Is it Cheating? Break up with her?
I need to figure some shit out. As I'm teetering on breaking up with my LTR, it's tough to find honesty and clarity and am tired of family members and friends who just pat your head like a dog.
Craving the anonymous, brutal objectivity of the Internet.
The background: My LTR and I have been together for five years. Though we were never "perfect" as a couple we had a lot of similar goals, loved life, and huge physical chemistry.
I started out as a beta stuck in the corporate wageslave machine, and she was socially uncalibrated. After five years with her, I'm a stylish, confident guy with his own business. And she is every ambitious girl's dream: a professional in charge of her own schedule (working for my business) and a successful amateur model on the side, to the point of local celebrity. Short story: we have always been good at helping each other out.
Along the way, there have been many challenges. Things were pretty balanced. We had arguments once in a while, but they were usually over trivial things like what to do on a Saturday.
Last Fall, she began to struggle with her own definition of happiness amongst "real life", ie bills, cleaning, jobs, sickness, and stuff everyone deals with. By-the-book Quarter-life crisis. She slipped into depression and developed serious anxiety issues. I tried to make her feel better about this stage in her life journey (been there, done that), but our conversations became more and more strained by the week. Over the brutally cold winter, we struggled as roommates, workmates, and lovers.
On the flip side, her amateur modelling career took off, which gave her access to new friends. Being unpopular as a child, this newfound popularity was like a drug. Every Facebook post of her dolled-up face would garner more and more likes, especially from men. If you've ever experienced a rise to fame, validation of one's inner narcissism is like crack to a person who otherwise feels empty inside.
All of a sudden, our "real life" of bills, cleaning, jobs, and sickness couldn't hold a candle to the easy escape of swanky people who drank lots of alcohol and said only positive things to her.
This Spring, she snapped like a twig. Having not once spent a night away since moving in together, she disappeared for the entire night. I thought she was dead. Turns out she was with another man.
It's been a war ever since, trying to save our relationship. She jumped head-first into a by-the-book emotional affair - secret chats, the "out with friends" line, confiding in him, etc. This guy is a smooth cookie, has stronger game than me, and has more similar interests in music to her than I - getting her backstage passes to a live concert to her favorite band for one. He also is more touchy-feely than I am, telling her things like "you're the woman of my dreams." That said, every time I confront this guy about his actions, he pussies out and runs away.
As far as physical, she has admitted to making out but doesn't "feel comfortable" talking about anything more that she has done with him. She claims to not have had sex with him, but even if this is true, it is only because I threatened to never speak to her again if she did.
She has now moved out and wants two weeks for "space." We have also stopped being intimate in every way (not by my choice), which has been the hardest on me. Though I've been faithful the whole time, even during her emotional/physical affair, it's tough when sex is so easy to come by in today's society, and your partner becomes cold - to not just go indulge in the buffet of singles.
After many weeks of grieving, I'm ready to break up. I don't want to, because I love her, but I feel I need to out of self-respect. I can't trust her anymore.
She doesn't want to end it, though. Whenever I tell her "it's over - we need to break up", she bursts into tears and starts blaming me for all the hurt I have caused and now of abandoning her.
So given that long-winded story, I have a few things that need to be resolved in my mind.
a) She completely denies that she has cheated. Her female friends all tell her she has not cheated, apparently after sharing more details with them than me. So, Internet - has she cheated on me?
b) Is there any reason I should trust her ever again? Like to be a wife, or God forbid, mother of my children?
c) Should I break up with her?
d) I feel that, if I break up with her, that I probably won't find better. Mostly worse. And even if I do find a good match, I'll once again get brutalized by the five-year hypergamy itch. Is this a legit feeling or just shortsighted?
Please, be brutally ****ing honest.
