Cheating on Both Sides

[relationshipa1]

My current boyfriend and I have been together for 4 months. I should probably start at the beginning.

We began chatting over spring break. We were in the same drama class, and had become friends on Facebook, and he was getting over a 2-week relationship in which he’d really liked the girl, but she’d been using him. I was trying to help him cope with it, and we ended up liking one another by the end of break. When he asked me out, he told me he was moving to Texas with his family sometime and August, and asked if I still wanted to date him. I figured if we made it four months, hopefully it would be worth it to continue the relationship long distance. For the first month or two I worried I was the rebound, but he reassured me, I was not, and I know I wasn’t because we’ve been together longer than that relationship lasted, and he hadn’t asked me to do anything I didn’t want to. Granted, online is not the best way to start a relationship, but the day I got home, we had our first date, and things just got better from there. I felt more love for him in the first week than I had with my previous 7-month relationship altogether. It sounds like infatuation, but the feeling continued, deepened emotionally and hasn’t left me since.

The first month was good. After school, a few times a week, we would go out on “daytime” dates that his parents approved, and we were able to go on “night” dates after his parents met me and approved of me. Sometimes, we became intimate, just touching and rubbing. Then the second month, a few times became four or five, and I was spending time with him outside of school everyday. I hardly had time for my best friend, who became concerned about me, when all I wanted to do was spend time with my boyfriend. The intimacy increased. Summer started, and he told me he was moving to Texas in late July, not mid-August. I was upset we were losing 2 weeks, and I was determined to spend nearly every waking minute with him before he left. So, most of June, I was with him from 9 or 10 in the morning until 10 or 11 at night, except on Wednesdays and Saturdays when he worked. But even then, I would drop him off, pick him up, and go to his “Vs.” (a card game) tournament every Saturday for 3 hours. At the beginning of July, he told me his parents were leaving mid-July, and they were taking him with him. We’d lost an entire month from the beginning time. So, those last two weeks were spent with him, minus the day he took his GED test, and the day he had to study for his GED. The intimacy turned into mutual masturbation and oral sex. We never once had sex because after every time we were increasingly intimate I would go through these irrational “pregnant” scares, even though none of his semen had ever been anywhere near my vagina. These happened nearly everyday, usually for an hour around night-time. My mom bought him a webcam so we could talk everyday. Once we figured out the webcam, the only problems we had was trying to get used to life without constantly being with the other. At least that’s what I thought. Turns out we both had secrets, and I had my doubts. The first gigantic fight hashed out like this:

He confessed to me he didn’t know if we were going to work out, because he was changing careers already (he’d been planning on becoming a firefighter, which turned out to be more costly than he’d originally thought) and I was having doubts about the future we’d been planning. So, he told me he just didn’t know if we would last and if I had a place in his life anymore. I told him I would support his decision every step of the way, no matter what, and that plans were meant to change and I would always love him just like I said because I saw a future with him. He was very cold and uncaring. We said goodbye until later that night. Which is when he told me he’d been testing me earlier today, to see if I’d stick with him through anything, and he now knew that we could have a future together, but in order to do that, I needed to grow up and stop relying on my parents to give me money for EVERYTHING, and to do everything for me. I agreed because I realized he was right, that I needed to grow up and start being more mature. Then, a few days later, since he’s decided he’s being completely honest with me now, he tells me he’s been talking to his ex-girlfriend through Facebook, a girl named Bethany he was with for a year and a half about a year previously. He tells me basically from the beginning of July until the 3rd week of it, he’d been talking to her about his problems, telling her he loved her, etc. He underestimated my reaction because he saw it as a temporary relief, I saw it as emotional cheating. He realized I was right and I was so torn between ending it because I’ve heard that “once a cheater, always a cheater” but also that the circumstances matter and differ between each situation. He was willing to do anything to earn my forgiveness. Anything I asked him to do, he did without hesitation (unfriend and block his ex girlfriend, and any ex-girlfriends he’d ever had; work on communicating with me, because if he would have said he was feeling suffocated in the first place, he wouldn’t have gone to someone else; and he handed over the passwords to all of the sites he visited). Also, he let me read the messages between him and his ex. Apparently he’d forgotten he said some things.

In these messages, he called me paranoid, clingy, psycho, annoying, infuriating, immature; said he was “tired of dealing with me”, would be “glad when he moved and we eased off so he wouldn’t have to be with me anymore”, that he could “reap the benefits [of our intimate time] while it lasted”, and also confessed that his ex-girlfriend was “the best girlfriend” he’d ever had, that he “still loved her”, etc. He told me he went to her because he felt like she understood him better and he wasn’t happy, and he wanted to see if he could juggle two girls at once like he used to.

It’s hard to monitor his progress because he lives in Texas, but he lets me know when he messes up (when his mind wanders to sexual places that it’s not supposed to), he talks to his parents when he has a problem too, so I felt like he was making progress. However, argument number three emerged. This one was my fault.

Just yesterday I came clean about a long term addiction I had to porn (4-5 years), one that I’ve wanted to drop for a year or two now, but never had the willpower to do it alone. I told my boyfriend, and I told my mother, two of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. He now knows how I felt when he cheated on me, and I didn’t want to lie anymore, so I told him all of the time I masturbated, it was never to him, it was always to porn. That crushed him.

He turned me on when we were together, and he was always amazing, and more than enough. he did everything right, made sure he never hurt me. When I was with him, NOTHING was better. I never once compared him to the men I’d seen in porn, nor did I wish I was watching porn instead. What he gave me was so much more AMAZING then what porn gave me, and I wanted to quit and I felt terrible the whole time, but I’d just made such a habit out of it, I thought it was something I could break whenever I wanted, but I found out differently and decided to come clean.

When I told my mom, she was supportive and told me that the curiosity was natural, but the way I was directing my curiosity was not, and it was giving me the wrong idea about what sex is, and that it has its emotional connections too. I’m going to go to counseling, we’re putting a filter on my computer, she has my passwords to everything so she can check on it anytime she wants, and we’re going to start doing family “bible ” studies again (we haven’t been to church in 8 years or so). She wants to help me, and she understands. But when I told my boyfriend that I was getting support so I could help fight htis addiction, all he could do was shoot little barbed remarks at me, that made me feel like he didn’t believe I could succeed. I know he’s upset right now, but I don’t know how long he’s going to have the urge to make those comments, and I don’t need him bringing me down while I’m trying to pick myself back up. Even when we’re both guilty of the “barbed remarks” and giving one another a second chance.

My best friend knows he cheated on me, but not that I cheated on him. She thinks we both have a lot of growing up to do-separately, that we’re not going to make it.

And I keep having these doubts. I go from believing we’re going to make it, to thinking even if we did make it, one of us would screw up again, and all of the rebuilding would have been for nothing. Sometimes I can see a future with him, sometimes I wonder if he’s the one I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. I love him so much, and we have so much in common, and he’s so much more than I could have ever asked for. He’s the guy I’ve wanted in my dreams, but never thought I could have–minus the mistake he made. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to ever trust him, I don’t know if he’ll be able to trust me, or if either of us will be able to get over this, or get over one another if we end it. Another concern is that he has NO idea what he wants to do for the rest of his life. Currently he’s working at Starbucks and he hopes to work his way up to manager, but that might not ever happen, and it might change. I guess I just want some outside opinions on the situation.

Currently we’re taking a “break” until I can figure out if I see a future with him. He sees it, even after all the crap we’ve been through, but I keep wondering if I end it if I’ll find someone better, who would never cheat on me, and know what they want to do with their life, but at the same time, I know I would miss him because he’s all I’ve ever wanted. Not sure if he’s what I NEED though.

Sorry that was such a novel to read.
If you take the time to read it, I hope for an outside opinion because I’m tired of being confused and unhappy.

[April Masini]

First of all, it’s unrealistic for you to spend four months together with your boyfriend, during which time he tells his ex-girlfriend he loves her and that you are paranoid, psycho, clingy, immature, and that he’ll be glad when you two are separated by his impending out of state move, after which he then up and moves with his family to Texas — and expect this to work in the long run. Sorry if this is blunt, but you need to smell the coffee so you don’t get hurt any further.

Second, when you said that you needed to “monitor” him and have him “hand over” his computer passwords to you, the dynamic you’re described isn’t one between two mutually respecting and supportive people who love each other. It sounds like a mother and child relationship. I’m sure that’s not what you want with any man.

But bottom line, you and this boyfriend started your relationship by you helping him get over another relationship, so it’s pretty clear that your instincts were right that this is a rebound relationship for him. He also told you from the beginning that it was going to be a four to five month relationship after which time he was moving to Texas, so you were forewarned that this was temporary. You ignored his warning that this was going to be a short term thing and went ahead with the relationship anyway.

You became intimate (Oral sex and mutual masturbation count as sex!) and emotionally attached, and let your feelings delude you about what was really happening with the relationship.

Your four to five year porn addiction doesn’t have anything to do with your boyfriend since it predates him and post dates him. But I do think you’re telling him about it to try and create a dramatic connection with him since you’re both so far away from each other.

Sooooo, I hope that this wasn’t too harsh for you to hear, but I think it’s necessary for you to see it all spelled out so that you can move on and let this guy have his life in Texas while you have your life in a different state. Focus on yourself, and focus on getting out there and meeting someone who’s available for a real relationship that isn’t a rebound and that isn’t long distance. While the break up will hurt in the short run, the pay off in the long run will be rich. I promise!

[optimistvik]

I agree with April Masini

[April Masini]

Happy New Year! Let me know how things are going for you. 😉

[Author]

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