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Moving on from partner cheating on me

Ok so I've been with my girlfriend more than three years. We've always been long distance and that has always caused problems but we've managed to get through rough patches in the past.

However, earlier this year we went a massive amount of time without seeing eachother in person. Whilst I was away in America she went on a clubbing holiday and didn't exactly cheat on me, but she got a bit too friendly with a guy and was sitting on a beach with him and he had his arms around her. After a while he tried to kiss her but she didn't let him and she left. This bothered me but as she didn't really cheat, I forgave her for it.

When I got back to the UK, we went travelling together for a month. It started badly, with her telling me about doubts she was having because I'm her first ever boyfriend and she isn't sure she wants to be with just one person forever. But we talked about it and over the course of the holiday we got things back on track.

But in October she went off to Uni and things went from bad, to worse. Unknown to me, she developed a crush on someone right from the start. One night she called me out of the blue and told me she thought we should break up and finally admitted to having these feelings for someone else. It turns out that she had been trying to avoid him for a while but that was the first night for a while that they'd been together. They ended up getting quite close and went back to her room together and were holding hands, and she said he was kind of stroking her hand with his thumb. Well, we were going to see eachother the next day so I told her to come down anyway and we'd talk about it. We had a big talk and obviously this ordeal had bothered me a lot more than what she did on holiday because it was more meaningful emotional cheating. But she decided she had been stupid, and decided she would get over him and stay with me.

For a while that seemed to be working and she said her feelings for him were diminishing quite quickly and kept saying how sorry she was. But the really big thing happened recently. On her got last day at Uni this term she got very, very stupidly drunk and ended up kissing someone else. I saw her the next day and she told me that someone had tried to make a move on her but she had turned him down. But the day after that she actually told me the truth, that she had kissed him. She says she was just really drunk and didn't know what she was doing and he made the move and she didn't think to stop it. She tells me that she didn't even enjoy it at the time and afterwards she obviously felt awful - though she could be lying about how much she enjoyed it at the time. Now this is obviously hard enough to accept at the best of times but when I asked how long the kiss lasted she said "I don't know, about a minute?" and she also doesn't remember much detail, e.g. she doesn't know who stopped the kiss. Now it seems to me like a minute is a LONG time to kiss someone else, she must have known full well what she was doing and if it was as bad as she says it is, surely she would stop it sooner?

So my question is, is there anyway back from here? I've been cheated on in the past (which she knows all about, obviously) and I feel very betrayed because she knows I already had trust issues because of that. I've been with her for nearly 4 years, which is a huge amount of time, and it's hard to imagine that this is over. But now I'm really starting to think that I deserve better than this. But then again, another part of me feels like I shouldn't throw all of this away because of a really stupid drunken kiss because I understand how that can happen. Thoughts?

Reply 1

Anonymous #2

My friend went through a similar situation not too long ago, although the person she was with used to abuse her :frown:

My advice is, if there's no trust then there's no relationship, to be able to be completely in love with someone there needs to be trust. Obviously now you feel that shes betrayed your trust and that's not good :frown:

I do feel for you, its a hard situation to be in.
If i were you i would sit her down and have a good chat with her, you both need to get all feelings out and test the strength of your relationship even if its hard.
And as silly as this sounds, don't think about the time you've been together because you will force yourself to stay with her as you've spent so much time together.

This may not help you, but its the story of my friend.
So shes been with this guy for 4 years and they were each others first relationship, within the first year he was receiving revealing pictures of her cousin via facebook as he had requested them. She forgave him for this and moved on. Then he mentally abused her by calling her names and getting his family to join in, but after apologized and promised it wouldnt happen again. Then recently at a party he was very drunk and got very close to a girl while dancing, they kissed and my friend walked out of the party as she was stood right in front of him watching him, he then called her the 'slut' in the situation but still she forgave him. They then broke up, after I tried to help her and i advised her to do what her heart tells her, and shes back with him, and to me this isnt the best choice for her but its her choice none the less.
The moral of the story... If you dont speak to this girl about your feelings, and tell her everything, she might do it again? dont get walked over.
Imagine it was you who had done the cheating, how would she react?
Hope ive helped, and good luck mate.

Reply 2

Anonymous #1

Thank you for the reply. Have to say that the situation is a bit different as she is never abusive and we get on great in person, we never seem to fight at all. If someone was abusing me I would definitely leave them in a flash. But I can relate to the cheating situation.

We have talked about it extensively by the way and she's very sorry and says she won't cheat again. But of course she would say that stuff now, I really just don't know what to do. We've established that when she is back at Uni she won't drink more than 2 drinks until I regain more trust, so I can have some peace of mind when she is out. Besides that I find it hard to really know what to say about it besides the obvious.

Reply 3

alawhisp

Original post by Anonymous

We have talked about it extensively by the way and she's very sorry and says she won't cheat again. But of course she would say that stuff now, I really just don't know what to do. We've established that when she is back at Uni she won't drink more than 2 drinks until I regain more trust, so I can have some peace of mind when she is out. Besides that I find it hard to really know what to say about it besides the obvious.

Dude.. Come on. She wasn't sorry enough after the first time she dicked about on you, on holiday? She doesn't know if she wants to be with you forever, you're her first boyfriend.. Hence why she's cheated on you repeatedly. She knows she can mess you around and you'll suck it up. You're having to trust her word that nothing intimate happened with the first two guys - but that she put herself into those situations in the first place is bad enough.

Why don't you respect yourself enough to know that you deserve better?

Reply 4

Jaydiee

I think that often the emotional cheating is worse. Spending time, getting to know someone and holding hands with them is worse than the drunken kiss (although im not condoning that)
Now it's happened 3 times and the trust you used to have is broken, it is going to be very difficult to believe she wont do it again. Whilst I can't predict anything, I believe it probably will happen again if you 'forgive' her and carry on as you are.
At the end of the day you have to make the decision for yourself but you deserve better than to be messed around, not knowing whats going to happen.

Reply 5

Anonymous #3

My ex developed feelings for a girl at uni, they slept in his room togther, and i knew nothing about it. He played it down just saying he had feelings for her but he would not act on them till me and him where broken up, but ofc he was acting on it they were kissing every night and acting like a couple at uni. This is becuase its easy at uni to forget everybody back home, its so intense that they do develop feelings for one another but where as people who arnt at uni can distance themselves , people at uni cant there with each other all the time so there going to get these feelings us ex partners cant stop itk, you just have to think that a) it purely infatuation and obsession not love and b ) its not your fault