Hi everyone. Sorry in advance for the length of this one. I'm wanting to hear from anyone that has dealt with a partner cheating early in the relationship and managed to move passed it.
I've been seeing someone for almost 6 months. It's long distance (3 hour drive) so it's a bit hard, but I thought we were both fairly committed. We see each other often and message throughout the day. He's under a lot of pressure at work. I've had some issues lately I've been struggling with and I have been a little bit emotionally distant from him. We've had some small disagreements. I'm a communicator, he's not. He struggles to talk about feelings and stuff.
Yesterday he spoke to another woman and went so far as to send her dirty pictures of himself. He messaged me last night, upset, saying he messed up. He talked to another woman in a way he shouldn't. He was so worked up over it, he said he felt so sick about it that he had to tell me. He was too sick to talk so we spoke through text. I asked a lot of questions that he seemed to answer, I believe, with honesty. She's someone he used to talk to years ago but they've never actually met. He said he doesn't want to be with her, he wants to be with me but he doesn't deserve me and I'm too good for him, he hurt himself by doing what he did. He messaged her first. He says there's no others. He said he wasn't himself, a lot was getting him down. He apologised profusely. The pictures he sent her were ones he already had saved, ones he had taken for me, he was hard for me when he took them. He said he's been feeling like I've forgotten him lately, and he thinks that's why he did it. I admit I haven't had a lot of time for our relationship lately and I've been distant. He's stressed that he loves me and only me.
I'm struggling. I'm so hurt. This man has been good to me. I feel so sick at the thought of him speaking to someone else like that, the thought of another woman seeing his body. But I'm trying to be reasonable and see his side too. We still need to sit down and have a proper face-to-face talk. He's still coming to see me this weekend, as previously arranged.
My main thoughts at the moment are:
1. It's fairly early in the relationship.
2. He had the decency to tell me. And he's obviously suffered a lot of guilt and remorse over it.
3. He didn't actually sleep with anyone. And I feel that his actions weren't emotionally-driven. It seems to me like he did it more for attention.
4. Maybe this is just a minor slip and it has the potential to strengthen the relationship.
5. When will this stop hurting?
Is it possible to keep going with the relationship and move on from this? If so, how? Has anyone been here? What did you do? Thanks in advance.
23 Replies
Run. The. Fuck. As. Fast. As. You. Can
It is soooo early into this relationship and he's already doing this? No freaking way. Staying with him and saying it's okay just gives him the green light to be a repeat offender. My guess - he is a leopard. He's done this before and won't ever change his spots!
1. Yes, too early in the relationship for any drama.
2. The other woman could have told him she was going to tell you, so he did it first.
3. No he didn't sleep with her BUT what happens in 3 years when you have a real rocky patch? If this minor behaviour from you pushed him to do this at this stage?
4.It could strengthen it or it could be a sign of things to come.
5. It won't stop hurting, he betrayed you and that kinda sticks.
No no no no no.
Do not push past issues early on, youre setting yourself up for misery. You already want to lower your boundaries and stay, time invested only makes it harder to get rid of them and affects your life more. Do not choose this path!
So his coping mechanism when the chips are down is to run to another woman to stroke his ego, and then he uses that to get more attention from you?
Gigantic Red Flag.
You now know that rather than attempting to reconnect with the woman he claims he wants to be with, he uses his energy to connect with women he says he doesn’t want to be with.
This guy is not ready for a relationship.
I’d dump his ass
Itll never be better than the start. IF you stay, then down the track this is what youll look back to for your measure of normal. Youll alqays be compromising, and always be trying ro downplay what hes done to make yourself feel justified to stay and like you made a good choice investing in and trying to make it work. Its a really bad way to start. Anyone who has been there, done that, will tell you ; CHOOSE wisely at the beginning. Dont ignore red flags, and dont be scared to let the wrong ones go, it will save you a lot of wasted time and heartache.
What would you advise your best mate to do? Cause I know if you were my friend and you told me this story I would tell you get.the.fuck.out!
How much is your self esteem worth to you? Are you going to allow this man to take it from you, cause that is what will happen if you stay. This is the very beginning, the honeymoon period, and he is already behaving like this.
A minor slip? Wow, what do you class as a major slip? How on earth can cheating (in any capacity) strengthen a relationship? That is a genuine question cause I can’t fathom how it would (have precious experience with an ex hubby 2 affairs - 2 because I forgave him for the first one).
'Hes stressed that he loves me and only me' this is the way he loves someone. Its the best youre going to get from him.
The lines are all textbook. You were distant, he felt unloved, the pics were for you, he was thinking about you,
Dont buy into any of it. He sounds sincere, you think he means it but he will do it again too. Hes told you clearly he can rationalise it, and he can do it.
He has not been honest. Hes been a chicken shit texting you and he will leave and again blame you for making him bother to go there if youre angry at him, because he doesnt want the bother of the confrontation. He wants you to be upset but in the forgiving stage, its much easier to grovel and make promises, its what theyre good at.
Do not take on any of the blame for this. And stop saying hes been good to you. He has not, hes been awful and done something good men will never do in years.
Oh the old 'i don't deserve you, you deserve better than me, its me not you' type of line.
He's looking for a way out by pretending to 'release' you.
Run..
Life is to short for second chances - esp in the honeymoon period
Nah, it's true relationships are meant to be hard work sometimes. Not shared hard cock photos between women (and it's one you know of).
You don't need this kind of drama in your life. He'll find someone else to share his dick pics with. Find yourself a guy that reserves himself for you.
My ex did this many times and had lots of different excuses and I let it slide. I recently caught him cheating. I would be very cautious if i was you. Good luck
Take a moment to scroll through this page and see how many women write in about unfaithful husbands/partners and how it's torn their life apart.
There's at least one a week and they often begin with stories just like yours.
You're 6 months in with no kids involved.
It'll never be easier to walk away and move on than it is right now.
OP here for an update. Thank you all for your comments. I really appreciate it and I know you're all going to think I'm an idiot. The bloke made the 6 hour round trip on the weekend and spent two full days being absolutely grilled by me. I threw every question imaginable at him, swore, yelled and tore shreds off him. He was patient through the whole thing, answered everything I asked immediately, never looking away from me or taking time to think about his answers. He made a genuine effort, sticking with me on my wild rollercoaster of emotions. He could easily have left and just not bothered. He could have stayed home and not worried about coming and trying to fix what we had at all.
He sent her one saved photo and their conversation lasted about an hour before the guilt hit him and he told me. She did send a message saying "so are you going to tell her or will I?" but by that point he had already told me. He told her to go ahead and do it. I never heard from her. I went over and over this part, returning to it again and again trying to catch him out in a lie. We both communicated openly and (I believe) honestly about a lot of stuff. Everything was laid bare. We've both bought some insecurities from previous relationships with toxic people into this one. I'm fiercely independent and it can come across that I don't want the person I'm with, I was already aware of this. He asked me multiple times if I'd be better off without him because as much as he wanted to save the relationship, he'd rather walk away than hurt me any further.
I have decided to give him a second (and final) chance. I've made it very clear this is it. We're both working to rebuild my trust in him. We both understand how wrong what he did was and neither of us are saying it's okay. He was the first one to say that it wasn't okay. We're working through it together.
I know how this all sounds - I can picture you all rolling your eyes at me. It's so hard to put the whole story into a few short paragraphs. There were some things I had to omit for privacy reasons. I am continuing this relationship with my eyes open. I know my worth and I will walk away from anything that I feel is no longer for me, as I have done many many times before.
My reason for posting got lost in amongst all the word vomit. What I really wanted was to hear from anyone (if there is anyone), that has stayed with someone post-infidelity and managed to make it work. Maybe there's someone out there that royally stuffed up in their own relationship by having a brief dirty convo with someone else and managed to somehow work through the issue and come out the other side?
You want someone in the exact same situation, with the exact same betrayal to tell you, everything worked out great.
You are so desperate to stay in this relationship that a random strangers words would give you the validation and justification you need.
Your relationship is hinging on A random. Stranger’s. Words.
Consider that.
You will discount all the responses on here, for just one, that’s tells you what you want to hear.
He told you want you want to hear, your gut is telling you otherwise, but you want to ignore it.
If you keep silencing that little voice, you will stop hearing it.
This is so true.. I knew he would have been bribed into telling her. What if this girl didn’t mentioned that when he sent the photos, would this OP have found out. I think he was so worried she was going to contact her on fb that he let the OP know striaght away acting like he was honest. when really he was bribed into it with you tell her or I will.
My partner cheated on me in the first year of our relationship we have now been together 13years 3 kids together and I know for fact he hasn't done it again. It is so so hard at the start as ur trust is gone in them but over time if they are truly committed to u things will settle down . I really hope for u he doesn't do it again as it's such a low horrible thing to happen x good luck x
How will you know nothing ever happened? She may have threatened to tell you. There is no excuse for this and you being down or anything isn’t an excuse, how about he ask you what’s wrong and offer some support. For me I would run a mile. It’s early in the relationship and he did this already.? Ask him to show you all the messages. I just hope she hasn’t bribed him into telling you. She has photos and convos.! He may have felt forced into it telling you. If he wasn’t and he is being honest then good for him for being up front and honest but I feel there is more too it. I would be gone!! You won’t trust him until he can show you all the photos and the proof. I’ve seen it all before. maybe this girl threatened to contact you and let you know. Don’t trust everything he’s told you. Do what’s right for you and you have no fault in this what so ever! Do not accept any of the guilt. He is with you and should have spoken to you if he felt you were being distant or somethign was up, not contact another girl and send nudes 🤮 I’ve got a feeling he’s been threatened or worried someone will tell you. How do you know he hasn’t been with her??
Six months in, he’s still on his best behaviour. Think about that. It shouldn’t be this hard, especially so early. When people show you who they are, believe them. Don’t walk, RUN.
My husband done similar about 2 years ago now. No photos involved but things said were extremely inappropriate for a married man to say, thinks like how he wished his life was different and how if he knew how she felt all those years ago things could be. How I’m such a horrible wife and he has it so hard and has to go to work and then come home and do everything while I just yell and get grumpy. Which was 100% not true. I was suffering from really bad postnatal depression and had major anxiety from nearly dying after having our third baby. I found out about these snap chats from a mutual friend of mine and the other girl.
It was so bloody hard, I’ve never been so broken in my life. I cried for days, drank to many bottles of wine and spoke to this girls partner for hours because he was going through the same thing as me, I’ve known him for over 10 years.
We went to marriage counseling, we spoke endlessly and openly about it all.
Absolutely no excuse for what he did and what he put me through. We have 3 kids and have been together for over 10 years so it’s hard to walk away from that without trying.
2 years later, we communicate so much better, our marriage is stronger than ever and 99% of the time I do honestly trust him. That 1% that I don’t is when my anxiety has hit and I cave into a hole and think the worst of everything even though I’ve been given no reason to feel that way.
6 months and no kids and this happened then there would be absolutely no way I could still be with him. For it to happen that early when your in the honeymoon period and when you guys should be so loved up and havnt gone through tough times like you will in the relationship.. what’s going to happen when things get harder than they are now? Because they absolutely will at some point.. do you really want to feel like your whole world has been torn apart and you are left feeling so broken that you can’t even stand to look or touch him?
We took time living separate then he came home and slept in the lounge and it wasn’t for about 12 months that I could actually have him even cuddle me because I despised him so much.
I do believe you can overcome this and come out stronger but it’s needed 100% on both side and so much work and communication needs to happen.
There is SO many damn negative responses to this. So I will tell you parts of my story.
I fell pregnant after we had only been together 8 weeks. He thought he couldn't have kids (doctor tested!) Anyway, it happened. I'm an awful pregnant person and he got really really badly screwed over in his previous relationship so he was probably wondering WTF he got into with me 🤣🤣 anyway, we were at our worst when I was 6 months pregnant and he cheated. I didn't find out until a few days before I gave birth and he denied it flat out. He certainly was not honest about anything until busted and he still clammed up and refused to talk about details. He is not a talker and I am an over talker. Bad communication at it's finest. Anyway, we just worked through one day at a time. We are now 6.5 years on and we have an amazing relationship. It's had a few bumps obviously but everything I think about it, or I'm worried about something I just talk to him. (I've dragged him out of his shell quite alot over the years) I even went as far as to have a second child with him.
Now, I think your man has a conscience. He done the wrong thing yes but he done the right thing and confessed to you.
Definitely talk through everything thoroughly, leave no stone unturned and if you need to, take time out to process it all. Accept all your emotions, sad, angry, scared, if you feel not good enough, too good for him, absolutely every single feeling, allow yourself to feel and be concious.
Best of luck to you ❤
My partner cheated on me after we had been dating for 1 month I forgave him due to the circumstances we were both in (not in good places) that was 7 years ago we are now married with 3 kids
My partner had atlesst a one month fling going with someone 5 months into our relationship which I only found about 7 months after the fact. I was 11 weeks pregnant and she was the one to tell me.
We are still together now, nearly 2 years on and whilst I still have some trust issues, I think we are in a good place.
You can definitely moved past it but I suggest having an open line of communication.