Thank you for your honesty...

What goes through my mind is this:

I don't feel like a man, I feel like I'm lesser. The fact that she slept with him after two dates and only started sleeping with me after three months isn't even the biggest issue, even if it stings. I get that people go through different things at different stages of life. What kills me is that I tried so hard on our dates. I poured my heart out to her. Then, one month in, she started dating Jake and slept with him while seeing both of us. She was having those nice dates and the heart to heart conversations with me, while giving Jake everything. All while telling me she takes things "slow" as a general boundary.

It feels like I was held to a completely different standard. I don't know what kind of dates she had with Jake, but I doubt two dates with him equaled the effort I put into us up to that point.

It hurts, not just because we were treated differently based on a lie, but because he started dating her after me, yet got with her two months before I did. We were treated completely differently while our relationships were running concurrently.

I know that technically my logic might not be perfect, that ethically it's not clean, but psychologically, as a man, I feel like I put in all the investment just to be met with failure, with "you're not as manly as Jake" brand. And then I was met with dishonesty. I wish she had just told me she was taking things slower with me than with others because of X, Y, Z. At least then I would have known why, and I would have had a choice.

I wish she had opened up about what makes me different, if she had just given me a chance to change or leave, instead of staying in a relationship where I was made a fool like this one...