couples do", that everything would "get back to normal". Unfortunately, it didn't. We financed a house, bought cars, had children, got pets, etc. I had known for a long, long, long time that I loved her but I knew, in the just the same, that I wasn't in love with her. Loving someone and being in love with someone are two different things.
We were more like friends, or roommates, than husband and wife and I finally asked that we pull the plug on the whole thing. Our marriage was officially dissolved just a month or two before our ten year wedding anniversary. And to think that, in all that time, I couldn't get that incident out of my head and had convinced myself that she had cheated on me with three other guys during the marriage. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. I don't have definitive proof but I have stories that could probably convince you to think the same as me. We could ask her but why would she be honest about such a thing? She'll just deny it either way so she says it didn't happen because it really didn't or she says it didn't happen because she doesn't want a confrontation. Who knows?
And while we appeared to be "normal" and many assumed we were "happy", I can assure you I had a lot on my mind in those ten years.
After the divorce, I got with my second wife and was worried that I would have trust issues with her as well. Maybe this was "part of me" now. I don't know. Luckily, that turned out to not the be the case for me. She would leave to go visit with friends or family and I thought nothing of it.
But one day we were at a gathering of friends and family for a large meal and, while I was washing my hands in the kitchen, I could see through the window above the sink, my wife walking with another man. I'm not controlling and she's free to talk to whom she likes but this was different because they were in a non-public space, were walking very slowly (barely one foot in front of the other), so close together I'd be surprised if their arms weren't touching, and their heads were down. This, I could tell, was a serious conversation and that was a trigger for me. This guy was a friend of a friend. We had spoken to him dozens of times and he was always very nice but he wasn't our friend directly and, for that reason alone, we had never really hung out with him outside of visiting with the others. I didn't feel like either of us knew him well enough to be having a conversation like the two of them seemed to be having. I was a little upset but kept my cool and decided to wait until we got home to ask her about this.
To make a long story short, that wound up being only one of seven incidents we had with this guy. There were a couple of times I was seriously ready for divorce and knew, in my head, that when the relationship ended I would never get into another one. In the end, she spelled it out to me.
She was aware, early in our relationship, that I had trust issues because I had shared the story of my ex-wife with her. She felt bad for me and wanted to be sure that she never made me feel this way. In the early days, she didn't know that going off to see friends or family could be a trigger as she was new to all of this so she just did her thing not knowing it could have hurt me. On the flip side, I was just lucky that I wasn't having those trust issues any more so it worked out. But later, when this other guy came into the picture, she knew I was triggered by him because of the incident I described above (she did, in fact, explain all of that to me when we got home but I won't leave details here as they aren't relevant to my point) and if she ever had a run in with this guy, she would lie to me about it. She was wrong in doing so but her purpose was of good intent. She knew that if she happened to bump into this guy and told me that they didn't sleep together, I'd never believe that. She assumed it would be better to say that she had not, in fact, bumped into the guy. If he's not there, there is no way they could have slept together so the problem seems to be solved. She's still a good girl, minus the lie she just told, and I'm still happy because this guy wasn't around. The problem, as you can imagine, is that I did know she had bumped into the guy so when she would lie to me about these things, it only made things worse and I would grow angry.
This guy has been gone, like really gone, for several years now. He still lives in our town but he's no longer invited to our social gatherings, our friends are no longer friends with him (as I mentioned, he was a friend of a friend, not a direct friend of ours), no one speaks to him and no one sees him in town. It's been years and I have countless reasons to believe that she never betrayed me but sometimes I still have my doubts. She has a story for each of the seven incidents but I wonder if she ever told me the whole truth. I guess I'll never know.
The good news is that I don't really have trust issues so very often like I used to. If she has to work late, I just trust that she's really working late. If she has to go in on her day off for a meeting, I just trust that she's at work for a meeting. The bad news, though, is that do still have trust issues from time to time. Recently, she was to be a place and I wasn't sure if she was actually there. I actually left work, drove myself to this place (I knew the name but had never been there so even had to go through the trouble to look it up and GPS it), so I could see her car in the parking lot. And if I had to bet, I'd bet with everything I own that she was actually in that building doing what she was supposed to be doing but when you have trust issues like me, there was just a little something crazy enough to wonder if she had gone through the trouble to park the car there and then leave in another vehicle with someone else. It's just crazy to think such a thing but, when you have trust issues, that's the way your brain works.
Yes, this guy has been gone for years but every once in a while, and sometimes for no real reason at all, he'll pop in my head and I'll be upset for the remainder of that day. She comes in from work; we both smile, hug, kiss, and talk about the day. She's none the wiser. We're trying to figure out what we'll do for dinner for the night but she has no clue that I'm thinking about this guy, that I'm thinking about those seven incidents, and that my moods are flipping back and forth between "crying inside" with sadness and "raging" with anger. He's still in my head when I put my head on the pillow and as I stare off into the darkness, those incidents play out in front of me so vividly I'd swear I was watching it on TV. It's hard to fall asleep but that's the only reset switch I have.
And I wonder, sometimes, as well, if she ever thinks about those times and regrets them? From your post, it sounds like you did something wrong and you think back to it from time to time and you really, really regret it. To me, this is confirmation you'll be unlikely to do such a thing again and that's reassuring. But my wife, she never mentions it and I'm under the impression she's moved on from it and never thinks about those days. I don't know that it still, out of nowhere, punches her in the gut with guilt.
And now I've said all of that to say this....
I've seen and heard to many stories about cheaters, and the victims, to know this affects everyone and every couple differently.
I know this guy has forgiven you but you should be aware that, while he doesn't mention it, it's quite likely that he does think about that time every once in a while and, when he does, he's visiting with you and doing what he must to make sure you enjoy the evening but he may be falling apart inside. This may be hurting him more than you realize. It pops your head from time to time so why not also his? It's entirely possible, yes?
Ah, but what do we do with all of that? For me and the relationship I'm in, I honestly don't know. It's strange and maybe not even helpful but sometimes I just want to talk about it. Sometimes, I just want to tell a friend about it and say, "Man, you've got to hear about these seven incidents." I guess I think it'll feel good to just get it off my chest. And, sometimes, I suppose I actually want to talk to her about it. That may even be stranger. I wish, I suppose, more than anything, that I could get her to explain things to me and that she's, in some magical way, forced to tell nothing but the truth. In this situation, I'm pretty sure I actually know everything that happened and, assuming I'm correct and her stories are lies, these two never slept together and they definitely weren't in a relationship. In fact, I could shorten that by saying that nothing romantic was happening between them. But when you have trust issues, you still have sick and twisted ways of playing the story out differently in your head and you makes you question things. I wonder what I would feel like, what I would REALLY feel like, if she explained it all to me and I knew FOR SURE that she was BEING HONEST? I'd like to think the pain would all go away but I have no guarantee.
You should know that you aren't alone. Many people have hiccups and they, down the road, think about them from time to time.
As I mentioned before, I actually commend you for acknowledging the guilt you have from your decision because this, to me, helps to assure you won't make a decision like that later.
I can't say that my advice will help you as it could, in fact, make things worse. I say this because, again, big issues regarding cheaters affect couples and individuals in very different ways. But, for me (and I'm sitting on his side of the fence here), I think it would be nice if my wife came to me and said, "Hey, I know that hurt, I'm sorry, and if you ever want to talk about it it's ok or if there's anything I can do to help, let me know." Oh goodness, I just can't imagine. But, while your man might appreciate the same, it could actually be a bad thing as digging up these old skeletons may just breathe life into an issue he's buried a long time ago.
I just wanted to explain what it's like being on the other side of this, at least for me, and how it never fully went away. She thinks this much, I assume, because I accepted her apology and I smile everyday when she walks through the door. On most days, I'm happy and the smile is genuine. But it does happen from time to time, as described above, that I have to fake a smile to cover the sadness and rage I'm feeling inside. It can be tough to deal with.
No matter what you choose to do, I'm wishing you the absolute best. And, unlike me, I hope that your pain will, in time, stop popping up and that these images stop coming back to you.
Good Luck!
ReplyThat's so shit you cheated,yes Karma is a bitch..
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