Recently me and my boyfriend of 3 years were having problems. Looking back now, I think we had gotten too comfortable with the relationship and weren't trying as hard. I don't blame him for all the problems because I know I needed to change, too. Part of the reason I was having trouble changing was because I've been having SO many life issues lately: my family is falling apart, my brother joined the worst gang ever and had to go live with my dad, I lost my job and can't find another because of the season, I have PTSD from almost being raped and I've never gotten treated, I have health issues I can't get fixed right now cuz I have no job,....

It just goes on and on. My friends are all away at colleges outside of the city right now, so he was the one I was counting on to hold me together through all of this. And I think that was wrong, now that I look back. I just think I've been scared to get treated by a therapist, but it's something I need to get better and to move on with my life. I need to help myself.

Basically, what started happening was that I noticed a distance between me and my boyfriend. We would still hang out and have tons of fun, but I could tell he was keeping something from me. Last week I saw him hide a text message from a girl from me and, even though I really didn't think anything of it, I just couldn't get it out of my head. I spent the night at his house Thanksgiving day and, when he was sleeping, I checked his phone. I'm not the snooping girlfriend. I don't do these things, but I mean...wouldn't you have?

I hadn't expected to find anything. So when I read that they had been going on dates and were flirting all over the place....well, I completely started panicking. I re-read the messages and wrote down her info (phone and address). I left the room and was literally shaking for an hour before I could stop...somewhat compose myself and go back into the room to confront him. He had work that morning and I knew I wouldn't be able to wait or even pretend to be okay that morning so we could talk later. It was around 2 am.

Well, when he found out I knew,....he freaked out. Not verbally, but I could tell. I asked him to tell me the truth and he did. He said that he had been falling out of love with me for some time, but hadn't told me anything because he still cared for me a lot and didn't want to hurt me when everything was so wrong in my life. He said that if he had told me that and we broke up...I wouldn't have accepted any help with money or anything from him. He said that he hadn't slept with the girl or anything....but they had kissed. Also that the way he handled what happened was pretty much the worst mistake of his life. He told me that he saw where things were going with us and I guess since he felt helpless to fix anything, he wanted a backup plan. He said he didn't want me to find out this way, especially since he knows that the holidays are usually really horrible for me. :-/

I can't figure out how I feel. I partly understand what he did (NOT the cheating and I have NOT forgiven that) and feel like I never fully got a chance to fix our problems with him. I think the step that would have followed after he had told me he was falling out of love...would be to just start over and see if we can revert to the people we were when we fell in love. Because our relationship changed into something we were both unhappy with, but did nothing about. I had my reasons (^) but I guess he felt stronger about this than I did at the time. What is conflicting for me, however, is the fact that he did see another woman. I don't know how to make heads or tails of that. I know that my now ex is not a bad person even though some people will say that he is because of what he did. I'm just trying to be understanding about it. I don't know if I can forgive him for what he did. I just know that in order to forgive him, we would have to do some MAJOR trust-building.

We talked two days ago and he said that he thought he still loved me but he wasn't sure if he still had feelings for me or if he was just missing me because the relationship was over. We were unsure of whether or not we wanted to restart our relationship because we have a lot of problems (especially trust) to go through now. We decided...we were going to go on a break and see where things went. I think the best we could call ourselves during that is friends with no "benefits" and no dating other people. We decided to still see each other, but not as much and try to work on our trust.


BUT. I'm not sure this is enough for me. It's not that I want to get back together with him. What I want is to have a bigger commitment to fix our issues and our trust problem. Because I don't think that I could be his friend without actively working on these things. I can't pretend that everything is okay like that. Problem is, he doesn't know how he feels about me yet so until he knows, we can't really do anything. I feel like I've given him the power to decide whether or not this goes forward because I think I want to fix things yet he's not sure how he feels. And that's very strange for me because he shouldn't have that power after what he did.


So I'm very conflicted.

1. He fell out of love--> if it were just this issue, I would want to start over...start dating again and see if we can be the people that we fell in love with. I would want to actively work on our issues, because I truly believe that (if it were just this) we could work things out and come out stronger in the end.

2. The girl--> can I forgive this? if I can, it's going to be HARD and it's going to take TIME.

3. None of this matters unless he decides that he still does love me...something I feel should follow #1's solution, but then I start thinking about the 2nd point.


Tell me what you think. Just...try not to be too harsh if you think I'm an idiot. I don't know if I'm making the right choices, but...I'm the one who was in the relationship with him and I have to figure out what is best for myself. :-/ I think mostly I want advice on what might possibly be going on in his head. I don't know. I'm going to shut up now. :)



EDIT:

Also, this Friday is my birthday. Seriously, I don't know why but bad things seem to happen to me around the Nov-Dec Holidays!!

First off, I would like to say that I do not think of you as an idiot by any means. If anything, I think you are very brave and caring, given that you're at least debating forgiving him after having him cheat on you. I would also like to say that, as a whole, I think that you should not feel bad for giving him the power he has now. I think that was a very noble thing to do, given that you know he cheated on you and, again, are at least semi-willing to still be with him.

I think that, as you said, the future of your relationship hinges heavily on his decision. Once he decides that(assuming he decides he wants to be with you), then you yourself have a choice to make. You have to decide if you can trust him enough to still stay with him, because trust is the foundation of love. Based on the things you've said about him, I would think that he really would honestly never cheat on you again, but they also say "Once a cheater, always a cheater." I can't say for sure, because I don't know him from Adam.

I do want to insert a quote here at this time. It's one of my favorite quotes:

Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality.

That quote is from a game that I like, "Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World." I think that, if you really want to be with him, and you have the courage to trust him, then your dream relationship will resurface.

I really don't know what else to say. I wish you the best of luck. Feel free to add me if you want. I'm always happy to help in any way I can, even if it's only lending an ear. :) You can message me anytime.

Let me know how it went!

Thank you so much for posting. Sorry, I hadn't logged onto Menewsha for a while. I've been thinking a lot along the lines of what you said. I don't think he would cheat again, but at the same time I'm not ready to forgive him yet. I think that both of us have a lot of work to do individually before we can get back together again and it's unsettling for me, because I've become so used to depending on him (which I now see as a flaw in our relationship). Right now...we've decided to be "complicated" which basically means that we're not seeing anyone else and still trying to be friendly, but I guess trying to figure out if we should get back together again. I'm so lost at this point because of everything going on in my life, so I'm having trouble feeling what I'm feeling about this. Because...I'm trying hard not to hate him for what he did and I don't think that I could, but I'm not sure if I can trust him. All I know is that I want to try to do that at least: to trust. And I hope it works out. Thank you for posting.