How to save relationship with fiance after he found out I tested him!!

[DianaPrince]

Ok so I did something very very stupid recently and I am afraid I might of cost myself the most wonderful person I have ever met. I am 30 years old and I have been with this guy(who is 31) for 3 years. I know this man is my soul mate..he is my heart and soul. I'd never been the type of girl to really believe in soul mates/true love until I met him. He's sweet and kind, we have so much in common(including a weird enjoyment of comic books hence my username). He's my best friend in the world and I know that no matter what happens this guy is it for me, nobody will ever take his place..he's my forever. About a month ago he made me the happiest woman ever by asking me to marry him, to which I of course said yes without any hesitation.

Now here is the part where I did something really really stupid. This guy is amazing, but unfortunately guys I have been with in the past(I have only been in 3 serious relationships) all turned out to be not great guys. They were cheaters and liars and although I never loved them in the way I love my fiance, the fact that I couldn't seem to an attract an honest guy really had a big effect on me, perhaps bigger then I would of admitted. I was so happy when he asked me to marry him, but I will admit that soon after I woke up with a horrible knot in my stomach. I love this man and I know he would never ever hurt me or cheat on me, but the problem is I also thought the same thing about the guys in past relationships and it turned out I was very very wrong. A part of me did begin to panic because even though I had gotten over those guys I could still remember how horrible it felt, and I knew that this guy..if he ever hurt me like that, I don't think I'd ever recover. I do not think I would ever be able to love again, to trust again. This broke my heart and scared me and I wanted to be sure this would not happen, even though my fiance had never given me any reason to doubt him.

So I did something stupid..as I said he had proposed a month ago and not long after I knew that for an upcoming weekend he would be going out for a "guys night out" with some very old friends. He does not do things like this often. Not that he does not hang out with friends often, but rather the whole going out and drinking, etc. thing. Knowing this in advance I started to get an idea that at first I brushed off, but then I kept thinking about. I know it was stupid..but I told my concerns a good friend of mine and told her how I was so in love but at the same time so scared of being hurt again and we basically came up with a way of testing my fiances loyalty to me. I know just typing that I sound awful..I realize this. Anyways, I knew the bar that my guy and his friends would be going to and so the plan was to have a girl I knew(but he did not) go there and..well..try to hit on him and sleep with him. I know this sounds very sleezy . I felt like I was acting like a stupid teenager, but at the same time I just was so afraid of being hurt again. My friend introduced me to one of her cousins who agreed to help out. The plan was basically simple, she would approach my fiance at the bar and begin a flirtation with him, etc. to see if he would agree to leave with her. Obviously she was not going to actually sleep with him if for whatever reason he agreed, so it was set up so that if he did agree to go screw this chick that she would suddenly get an "emergency text message" and have to leave immediately.

I can't believe I actually went through with this test, but I did..and thankfully my boyfriend passed with flying colors. I had made sure to tell this girl to not try to come on too strong in a way that might scare a guy off, but at the same time to obviously try to act like she was interested. But he still told her no, still told her that he was not a single man. I felt guilty, but I also felt very relieved about this. The problem came about a week or so later. I do not know why, I was very tired this night and I was just not thinking, but I had left my laptop open with my facebook signed in to take a shower, my fiance was playing a videogame during this, so I did not really think anything of it in terms of logging myself out, etc. Apparently though he decided he did want to check his email and went to use my laptop and I had left messages open, some of them from the friend who had introduced me to her cousin who did this test, and in them I had thanked her for helping me while also apologizing to her a bit for dragging her into this, etc. Basically, the messages were a discussion about what had happened and he read them. I feel so so stupid for this, I know this was stupid. I know this is something you would think teenage girls would do and not a grown woman, I know I should not of let past heartbreaks influence my relationships in the present.

The problem is though that he did find out and he was very devastated. He was really really hurt by the fact that I set something like this up..that I did not trust him. I burst into tears when I found out that he knew what I did..I still find myself crying a lot because I am scared I have pushed away the love of my life. He's very hurt by the fact I did this after accepting his proposal. He says he would of been hurt even if we were not engaged, but the fact that this is something I decided to do after saying I'd marry him makes it worse and I completely understand and I feel so stupid. I don't know what to do..he said maybe we should not be calling each other fiance anymore This broke my heart into a million pieces. He did not officially say the engagement was off, but he just did not seem sure. He was very hurt that I did this to him and I couldn't trust him. He was not mean to me about it, but he did seem hurt.

I guess my question is what do I do? Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? I did a very stupid thing and how can I make him understand how sorry I am and how much I regret what happened. I do not want to lose the love of my life, what can I say to make this better? How do I go about it? Do I give him some time to himself? Or would doing that make him think I did not care and just make things worse? I do not know what to do, it's only been a few days but I can't eat and I have barely slept much. I have been drinking way more coffee then normal lately just so I can keep myself alert at work. I know this has been a long post, but I just needed to vent this all out there somewhere. I feel like I can't believe that I did this, I feel like this is something you would see a horrible girl do to her boyfriend on a soap opera or something. I know I was very scared of being hurt again and wanted to be sure I was making the right choice, but I also know that was no excuse. I..I just do not know what to do. My heart hurts knowing I've hurt him.

[surfhb2]

Yep!! You ****ed up.....learn from this so you dont get in the same position on the next guy.

Also, who's your idiot friend who was on board with this kind of behavior?

[HeartIsAching]

Oh hell no.... you both ****ed up.

You didn't trust him, and set him up to test him...

But he didn't trust you - he got on your machine, saw that you weren't logged off, and checked your messages.

Lose/lose.

[Rowen]

Wow... Your ****up makes me feel a microscopic bit better about mine. :S I tested a man I am deeply in love with once...

The important thing to remember is that this behavior stems from deep rooted control issues. You can't control what others do to you or around you. If you could, you wouldn't be the one getting hurt by men all the time... People will hurt you left and right- tell you that you're not good enough or won't succeed. They'll tell you they love you and walk away... But the thing to remember is that you can't control it.

So, remember that next time when you're in a relationship. And maybe it'll discourage you from taking the risk of entering the relationship and maybe it won't. That's all up to your inner strength, but if you're going to find love, you need to summon that strength to trust. And when the man is everything you ever wanted in a lover and a best friend, let him in... Don't put up this barrier of not trusting him, and don't test him. Trust him and you'll see just how truly special of a man he really is because he deserves nothing less. Because otherwise you'll only be right where you are now, and I can guarantee you don't like how it feels.

Think, next time, how horribly it must have hurt him and how it let him down when all you ever wanted was to make him happy and just be with him...but that you went about everything the wrong way.
So sorry, I hope this helps you a little..

[DianaPrince]

Oh hell no.... you both ****ed up.

You didn't trust him, and set him up to test him...

But he didn't trust you - he got on your machine, saw that you weren't logged off, and checked your messages.

Lose/lose.

I just want to say that he was not specifically trying to snoop on me. This was not a situation where he got on and noticed I would still signed in, then starting clicking on whatever he wanted, etc. in order to read. I had the actual messages themselves open on screen(so you would of not had to actually click on anything in order to see them). He says he only really started reading the messages in plain view because he saw his name being used(since I was thanking my friend about helping me). The fact that he saw his name being used caught his attention. So I do not really blame him in that aspect. If the situation was that he would of actually had to scroll up/down the page to look for these messages..or if he would of felt he needed to check my inbox, etc. to see these things then yes I would be upset at the invasion of privacy, but that isn't how it went down.

I realize I did a very stupid thing and I have seen people telling me not to act this way with the next guy. The problem is there is no next guy or me..this guy is it. He is my soul mate. I know I seem like a bad person because of what I did, but he really is the love of my life and I know I let stupid insecurities get the best of me. I realize some people will feel he should leave me, but I still want to know if anyone has any advice on how I can make this better. I am really just looking for anyway..anything, any possibility. I have tears rolling down my cheeks again as I type this because I can't imagine not being with him. I miss him, I can't sleep..I miss him holding me at night and telling me he loved me. I just don't know what to do, please..please does anyone have any ideas? I do not care how crazy. I don't even know where to begin trying to make this right.

Would some big romantic gesture work? Would me staging some type of huge apology work? I would do anything. Please, I really am asking any other women out there..was there every a time you did something VERY VERY bad and you had to go above and beyond to make it right? What did you do? How did you show him he was the one for you? Part of me feels silly for asking because it sounds like the type of things you might see in a bad romantic comedy, but I'm really desperate here. This guy is it for me, any other guy I end up with will just be me settling for second best, I know this in my heart and soul.

[DianaPrince]

Wow... Your ****up makes me feel a microscopic bit better about mine. :S I tested a man I am deeply in love with once..

I understand all of what you are saying I do not mean to pry into your business but II am wondering what happened with the man you tested? Did he forgive you? Or did he leave you over it?

[Rowen]

I understand all of what you are saying I do not mean to pry into your business but II am wondering what happened with the man you tested? Did he forgive you? Or did he leave you over it?

Well, I wasn't trying to derail your thread by mentioning it, but it didn't work out too well.. It was all very petty looking back and in no way was it my finest hour. He had this stupid online dating app he stopped using months before he met me, but the thing kept trying to promote profiles to increase conversations between single people (Not a bad idea in theory, but here is where it goes haywire.). Anyway, a friend of mine who also used that app sent me a screenshot of his old profile saying he was online. I confronted him about it, and as I'm already insecure, it was a very worrisome confrontation where I basically asked him if he was happy. He kept telling me he was and had no reason to look for anyone else, and he said for that reason he would have no problem deleting the app. We went through a little bit of a rough patch the next few days because the whole ordeal scared both of us. Not to mention, he was extremely busy with work and family, so he kind of forgot about deleting the app. This led me to have crazy suspicions, and in my darkest hour, I created a fake profile and sent him a few messages. :S

We worked out our rough patch, and everything seemed to be great, except for the fact I didn't get to delete my fake profile soon enough before he figured out it was me and started dropping hints. I was feeling guilty about it to begin with, and that intensified it, so I came clean about everything. He was truly hurt about it and very upset (obviously), and we didn't talk for an entire weekend. From then on, he was colder and distant until we finally agreed to work things out. He forgave me. But by then, the damage was already done to our relationship. It pushed him away and activated his walls and stubbornness. And he left me January 7, 2014 at 6:25 PM..telling me he realized over the past few weeks that we got out of that second rough patch he felt like he wasn't in love with me anymore...like we were just friends. And though he says that he doesn't hold my insecurities or anything against me, I know that, just like Ockham's Razor, the simplest explanation will tend to be the right one in this situation- that I started a chain reaction which ultimately put up his walls and drove him away. And to be honest, OP, I'm not sure he'll ever come back. The signs were all there all along; I just paid more attention to the good than the bad after we made it out of that really rough spot...and now I'm at the point where that door is ajar for him to come home should he ever choose to but I'll just do my best to live, regardless of what he does.

I hope for your sake your guy sticks around. It'd be nice to read a happy ending on here, for once.