In_Distress

I don’t really care for the definition of what your girlfriend did. Infidelity – affair – last fling... Fact is you two had an understanding and that understanding included accepted limitations to how you could behave sexually with other people. The rest is just terminology.

The following could be deemed a 2x4. That’s what we call a mental whopping on the forum. It’s a bit like scolding an unruly child or someone who has strayed from the path. Have in mind that if I did not care for you I would just simply not answer.

Reconciliation is like being pregnant. You either are or you aren’t.

You really have to decide what you want and what you are willing to do. I have a feeling that you want to reconcile but have your doubts about it. I have told you that I decided not to reconcile. I decided that on the spot and never regretted my decision. That was me – what you do is totally up to you.

Do you think it is any easier for her? If she truly feels regret then do you think she is not worried that you are planning to go? Think that she is all happy with planning this date at the restaurant? She is probably just as scared as you are.

Either break it off and do so cleanly or start on reconciliation. If you do decide to reconcile give it 100%. Enjoy your time together and try to work things out with the MC. Do not allow yourself to create drama or issues in your head like “what card to select”. Just pick it. Do not allow yourself to sink into despair and negative thoughts. Trust me – I have been in your shoes and I have also had to cope with a life-threatening long-time situation with my child – you do have a lot of control over your thoughts and your moods.

The situation you face is a serious one and no amount of self-wallowing or misery will improve it. It is hard but you also do have the option of leaving. Don’t forget the rule of thumb that recovery from a broken heart takes 6 months but reconciliation takes 2 years. It’s your choice.

I do want to point out that if you two accept and follow a plan like the one MB offers to build up a good marriage then the chances are you will never again be in this situation. Good marriages don’t happen. They become. They become through a lot of hard work and effort from both spouses.

Friend, I can't suggest how to handle Valentine's Day in light of the two things you've said above. Frankly, how can she expect you to be in the mood?

In the counseling you're going to, you MUST find out why she was testing the waters. Huh? Testing to see if he "did it for her?" IT? And she was "not repulsed" by him...i.e., she was attracted to him? Guy, you have GOT to find out why she was having these thoughts about a man she only met the day before this incident. Good luck, sir.

OK, I have been out of the loop for a couple of weeks, but...

In my sitch, I dated and lived with my FWH for 7 years before we got married. During this time, he was completely faithful. If he had cheated on me during that time, I would never have married him, period.

It was the fact that we were married and had exchanged vows that ultimately led me to staying in the marriage following his infidelity.

That, however, does not change the fact that cheating within a committed relationship is always going to hurt like h*ll for the betrayed partner.

What I have found is that the recovery process is also very painful, in many ways much more so than simply saying good bye.

Who

Prior to us getting married, my FWW and I dated for about 5~7 years (too lazy at the moment to go check the calender, LOL). Much of that time we spent apart, as we attended separate universities. Somewhere in the middle of this, about two years before we were married, she "cheated" on me for about a month or two with another student at her university, someone who first became a friend, then took it further (sound familiar, doesn't it?). I was devastated, but after she told me that she never meant to hurt me, she was very, very sorry for what she did, she always wanted to be with me, she loved me more than anything, and she'd never do it again, I agreed to continue our relationship. We actually ended more in love with each other than we were before, perhaps because of all the sharing we did after she disclosed her A.

Unfortunately, something went wrong in our M, and here we are again, but this time it's different - her A was longer, she was more emotionally involved, and on disclosure her comments to me were basically along the lines of that I could take it or leave it, that it was up to me if we were to stay M'd, but she wasn't pushing for it either way. There was little remorse expressed for what she'd done, only a polite apology for hurting me in the process. She said she did it because it made her feel good, and she was tired of worrying about other people's feelings. So of course our recovery now is a lot harder.

My advise to "In_Distress" is, if he feels his GF is TRUELY remorseful about what she's done and she really wants to spend her life with him, then it's worth giving it a chance. Just don't make the mistake of relying on the vows of marriage to allow complacency to slip into how he treats her, and vice-versa. Also, she's already given signs of her weakness when someone else pushes boundaries, and she needs to do what needs to be done to let him feel that she will protect him from this in the future; her simply saying "I love you more than anything", and "I'll never do it again" is NOT enough, as my own experience has shown me.

I am 42 years old. So I may be an old fogey to you. But I experienced the same situation when I was in my early 20`s. I was engaged and then I broke it off three months before the wedding. That was EXTREMELY painful. Being my first real love and all, and I really loved this man. But I just could not marry him. Dumping him was tougher than being dumped because I was ripping my own heart out.

But it was the right decision. He had old fashioned views about male/female relationships and the closer we got to the wedding the more this became apparent.

Now I am not saying that our relationship was impossible to salvage but I did not have the tools at that point in my life to salvage it. Neither did he. So it was for the best that we did not marry.

I did not live with him, thank God. If I had things would have been so much more complicated. It is difficult enough to separate a relationship without having to separate a household as well.

I think you need to back up here. You are no longer sure of this woman. And it will be very difficult for you to view this situation objectively as long as you live with her. The longer you live with her the more entangled your life and your finances are going to become with her. And you are NOT SURE of her.

I am not saying that you should completely break off the relationship just yet. There is a chance that your fiancee can identify her problem and can learn some better coping skills. She is young and still has some growing to do.

But I do think you need to backtrack. You have already called off the wedding and I think one of you needs to move out of the condo and you need to separate your finances. In other words go back to square one and see if you can start over. Go back to dating her and see how it goes.