Note: Sorry for the long ramble below. None of these seem type poststo be able to be summed up in a few words. I hope you can take the time and give me some realistic input. Thanks!:
So my girlfriend of 2 years cheated on me. She is 35 and I am 33. This more or less came out of the blue after she lost her job. She had been working very hard to start this new career in engineering by going back to school as an adult to get a masters. To start this new career and was doing fine for awhile before the job ended. She hasn’t been able to find a new job in her new field and had to go back to her old degree (in OT). This devastated her. During a time where she was depressed and non-communicative, she ended up cheating on me.
This happened about a month ago. She told me right afterwards and I reacted like most human beings do, angrily and with hurt. I initially take the high road, tell her have a nice life and look the other way. But I couldn’t sustain that. She reached out, I gave in and we talked.
Last night, I have a few drinks in me and we were texting back & forth. She eventually invites me over. I oblige.
While I originally had no intentions of doing so, we ended up talking about everything. I asked her to tell me, openly about who and why she cheated on me. I did not let my emotions get involved. She said that it was someone she knew long before me. They would occasionally hook up, but never got in a relationship. When she and I started dating, they stopped talking altogether. Fast forward to when she was very depressed about her life, I wasn’t around much at the time (busy with work) and he had reached out to her. They started talking and one thing led to another after a night of drinks. She said it happened once, she felt terrible and told me after. She said she later told him that she told me and that everything was messed up. Afterwards, she said they haven’t spoken.
I asked, if she loved me, what played in her mind during the conscious decisions that led to her betraying me. Obviously, there was a level of pre-planning involved even if the cheating was impulsive. She told me that because her life was shattered, she felt worthless and a complete failure. She worked so hard to make something of herself and it didn’t work. She felt that since she sucked at her life, she might as well just suck at her relationship. She said, in her despair, she just wanted to destroy everything in her life. She felt that she was unworthy of our relationship and felt it was best to break it apart. I asked her if she had feelings for him and she said no. She said that it was always like that between them – random and infrequent.
So for whatever reason, I kind of understood. While the whole thing left me hurt, disappointed, humiliated, and everything in-between - I saw that her cheating wasn’t about me, it was about her. Her own craziness and depression. I was collateral damage.
And strangely afterwards, I ended up opening up to her. Completely. I told her everything about myself that I haven’t told before. Every time I lied (which wasn’t often) or every time I wasn’t happy. I told her my darkest desires, secrets, fears, etc. I told her things I haven’t told anyone else. It felt so wonderful to finally open up to her and show her who I was. I rambled on for several hours and she was very engaged. I think she just wanted everything on the table – open, unfiltered and exposed. It weirdly brought us emotionally together. It was a strange, wonderful experience. Complete exposure because there was nothing left to lose. No reason left to hide.
This highlights my failures of the relationship. While I was faithful, I was distant at times and growing increasingly so leading up to this. While my love never wavered, I tend to just withdraw at times. I took our relationship for granted.
Regardless, I ended up staying the night and we kind of had sex, which was interrupted by me getting a crazy panic attack, caused by the intimacy feeling awkward and unnatural to me. It was too soon. It was defiantly an indicator that I’m not over the hurt. Not enough to share my intimacy. Not yet. I also woke up frequently throughout the night with cold sweats. All sorts of fears, concerns, hope, anxiety, uncertainty, excitement, possibility, all floating through my head. I wondered what I was doing there; I was both happy and scared. Basically, still very confused.
Life has become such a hectic ride and the easy way out would be to just run away from it all – I know I would be fine in the long run. But, in a weird way, these events have forced us to become closer together, to open up to each other, completely. It helped me see what I did wrong. It helped her see what she did wrong (aside from the obvious). It opened doors and opened eyes. While things are still very, very messed up. We see that we still love each other. But I don’t know if that’s enough to repair the relationship, or start a new one.
So that’s my story. I guess my question is, is there hope for us or am I just denying the inevitable? Am I just in denial? Am I only setting myself up for more hurt or should I just take a leap of faith and see where this goes? Are there any others with similar experiences that actually ended in success?
