Hi, I am 35 years old European male and new to the forum.
My girlfriend of 26 years old �we have been living together for 3.5 years, no kids - cheated on me last week while I was on a businesstrip and she came clean 2 days after although she is maintaining the affair for now.

We both come from happy families and both our parents are living a healthy relationship.
My previous (immature) relationship of 8 years (from my 20th birthday untill 28 years old) failed because my ex had a borderline personality disorder: Moodswings, impulsiveness, tantrums, lack of empathy, mirroring, black & white thinking, threats of suicide etc�
I went in therapy and spend years on a BPD forum for friends & relatives recovering the toxic relationship�

I met my current girlfriend when she was 23. A couple of weeks later we fell in love at a 3-day festival� She moved in a couple of days later as her roommates were moving to other cities. Our relationship has been excellent the first 3 years but has degraded fast the last 6 months. I have an IT-consulting contracting job that can absorb me on an intellectual level and causes me a lot of stress for long periods.
I have found healthy ways to cope with the stress over the years, but it does not involve my girlfriend on weekdays (= reading, playing music etc) although we have our together time almost each day. In the weekends we go out and party for relief, visit friends & relatives, do some stuff in our house keeping.

Since my girlfriend was so young and was suffering from poor self-estimeen, I supported and gently pushed her over the years and watched her bloom into a woman with a steady job, friends & postive outlook on the future with kids. We came close of buying our dreamhouse in februari and were planning to start making babies in 2014.

Things went bad in Spring, my new job required my full attention and I could not get days off at work. Searching houses had to be dropped. Holidays cancelled. We talked and agreed my girlfriend should use her holidays to explore the horizon with friends instead. A bit of space and trust would help her grow out of the self-esteem issues even more, I thought. My girlfriend started partying more and spending more time with friends so I could concentrate on my job & getting rid of the stress.
When summer arrived I got angry with her because she was planning more & more friend & partytime without mutual agreement. My stress became worse, but I did not work it out on her, neither did we have fights. I thought the stress was getting the best of me.

We had some time off last month and my girlfriend insisted I�d get some relief and we go on a party-holiday across Europe together with her friends. We had Australians over and had a good time and used drugs. I was tired of the partying & drugs and told my girlfriend, but she seemed to be angry and flee everytime the subject was touched. My frustration got worse and I kept fleeing to my stress-relief as talk was obviously not possible. I was subconciously waiting for an accident to happen� and it did: last week.
 

One of the Australian boys was admiring my girlfriend and she was loving the attention. She wanted to meet but would not discuss it with me. Any questions would trigger an angry reaction. This went on for a week. The second week she started lying to me, I called her [censored] but she would run away. When I came back from a businesstrip she finally told me she did not see a future for our relationship, I asked her immediately if she has been cheating and she said yes last thursday and started crying.. I immediately said I cannot allow you to stay in this house if you choose to keep seeing this person. We talked friday and it was apparent she had an emotional connection with this Aussie guy (her age) who will be leaving for home within 2 weeks. Her partyfriends are sheltering her and him for the moment.

I immediately blocked my joint-bankaccount card & payments.

We have talked this week on 2 occassions for at least 2 hours each time. We had a very deep emotional connection for the first time in months. I made clear I am going to fight for our relationship because I think we can overcome this. I really filled her lovebucket on those two occassions and she responded immediately.

We met again yesterday afternoon: We connected for 2 hours. She said she cannot possibly live without me. We hugged, kissed. She told me the fantasy is over and they both are starting to feel guilty.

Yesterday evening they took XTC together again and my girl sees a future for them when I spoke her on the phone today!!!!!

This is not the girl I was planning a future with

NEED HELP.

This is not the girl I was planning a future with

But this is exactly the girl she is, so......

Let's summarize this into two separate concepts:

1) The idea of "dating" or "courtship" is best analogized by the idea of a job interview followed by an intership.

2) Your candidate failed the process.

Where you are, unfortuantely, is immaturely hung up on the idea of "sunk cost". ("But we've done so much together already...") What a more worthwhile outlook would entail would be considering the massive outlays of resources (emotional, psychological, possiblt financial) to put this back onto the path you thought you were on.

Consider yourself blessed that her true nature came to the fore before you disastrously uttered those heavy-commitment "I do" words.

Write her off, learn from the heartache, and go find a better candidate.

Cheers!

I know it still hurts, but be thankful you found out before you married her and had children.

Please stay around and read some of Dr. Harley's works.

Start here Preparing for Marriage
Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders

26 year girlfriend? When would you marry?
Half of your life is over.
How do you plan in living your next 35 years?

Stop making poor investments. This is a pattern for you. Instead of finding someone capable of a healthy normal relationship, you keep taking on these fixer-upper projects. Sorry, I'm not sure why you keep taking on projects and trying to fix them.

Dating is a job interview for marriage. When the candidate flunks the interview, it is time to move on. This candidate clearly flunked the interview and is not marriage material.

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. Maybe I should explain some more: I explicitly mentioned I am European, meaning: young couples do not tend to marry anymore. In the southern European countries marriage is still popular though. The church has been burning the last 15 years under scandals of child-abuse. Fiscal regimes are not interesting to say "I do" in front of an altar.
Divorce-rates are 50% of those who do.
couples < 35 yrs tend to say "We are engaged", throw a party and start planning kids. My best female friends had their first at 29-30.
So, yes I am at the end of the courting phase: Better now than later... True! we were close to actually buying that house.

How do I plan of living the next 35 years?
The same question pops up in my mind now & then.
I was hoping with my current girlfriend & kids actually.

8 years of living with a BPD and 3,5 years with someone who is rapidly declining into addiction... Chances are slim I will ever trust a woman again. Even with therapy.
I have worked my [censored] to the bone the last 10 years.
Have enough money to buy a house without a loan and take a less stressfull job.

Ow yes, you hit the nail right on it's head. Why? I dunno I had a happy childhood, mom & dad love their children & grandchildren. Psychologist thought I was fine.
I am an engineer by trade, it's how my brain works intellectualy.
"Giving" is how my heart works emotionally.
My brain & heart hardly work together at all.
I am the communicative problem-solver. The fix-it-all.
Guilty!

I have had an emotional "fix-project" when I was single and recovering from toxic love 6 years ago. I choose not to invest romanticly or financialy, but helped to put a runnaway girl on tracks in life instead. Fixed her a first job. She passed her first year of college on a scholarship this year and she found her first love. In return I got a young friend who keeps me up to date of all the cool stuff on the internet & can keep up with me when I need to vent about technical work stuff.

I have dated lots of women my age proposed by friends the last year of recovery. But could not emotionally connect to any. Red flags popin'up on every date. Until a young girl of 24 yrs old introduced herself on a crowded party. Yes she was insecure, but not unusual for a girl her age.

She is not an emotional-black hole, she is full of love and is a giver. All my friends & relatives love her. So do I, I can live with the fact she is insecure & quits a lot of things she starts... but not the talking or the emotional bond.
She just stopped talking to me and the whole relationship became passive-aggressive real fast. With the affair as the first real conflict in our relationship resulting in a partner fleeing in an avoidant drugscraze.

I see an insecure girl scared sh*tless for the future she planned for herself, who will come to her senses & commit.
I have failed to understand my emotions and my own needs. I Lost sight of the needs of my girlfriend.

I choose to be committed to her for now because I love her and we had a wonderful 3 year relationship under the same roof together.

Here's hoping American humor translates to European.

A hunting party in Alaska had great success, and when the chartered seaplane landed to take them home, the pilot immediately said that there was too much load with the trophies and meat, etc and some would have to be left behind.

The hunting party guide said, "I tell you, we had just as much load LAST year, and the pilot had the courage to take off with all of it. Of course, he was very brave...."

The current pilot, challenged, then said, "Good enough, load it all up, and we'll give it a shot."

They all piled in, he started the plane at the absolute farthest point of the lake, gunned the motor, and accelerated down the lake, using up all the available room, before ever-so-gently easing back on the stick and having the plane start its ascent......when the laws of flight-physics took over, the plane stalled, and crashed onto the shore.

As they crawled out of the wreckage, the guide clapped the pilot on the back, and said, "Not only are you as brave as the other pilot, but you actually flew us 75 feet (22.9 meters) farther before the crash than last year!"

If you insist on contemplating married life with women who are so "overloaded" with their only problems, you'll crash every time, dude. We'll not be able to help you if you insist you know best.

I do not know for the best, very aware of that! I am here for help after all.
I am open for all input at the moment, but I will put up a fight in accepting. I do appreciate the effort. :-)

Here goes:
I should be giving up on "married" life all together then.
I haven't met a single female that did not appear "overloaded" on first inspection in the last 6 years. In comparison my girlfriend only appeared "heavily loaded" on take-off...

...which comes down to "overloaded" when the plane begins to stall & eventually crashes. True!

Good stuff

You just need to work on your "picker" and yourself.

Did you read this?
Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders

Get the book Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders.

I also live in a culture (French Canada) where marriage is no longer common amongst couples with children (since around the 1970's) - in fact, there is no real distinction between them when speaking (mon/ma conjoint - "conjugal partner" - is used whether married or not). We (women) are not even allowed to change our names (I have a different surname then my husband/children).

"We" started this a decade or so before it became common in Northern Europe - the Trudeau era.

What we are now seeing, as we (the 1960-70's babies) grew up, is that those families have since mostly fallen apart. Career came before family commitment. Single child-only families found it easier to break off and split up with no desire to try and save the family unit.

The tide is starting to change. Marriage is becoming more & more common, families are having more children. People are moving back towards the Catholic tradition. The government is pouring money into subsidized childcare to encourage family units to become larger and stronger. Most of our friends are now getting married and having more kids, unlike their parents.

Just a thought.... our society tried this already. It didn't work out so great in the long-run.

Also - agree about working on your picker. Do understand, that women who are willing to be an honest committed STABLE wife, will expect the same in return. I really doubt that all women in Northern Europe are opposed to being married. Perhaps you are being passed by from ideal candidates because you are not offering them the stability and commitment that they want for their future family/children.

I am a good, honest, loving wife and mother. But if you asked me out on a date and made it clear you had no interest in getting married, only living together and starting a family, then I would not consider another date. And I am someone who lives in a similar shack-up culture as you. So, I'd skip you based on that. Maybe those girls are skipping you for those reasons. You can change this. It is easier than changing "damaged" applicants!

Yes and I understand very well.
We grew to become buyers in the first three years & went back to renters in the last 4 months.

But I must admit I am having a hard time with the sacrifice:
You like the telly, I like a daily sitdown. Let's cook together & watch the telly afterwards. We negotiated.

"You don't like tomatoes, but like french fries."
"I don't like french fries too much, but like tomatoes."
Instead of never eating tomatoes or french fries again.
Lets agree to make something with both tomatoes & french fries
and enjoy it together. Or hey let's never eat tomatoes or french fries again together. It worked for a while.

but than you find your foodplate to becomes less & less healthy & satisfying... You talk about it, come to no agreement and find negotiation becomes impossible. Changes in our environment were "misused" to get out of agreements.

Resulting in resentment & us having dinner at work & only telly together in the evening without a sitdown.

What went wrong here?

She recently admitted she was starting to like tomatoes!

bonjour Alis. Je parle francais (2nd language) aussi, donc le principe des "conjaints" est naturel pour moi.

After reading some of the stuff you all linked -thank you-, I think I am seeing what you are aiming at here Alis. People need a fixed ritual with a set date to "buy into" their relationship.
You can commit while living together every day, but that does not bring you one step closer to a point that says "From now on we are officialy committed to each other forever". You have to actually "buy it" eventually... while I thought the moment you both agree to physicly start making babies or buy that house, is the day you actually commit to someone for life. But that is something personal and will be a different moment in the relationship/courtship every time. It's confusing for a lot of people incl. me.

I was aware of the "the career above family commitment"-culture here and I adapted my life early to make good money first so I could take an easier job once my kids are born (or "the commitment" is made.) Is the work/life-balance sooo much better in America? or in Canada? Careers are killing ppl here. I have a collegue my age working 18h a day and has a family aswell!!!

Am I willing to accept official marriage to be with a suitable partner? Yes, but I am a business-owner so we would have to marry with a pre-nup and a lot of paperwork. That would probably kill the date too... =)

Marriage is a commitment.
There are many who choose to get married.
Europe has not abandoned marriage as an institution.

Indeed, not in some circles.
I could agree to marriage if it were a suitable candidate. But for me personaly it is not a need. I just want stability & commitment and I am willing to give that without a ring too.
Yes, I am starting to see why a ceremony could be important...

Did you read all of Dr. Harley's articles on preparing for marriage?

What did you think?

I'm from the UK and am a big believer in marriage . . . now. I see every day the mess that ensues when non married people slide into buying houses or having children together.

I used to think that marriage was an old fashioned concept. Now, with 3 adult children I see that it is the essential glue of relationships. I see where my not understanding that led to the independent behaviour on my part that contributed to the demise of my marriage.

Happily, like Alis I see the next generation moving back to marriage. My 22 year old has been in a committed relationship since she was 18 but they would not dream of moving in together. Even whilst they attended the same university and lived off campus, they did not shack up.

I read them all once, but need to read them a second (and probably a third time) to give an opinion on it.

I agree to all basic things like Policy of joint agreement.
Which I practise subconsiously but not as radical.

and the policy of honesty,
which I failed on the emotional honesty part when I got hurt because we stopped agreeing after a couple of years & we retracted to independent behaviour because my needs were not met.

We could have bought the house together and agreed to it as a permanent commitment or we could have signed a marriage contract at the city-council, but that would have ultimatly lead me to this place just the same imho.
But I guess that's a cultural thing and the numbers speak against me...
Noted: won't be shacking up ever again unless married.