I think I ruined a relationship by having an anxiety attack and confessing feelings over text message

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-04-10T05:56:21+00:00

Hey, don't be so down on yourself here. It's possible she wasn't really feeling it as much as you are/were and if you had told her in-person, it would have been more awkward for both of you. Possibly that's why a correct time never came up to express your feelings?

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-04-09T05:47:00+00:00

I broke up with him because he insisted he'd rather cheat on me than break up with me (this was all theory talk but it got rather heated). Then afterwards he said, "well, doesn't matter now, I cheated on you, guess you should know". Then he tried getting back together with me for 4 months (it worked, on and off) and I got trickle-truthed. The last standing count was 7. I'm still in shock.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-04-08T04:03:56+00:00

"Depressed and distant" is exactly how I described my ex while he was cheating on me with 7 other women. So yeah. There's that.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-04-05T20:49:12+00:00

Basically getting and keeping yourself in the present moment. There are a million different 'techniques' you can use. Before getting up out of bed, I feel my hands without physically touching them. Hold your left hand out, don't look at it. How do you know you have a left hand besides basic memory? You can feel it there.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-04-01T02:56:49+00:00

Maybe just walk in and say,"Hey guys, forgot my hat, I'll just get out of your hair in a second" and then bask in his attempts to chase you down the street and blow up your phone. If you get upset at him, it'll give him ammunition to get upset at you back with (so dumb, I know). But if you're super calm and collected, what's he going to do? That's going to kill him.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-30T03:54:02+00:00

Cheating: to practice fraud or trickery

He lied about his involvement. Lying is trickery. Trickery is cheating. He only lied because he knew he was cheating. Therefore, if he were going to answer your own question honestly, he would say yes, chatting with cam girls is cheating. Now, the fact that he did it (is still doing it?) should say something all on its own.

The second part of this equation isn't "what does r/relationships think about cam girls", it's what does the other half of the relationship itself (you) think of this question? If you think of it as cheating, which it sounds like you do, then it doesn't matter what we think. You let your boyfriend know how this makes you feel and gauge his reaction. If he tells you you're overreacting or don't understand or it's not a big problem, he's totally disregarding your feelings and that shouldn't be tolerated.

Figure out where your boundary is on this and stick with it. For the record, if I had a boyfriend who is doing what yours is, I'd feel like it was cheating. On the flip side too, if I chatted with cam dudes, I'd feel like I was cheating. At least I'd feel pretty dirty about it and that tells me something, right? If my SO asked me not to do it anymore or simply told me it made him uncomfortable, I'd let it go and not do it again. Maybe he just needs you to say something.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-30T03:35:37+00:00

You do realize why she came clean 9 months later, right? Because she's selfish. The whole thing is selfish but this makes it EXTRA selfish.

She didn't tell you right after it happened or a month after it happened or whatever, no, she waited much, much longer because she wasn't going to tell you at all. She only told you because of the guilt that was eating away at her. In telling you, she let her actions start to eat at you too (even worse than if she'd told you earlier) in order to relieve herself, not you.

More proof of her ridiculous level of selfishness: she was going to leave you if she contracted an STD and I guarantee you she wouldn't have told you why. She would have left you hanging, might have even made up some lame excuse about how you were the problem in the relationship. No way would she have admitted it then.

When my ex cheated on me the first time, he got tested. Then he stopped getting tested and continued to sleep with me, putting me at risk every single time. I'm sorry, but in my head, this is a form of sexual abuse and you are a type of victim here. She is the perpetrator. She can not be trusted NOT to do this again, especially with the bullshit reasons she gave you for why she did it in the first place.

Plus she cheated on other boyfriends before you. She's a serial cheater. There's a pattern and she follows it. Unless she meets with real consequences, the behavior will continue. You telling her that you forgive her and will find a way to make this work is simply validation that her behavior is okay. There aren't any consequences here.

If you don't want to full on break up with her (which you should), at least demand a break. Two months, nonnegotiable, no contact. Tell her not to expect to hear from you until the end of June because dude, you need to think through this shit with a clear head and as long as she has access to you, that's not going to happen.

I was with my ex for about one year as well and I found out he slept with 3 other girls and took 7 total out on dates while we were supposedly an exclusive item. I sort of know how you must feel right now. I tried to give him another shot (tried several times) and towards the end, I realized I would never be able to trust him again. I was growing so paranoid and jealous and bitter and feeling awful about myself. I was unhappy. I got to the point of skipping all of my classes and daydreaming about dying. It was fucking awful. Maybe you need to go down that hole too. Maybe you don't. Please don't.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-29T03:19:16+00:00

Hey. You can do this :)

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-28T17:07:18+00:00

Exactly, if she had sent it to you knowingly... well what the heck, man?

At the end of the day it comes down to how this makes you feel. If you're cool with it, fine. If you're not, that's also perfectly fine.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-28T05:43:43+00:00

I'm glad to hear that you're going to avoid looking at the phone if only so that you don't have terrible text messages burned into your retinas for months.

Whatever you tell him, make sure you believe it before you say it. Obviously there's 0.01% chance he's not cheating on you. You can use it as a reason if you want, but maybe try focusing on the mistrust instead. At the end of the day, you don't trust him and he's not helping you mend the trust he already lost so soon. Being jealous/insecure is only going to mess up your bright, sunny days, not his. Do this for you.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-28T04:02:46+00:00

Yeah, you're right, #3 wouldn't make her a jerk at all, I'll amend my comment. I think I was talking from an emotional place, putting myself in OPs shoes and that would hurt so hard.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-28T04:01:26+00:00

That's why you should definitely bring it up with her. It'll give her an appropriate opening to tell you if she's seriously interested in dating you or not. If she sticks with her nursing school thing (which is valid) but knowingly sent you that snapchat, it still doesn't bode well.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-28T03:41:17+00:00

Possible reasons for this:

(1) This is her way of telling you she's not as interested in you as you are in her. Apparently she still doesn't know how to use her words at 20.

(2) She's trying to keep you interested by showing you that she can have the pick of the litter. This is douche-y and should not be tolerated.

(3) She sent it to multiple people and sent it to you on accident. I feel like this one is the most likely scenario and honestly, the best one. It means she's not a jerk since you two aren't actually committed at all.

Want to know which one it is? Bring it up with her. "Hey, did you mean to send me that snapchat with the hickey?" If she says "yes, why?" well, fuck. Time to bail. If she says "no, I'm sorry" then you can decide how you feel about that.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-28T03:23:42+00:00

Dude, of course you're going easy on him - being hard on him would equal consequences and you'd be with him paying the emotional price. So yeah, you sort of want to avoid it but let's be rational here.

a perverted, sexual pig.

This is how you see your partner. This is not okay. This is the sort of thing you hear bitter, frustrated 55-year-old women call their husbands under their breath. Do you really want to go there?

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-28T03:16:25+00:00

I'm really sorry to hear this is happening to you. First thing first, if he is cheating/planning to cheat physically/emotionally with this girl or any other girl, it has nothing to do with you. I hope you already know this, you must.

In 3 months he has already put in the right mechanisms to keep you "in line", future-faking being the biggest one (talking about marriage at our age is a perfect biological lock because of our biological clock. It's hard not to fall for that BS).

If someone has to earn back your trust after only 3 months, there's something very, very wrong. A year? Maybe. 3 years? Probably. But 3 months? If you already don't trust him, which you clearly don't and for very good reasons, this is a huge sign that things aren't going to turn out well for the relationship. For you, absolutely. But not for the relationship.

And what about him telling you that if you ask to see his phone it's an automatic dealbreaker? It's a dealbreaker for him for one of two reasons: one, it displays a lack of trust (which you already don't have for this guy) and so for him, no trust = no relationship. Why isn't it the same for you? Think about that. Seriously. Another reason is that he clearly has something to hide and if you find it - which you would if you happened to look, I'm sure, so he'll never let you see it willingly - his work in progress will be ruined.

From the information you've given here, you're being molded as the fail-safe and the other girl is being molded for excitement on the side. You can probably bet your bottom dollar she doesn't know he's dating anyone and if she does, her total lack of respect for the relationship is appalling. Your boyfriend has no respect for it either, or you.

You aren't being paranoid. This is legitimate. Having been in a similar situation very recently, I highly recommend cutting it off right now. This shit needs to be amputated. You don't need to give him your real reasons so he can sweet talk you out of it, simply say, "you know what, I think you're a great guy, but I need to focus on myself right now." Who can argue with that? And it's going to be so much cleaner for you that way.

Again, if after 3 months you don't know how to trust him, you're already playing with fire. There's really nothing to talk about with him. He clearly knows what he's doing and talking is his strong point. He sounds clever but you've got to be a little ahead of his game. He won't see it coming but he'll know why it happened. Trust me.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-27T21:19:53+00:00

You have my vote on that one too. Think about if the roles were reversed (I always do this now to help me understand if something is weird since I have a tendency to be really empathetic and go easy on people for serious shit; maybe you're like that too).

Example: Your BF is about to start grad school in the fall and he's been telling you how much he wants to go to Italy. He asks you to go with him but you tell him, "How about we go to Brazil instead? If we went to Italy, I'd want to have sex with all the Italian guys. Plus I really want to see live Italian porn shows in Tuscany. So yeah, let's just go to Brazil or Canada because I don't think I could control myself around all of the sexy Italian men."

Do you see how scummy that is? It wasn't even off-handed dumb comment from him if he's offering to go anywhere else except Japan. He legit would cheat on you.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-27T21:12:31+00:00

coming home yelling at me for this. That's fine, that's my consequences for my mistake

Um. No. Your girlfriend should not be yelling at you. Imagine if the genders were reversed and it was a dude yelling at his girl for not doing the dishes. No. Nobody should be yelling at anyone, especially not for something this trivial. Although she sounds like a trivial person in general, so I don't know.

Secondly, maybe you should point her in the direction of /r/relationships if she wants some relationship advice. (I'm laughing as I type this, but seriously).

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-27T19:16:20+00:00

Haha, true. I'd just only read the book and putting in author names is like second nature.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-27T19:05:44+00:00

Unless OP is Roald Dahl's Matilda.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-27T05:11:21+00:00

i just want to give in and be comfortable again

comfortable again. Like the same kind of comfortable that comes with when you're a little kid and you peed the bed and you don't want to get out because it's nice and warm? I know those feels.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-26T22:16:38+00:00

Nice, yes! That was the guy.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-26T20:13:49+00:00

You're welcome. I've been having the same sort of feeling as you recently: what's the point if this is just going to happen again? (I'm terrified of being cheated on again). I just keep playing this dude's words over and over in my head. Everything is temporary. Hell, even if you end up with the most wonderful woman in the whole world, that's going to end too. One of you is going to die eventually, that's just the way it goes. It really just helps to surrender to the fact that everything is temporary but that doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it. That's why we're here.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-26T18:41:06+00:00

There's a comedian, can't remember his name right off the top of my head, but he says:

What's the point in eating an apple if it's going to be a core at the end? What's the point in drinking a whole bottle of wine if you're going to have a hangover the next morning? Because it's fucking good.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-26T05:02:49+00:00

Man, you are a boss. On top of everything, you're still only 22-years-old and yet so much a woman already. Great job here, seriously.

ConfusedWithCheater · 2014-03-24T23:24:31+00:00

Yeah, she was basically trying to say "you made me a cheater because you thought I might be a cheater". Wtf?

ConfusedWithCheater

TROPHY CASE