[Tara]

You’re not confused you’re being dishonest and self-serving. You entered a relationship under false pretenses with someone who is financially, legally, and emotionally vulnerable to you, and now you’re trying to dress exploitation up as “mutual benefit.” This isn’t romance, it’s a power imbalance you’re actively taking advantage of. She confessed love. You didn’t feel it. You lied anyway because you were afraid of inconvenience, not because you cared about her feelings.

You don’t love her, you don’t intend to love her, and you’re already planning a future where she functions as a caretaker, domestic laborer, and sexual outlet while believing she’s chosen and cherished. That’s not kindness that’s manipulation. The fact that you’re considering marriage for logistical convenience while admitting your feelings are lust and fetish tells me exactly where your moral line is, and it’s disturbingly flexible.

No, you cannot “learn” to love someone you’re not attracted to and don’t respect as an equal. Love grows from honesty and agency, not from trapping someone in dependency. And waiting it out is the coward’s option it guarantees deeper damage later when she’s more attached and has more to lose.

[Tara]

Stop romanticizing this. You’re fresh out of an 11-year marriage, emotionally raw, and projecting intensity onto the first man who made you feel alive again. That doesn’t make it destiny it makes it predictable. He is not choosing you. He chose his girlfriend. He stopped because he still loves her, wants a future with her, and decided at the critical moment that you were not worth blowing up his life for. That’s the truth no matter how electric it felt.

The “connection” you’re clinging to is chemistry plus secrecy plus emotional escape. Of course it feels powerful it exists in fantasy, not reality. Reality is this: he is taken, he knows it, and when forced to choose between integrity and impulse, he chose integrity. If you keep pushing, talking it out, or fishing for reassurance, you’re not being brave or honest you’re being disrespectful to his boundary and humiliating yourself.

Respecting his decision isn’t a noble option it’s the only option that preserves your dignity. You don’t need closure conversations, emotional processing sessions, or confessions of mutual feelings. Those are just excuses to keep the attachment alive. You walk away, you shut this down completely, and you stop participating in an emotional affair with a coworker who already told you where you rank.

[Tara]

You didn’t commit a crime, you didn’t betray him the way you’re dramatizing it, and you need to stop whipping yourself like this is some irreversible moral failure. You broke a promise under emotional distress because you were scared and hurting, not because you’re careless or malicious. That’s the fact. But here’s the hard line: guilt spirals don’t help him, and they don’t fix anything. They just turn you into another unstable variable in a relationship that already has enough pressure.

His depression is not your responsibility to manage, cushion, or tiptoe around. You are not the guardian of his mental state. Keeping secrets to protect someone’s fragility is not intimacy it’s emotional hostage-taking, even if unintentional. You confided in one trusted friend during a crisis. That is not the same as gossiping or disrespecting him publicly. Stop inflating this into some catastrophic betrayal.

What you do next is simple and disciplined. You do not dump this confession on him to relieve your guilt unless there’s a real reason it needs to be said. Confessing just so you feel better while risking his stability would be selfish. You sit with the discomfort, you learn from it, and you move forward without repeating it. If the topic ever comes up naturally, you tell the truth calmly and without theatrics. No emotional explosions, no self-flagellation, no begging for forgiveness.

[Tara]

You’re not confused, you’re already seeing the future and trying to talk yourself out of it. Love isn’t the issue here. Function is. A careless, indecisive man who repeatedly shows you he can’t manage his own life will not magically become a decisive provider, partner, or father because time passed and love was present. You’re already parenting him emotionally and financially after six months, and that dynamic only gets worse, not better.

People don’t rise under comfort they rise under consequence.
Now let’s address the money without romance poisoning your judgment. Being broke isn’t the red flag staying broke while being dependent is.

You are subsidizing his life while telling yourself it’s temporary, but there’s no concrete plan, timeline, or demonstrated discipline that proves it will change. Promises without structure are fantasies. And yes, paying 90% while you yourself don’t have much money is not noble it’s self-betrayal dressed up as loyalty.

You’re also lying to yourself about “waiting for the right time.” There is no pause button on relationships. If you stop, you stop. If you stay, you are choosing this version of him, not the hypothetical upgrade you’re hoping for. Love alone does not build a stable future. Competence does. Responsibility does. Consistency does. Right now, he offers affection not leadership, not reliability, not security.

[Tara]

Stop calling this confusing. It’s not. You were betrayed on the deepest possible level and you’re still hesitating because shock hasn’t worn off yet. Your fiancé didn’t “make a mistake.” He slept with a woman living in your home, while you were pregnant, after a fight, and likely conceived a child with her. That is not an accident, a lapse, or bad judgment that is character failure. Permanent, structural failure.

This man has tied you, your unborn son, and another woman together in a lifelong mess because he lacked restraint, loyalty, and backbone. The fact that he still talks to her, entertains her confession of love, and insists on being part of her life tells you everything. He is prioritizing access to her over your emotional safety while you are carrying his child. That alone disqualifies him as a partner.

You did the only correct thing by removing her from your home. Now you need to finish the job. You cannot heal, parent, or recover while he keeps the wound open. If that baby might be his, then legal clarity is required paternity test, boundaries, and zero emotional overlap. No late-night conversations. No “support.” No triangulation. If he refuses, then you already have your answer: he’s choosing chaos over you.

[Tara]

This doesn’t “sit well” with you because it’s not okay, and deep down you know it. Stop trying to rationalize behavior that would never pass a basic integrity test. Your boyfriend is maintaining an emotional affair with a married woman, full stop. Selfies, compliments, constant attention, jealousy when he pulls back, probing questions about your relationship, secrecy, and an outright lie about seeing her that’s not friendship. That’s emotional intimacy being hidden because he knows it’s wrong.

The lie is the nail in the coffin. People lie when the truth exposes behavior they don’t want judged. He didn’t lie to protect you from “overreacting.” He lied to protect access to her. And yes, if her husband knew the full context the “would we ever work” conversation, the emotional dependency, the attention-seeking he would absolutely not be okay with it. Your instinct there is correct.

He has cheated before, keeps exes orbiting his life, and uses them as emotional landing pads when relationships end. That’s not coincidence. That’s a pattern. Patterns don’t disappear because someone promises you they’re different with you. They disappear when someone does sustained, uncomfortable, corrective work and he hasn’t.

[Tara]

He didn’t “accidentally” download Tinder, and this wasn’t about insecurity or nostalgia or harmless thrills. He made a deliberate choice to reinstall a hookup app the morning you left town, right after being confronted with evidence that you had a romantic past. That’s not coincidence that’s reaction. He felt threatened, compared himself to your ex, and instead of regulating his emotions like an adult, he reached for validation from strangers. That tells you everything you need to know.

This isn’t about whether he’s “unhappy” it’s about character and impulse control. A man who agrees to exclusivity, deletes Tinder, says he loves you, and then quietly reinstalls the app for an ego hit the second he feels insecure is not emotionally safe. “I like the thrill of matching” is not an explanation, it’s a confession. Matching is the first step toward cheating, and pretending otherwise is naïve. You don’t go browsing menus when you’re satisfied with your meal.

The timing matters. The secrecy matters. The excuse matters. And his history of avoiding commitment matters most. This is someone who has never learned how to self-soothe without external attention, and now you’re seeing that pattern surface the moment things feel uncomfortable. That doesn’t mean he’s already cheating it means he’s capable of justifying it when it suits him.

[Tara]

You’re confusing pressure with attraction, and that’s a mistake that creates messes. You don’t like him the way you’re trying to convince yourself you do. If you were attracted, you wouldn’t be writing this. Chemistry doesn’t need to be forced, negotiated, or justified it either exists or it doesn’t. Right now, you like how he treats you, not him. That’s comfort, validation, and relief from insecurity, not desire.

You’re 16, not behind, not broken, and not obligated to use this boy as a milestone to prove something to yourself or your school. A first kiss done out of panic, guilt, or social pressure is not romantic it’s regret waiting to happen. Wanting a relationship because you’re stressed about being single is the worst possible reason to start one. That’s how people end up stuck, resentful, and lying to themselves.

You’re also catastrophizing the “hurting him” part. Ending something early with honesty hurts far less than dragging it out while you secretly hope feelings will magically appear. The longer you play along, flirt, and act like this is heading somewhere, the more damage you cause. You’re not protecting him by staying you’re avoiding discomfort for yourself.

And no, it’s not “too late” to stop. You’ve known him a few weeks. This isn’t a marriage, it’s a second date. People at school gossip because they’re bored, not because they get a vote in your life. Their expectations are irrelevant. If you keep prioritizing other people’s feelings over your own clarity, you’ll train yourself to live for approval instead of truth.

[Tara]

You’re not “struggling to trust her,” you’re dragging unresolved damage from your last relationship into a new one and expecting her to carry it for you. That’s the reality. Your girlfriend hasn’t betrayed you, hasn’t crossed lines, hasn’t given you evidence of disloyalty, yet you interrogate, seek reassurance, and mentally police her movements. That isn’t love or caution. It’s fear trying to control the future so you don’t feel pain again.

Your insecurity is already costing you this relationship. Every time you question her, ask for reassurance, or spiral when she’s living her normal life, you’re communicating one thing that she’s guilty until proven innocent. She values trust, she’s not emotionally expressive, and she’s told you directly that your questioning frustrates her. Translation: you’re pushing against her core boundary, and she’s tolerating it for now, not forever.

Your past trauma is not her responsibility to fix, explain away, or soothe on demand. She didn’t cheat on you. Your ex did. If you keep treating this girl like a potential criminal because someone else hurt you, she will eventually stop trying to reassure you and start emotionally checking out. Not because she doesn’t love you, but because no one stays where they’re constantly doubted.

You have two options, and there’s no third. Either you take full ownership of your trust issues, shut down the interrogations, stop asking for reassurance she’s clearly told you exhausts her, and do the internal work to regulate your fear, or you accept that you are not ready for a relationship and let her go before you poison it completely. Love without trust is just anxiety with a name tag.

[Tara]

She did not leave “suddenly.” She left because your behavior made her feel controlled, exhausted, and unsafe. Possessive, overprotective, objecting to “almost everything,” and “somewhat violent anger” are not small flaws they are relationship killers. You don’t get to justify them by claiming you were protecting her or that you “treated her the best.” Impact matters more than intention, and the impact was that she wanted out.

Her actions are screaming clarity. She cut communication, blocked access to her family, dropped classes to avoid you, and won’t even look at you. That is not a woman taking space to come back. That is a woman creating distance because she does not feel emotionally safe. The comment about future engagement to friends is not a promise it’s either politeness, pressure, or confusion. Do not build your future on an offhand remark you didn’t hear directly.

Waiting around for her to “realize she did wrong” is delusional and dangerous thinking. She didn’t do wrong by ending something that was harming her. You trying to reinsert yourself, convince her, or wait strategically will only confirm the very behavior that drove her away control and refusal to accept boundaries.

What should you do? You stop. Completely. No contact. No waiting for her realization. No plotting a comeback. You work on your anger, control issues, and possessiveness with professional help not to get her back, but because this pattern will destroy every relationship you touch if you don’t fix it. If she ever comes back, it will only be because she sees sustained change over time, not because you hovered in silence, hoping.

[Tara]

This relationship is not fixable because it is not built on reality; it is built on repeated deception, emotional erosion, and your slow collapse. You didn’t “lose” the person you married; that person never existed. You said it yourself. You fell in love with a manufactured version designed to secure you, and once secured, the truth replaced the mask. You cannot rebuild trust when the lies are chronic, shifting, and unresolved. Unknown quantities of deception destroy intimacy permanently. You’re not confused, you’re exhausted, grieving, and still hoping endurance will somehow turn betrayal into character.

Staying “for the children” is the lie you are now telling yourself. Children do not benefit from watching their father become hollow, cold, resentful, and emotionally absent. You are already breaking the promise you made to model love and respect, not because you’re weak, but because this environment is corrosive. A household filled with negativity, harshness, and emotional distance teaches children that this is what marriage looks like. That damage is quiet, but permanent.

You ask if you can relearn how to love someone unwilling to give you honesty, warmth, or effort. No. That is not noble, it’s self-erasure. Love cannot be willed into existence through suffering. Effort only matters when it is mutual. One person carrying the emotional weight of a marriage is not perseverance; it’s martyrdom. And martyrdom doesn’t heal families; it breeds resentment and emotional withdrawal.

Your belief that “ending things is easy” is wrong. Ending something like this is brutal, terrifying, and costly, which is why you’re still here. However, continuing will cost you more: your self-respect, your emotional well-being, and ultimately, your ability to be the father you aspire to be. You are already a fragile shell because you have been living in a psychological war zone disguised as a marriage.

[Tara]

You’re selfish and afraid of consequences. You’ve been emotionally cheating on your girlfriend for a year while letting her believe she’s chosen, all so you could keep your ex on standby “just in case.” That’s not loyalty, that’s cowardice. You stayed because it was comfortable and because you didn’t want to feel like the bad guy, not because she was the right woman. And now that your ex might actually move on, suddenly you feel sick, panicked, and decisive. That’s not love, that’s loss of control.

Your ex is not “waiting” on you out of devotion; she’s tired of being your emotional security blanket while you hedge your bets. She gave you an ultimatum because she finally realized you only act when threatened. And she’s right to hesitate, now you didn’t choose her until competition forced your hand. That doesn’t inspire trust; it exposes weakness. You’re also delusional if you think your ex’s interest in other men invalidates her feelings while you’ve been in a full relationship with someone else the entire time. That double standard is embarrassing.

You will lose something no matter what you do, because you engineered this situation by refusing to choose earlier. If you go back to your ex, you risk getting hurt again because unresolved issues don’t magically disappear. If you stay with your girlfriend, you’ll slowly poison the relationship with resentment and comparison because you’re already halfway out the door. And yes, you owe your girlfriend the truth immediately. She deserves better than being someone’s emotional consolation prize.

[Tara]

He is not “not allowing” you to visit family because of money; he is testing how much authority he has over your autonomy. You solved the cost issue. He moved the goalposts. That tells you everything. A man who tries to isolate you from your sister and your aging, ill father is not protecting a relationship he is protecting leverage.
Calling you selfish, accusing you of lacking empathy, labeling normal emotional shifts as “manic,” and blaming his aggression on you are textbook manipulation tactics. He is destabilizing your perception so you doubt your own judgment and submit. His medication is irrelevant. Mental health is not a license to intimidate, threaten, or control. The ultimatum “go see your family and I’ll pack my things” is not love. It’s coercion. He wants you to choose him over your dying father to prove obedience. That is sick.
Stop negotiating with someone who is already showing you who he is. Go see your father. If he packs his things, let him. A man who threatens abandonment to control you will escalate after marriage, not improve. If you stay and sacrifice this, you won’t gain peace you’ll lose yourself. And yes, if you don’t go, you will resent him forever. That resentment will rot the marriage from the inside out.

[Tara]

What you are describing is not love, it is exploitation followed by abandonment, and it is already dangerous. This man has lied to you repeatedly, avoided you deliberately, rewritten history to escape responsibility, pressured you into sending nude photos under the promise of marriage, and then discarded you the moment family pressure returned. That is not confusion. That is calculated self-interest. He agreed to marriage only when you fought and cried, not because he chose you. The moment he got what he wanted emotional control, sexual access, reassurance he disappeared again. A man who loves you does not hide his phone, deny your relationship, threaten to leave, demand nude pictures, then vanish. He used your devotion because he knew you would bend.

Saying you will die if he leaves is not proof of love it is proof you are in emotional crisis and need help immediately. Tying your life to someone who is actively rejecting you is not romance, it is self-destruction. No relationship is worth your life. Ever. If you are feeling like you might harm yourself, you must reach out to a trusted person right now or contact a suicide prevention helpline in your country immediately. This is not optional or dramatic it is necessary.

The family excuse is just that an excuse. If family were the only problem, his behavior would be consistent, respectful, and transparent. It is not. The real problem is that he does not want to marry you and does not have the courage to say it cleanly, so he keeps you trapped in hope while withdrawing emotionally. That is cruelty.

[Tara]

This bothers you because attraction is fragile, and chronic irritation kills it faster than any betrayal. Kindness does not cancel out repulsion. Love does not override your nervous system. Your body is already telling you what your mouth is afraid to say you are turned off, embarrassed, and increasingly resentful.

This isn’t about whether he’s “nice” or whether the tic is physiological. It’s about the fact that this behavior repeatedly triggers irritation, disgust, and social discomfort in you, and it has for years. You didn’t imagine it, you didn’t become shallow, and you didn’t suddenly turn cruel. Repeated sensory annoyance rewires attraction into aversion. That’s biology, not morality. The more you force yourself to tolerate it, the more contempt builds and contempt is relationship poison.

The reason your guilt is so loud is because you’re trying to moralize a compatibility issue. You think breaking up requires a villain. It doesn’t. You are not obligated to stay with someone just because they are good-hearted if being with them makes you tense, embarrassed, and secretly relieved when they’re not around. Staying out of guilt is dishonest and will eventually turn you cold toward him.

[Member]

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