Trying to right my evil ways
I lied to my girlfriend and everyone around me about my level of education by saying that I graduated university when in fact I had actually left. I kept up that lie for three years. Within the first year of the lie I began dating a woman. I kept the lie up until just recently (thus a three year lie). Nobody else knew the truth as to my situation. She is rightfully hurt that I lied to her and says that it has inadvertently affected the plans she had for our lives. I moved down to live with her while in the lie and we've been in the same apartment for 4 months now and the lie has only come to light in the last month, maybe two. So she's angry about that.
The stress that this has caused on our relationship is something I've never felt before. She gets angry at me for all sorts of little things now, as is her right, and it's led to a great deal of bickering and even fighting. Twice now, the first in the history of my life and hopefully ever, it's gotten to the point where I've essentially manhandled her and vice versa (of course not to the same degree as she's about half my size). I'm ashamed to even write it let alone talk about it to people in real life. As all pieces of garbage, I was initially shocked that I was even capable of doing such a thing to the woman with whom I felt I belonged, but here it is now. The last blast like that was about a month ago, maybe more, and the time before that was perhaps mere weeks. We'd already been living together for some 3 months before that started. It has not happened since and I make every concerted effort to TALK about our feelings and issues we have before a fight develops (just like I'd always done before this started).
She tells me she loves me and wants to be with me, she's suggested that it might be better if I move out while we try and work things out. I know for a fact she's told her close friends about what's happened. She went out on a date recently with a coworker. I still live in the same apartment with her.
Here is my dilemma...I don't want her to be known amongst her friends as "the one with the boyfriend who hurts her physically or mentally" nor do I want to hold her back from any possible relationships she may have lined up. She tells me that she still loves me and she wants things to work out but she is confused. I know, in my heart, that if I were to move out that it would be the end of us as she's already been on one date and I don't think the stress and jealousy that comes with a post-break would help the situation any. Am I hanging on to something that's died? I've signed up for counseling on her request and partly my own volition. I've put myself back in school to finish up my degree and make something of my life. I'm still under 30 a few more years so I know there's lots of hope in my life and for my own future but in the immediate I am stressed, upset, and my life is disrupted by our faulty relationship. I know that the "fixes" are simple: Stop lying, stop fighting physically, and make something of myself. While I say I'm doing them partly for her I know deep down that if I don't do these things for myself then I'll never have a normal relationship ever.
Thus I'm at a big, obvious crossroad. I want to be with her, not just out of comfort but because what we had pre-this situation was wonderful. Granted I wasn't the man she thought I was (as far as education and honesty goes), I know it's in me. Being honest isn't hard once all the lies are out. The education I'm fixing. That would lead me to believe that I can get back to my good, happy, caring self when all is said and done. Is it worth it to try and make she and I work while I've got all this other stuff on my plate or am I completely delusional like the other scumbags who have put women through these kinds of situations?
I'm done being a bad person. Good guys never finish last.