He cheated twice, with the same girl.

in Love and Relationships » Relationship Advice • 2 years ago

Hello. I just got out of a 4 year relationship. We had alot of ups and downs. Last year, late winter into early spring, he was cheating on me with a co-worker. I had found this out by stumbling on a letter she wrote him. He claimed he was emotionally lost in our relationship and found being with her was easy, no fighting, just fun. I decided I wasn;t ready to let him go and wanted to fight for us, understanding why he did what he did. Well, I just learned about 2 weeks ago that the affair with her started up again this past June and went on all summer. He started to act "strange" again, and one day about 6 weeks ago, told me he feels he failed us, that he doesn't know who he is and feels he can't give me what I want. Basically ended things. I understood and accepted it. For the following 3 weeks, he continued tocontact me, accusing me of meeting someone else, wanted to spend time with me, so on and so forth. I actually thought maybe he has a revolution or something! We actually spent some time together and had real fun! Then, one day leaving his house, I felt the desire to look at his cell phone bill. Saw that he'd been in contact with her. He stated he just called to see how she was doing. Well, I went direct to the source and learned of the affair that went on all summer. Now - during the 3 weeks he persued me after ending it he was telling me he couldn;t imagine life without me, even said he could picture me in a wedding dress walking down the isle to him. Two days before I learned of the affair, he said it's been long enough, we should have a child..... I had a 2 hour conversation with the other girl on the phone. The next day, I went to his house, we didn't fight at all. Actually both broke down. Then he stated he wanted me to let him try. That he didn't even want to talk to her. He learned so much from me just in how I've handled the past year and fought for him. I never said yes or no to staying. And a couple nights later, he decided to drop a "dear john" letter to me saying he hates himself for who he's become, me being around is a constant reminder of what he's put me through, he has to face the music.... ect ect. I was so angry. So, he ended what he already ended a month prior? Anyway, I was actually out on a date that evening which may have been my only saving grace in the sense that he saw I wasn't on the couch with a tissue box!
I basically don't know what to do at this point. Do i save any hope that we will end up together? or do I forget it all and move on. Is it normal to even want to make it work? Was everything a lie? Any advice is appreciated. I feel I've hit rock bottom.

Replies(12)

Beagle

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

It sounds like he's not able to make up his mind what he wants. I gather he wants to keep you while he plays around, and that's not acceptable to you.

An affair is just a manifestation of a deeper character flaw; basically the willingness to deceive others to get what we want. I have to say that I'm not terribly optimistic about this leopard changing his spots. It sounds like his pattern is to tell you what you want to hear until the storm blows over, then resume his old pattern of behavior.

Xero

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

My best advice would be to stop seeing him and move on.

To me it seems like he is playing a game and thats wrong.

tina_danj..

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

Beagle;
I guess my biggest pain (I think) comes from wondering why he would break it off, persue me following the break up and say all the things he was saying about a future, and being his wife, having a child. ect ect.
I do miss him, of course. I spent 4 years with him... but I just want to know he's hurting too! I feel crazy even wanting to know that. Just so many questions making my head spin. I can't get it to stop. It's spinning day and night. Why wouldn't he just let me go??? Why drag me through the mud?
I couldn't ever do this to another being. Guess that's also why I'm struggling.

Beagle

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

Tina: Those are great questions. Sadly, I doubt you're going to know the answers because I doubt he knows the answers. He's probably as confused about his feelings as you are.

Feelings are something we don't have a lot of direct control over. That's why I fall back on his choice to betray your trust by becoming involved with another girl. Love is often misdefined as a feeling, when in actuality it is a choice that me make, to treasure someone else's feelings as much as we do our own. He probably means everything he's saying about how he feels. However, his choices don't reflect that.

You're going to run yourself crazy if you insist on trying to understand the "whys" of this situation. I don't know him, but I'm going to bed that honesty and commitment are problems in other areas for him too. If you need some kind of closure, you could write a letter asking those questions. I'm just not optimistic about you getting information you can rely on. You're hurting so badly right now that I doubt you could remain composed and objective enough to have this conversation face-to-face. There's someone I want to get those answers from, but I'm just not ready yet.

tina_danj..

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

Thanks for the honest and mature replies, Beagle.
Can't tell you how much plain negativity I get about this subject - when all I'm doing if trying to find peace.
Alot of people have told me (out of the box people) that he is the issue, not me that he has commitment issues, and all that stuff. I can tell you he isn;t exactly surrounded by the best people. Alot of friends in negative relationships. I honestly believe that was assiting in dragging him dow this road. Not that it's an excuse by any means. I've started to try an forget all my questions, accept it for what it is and just kinda go with the flow. Do you think he'll ever come around again??? Friends think he will, but not for a while. That is if he is not with that other girl still.
To add insult to injury, the girl is 10 years younger. (I'm 34). He's gonna be 31.
Then I found myself feeling liek I did something wrong - or trying to figure out what I could have done different. Even felt guilty when he came over the last I saw him to drop off his "dear john" letter, and he learned I was out on a date. He has the nerve to say "you weren't even going to tell me". WHAT? I was angry. But I feel guilty about going out with that man!
I'm going out with him a second time tonight and feel guilty again, like I'm doing wrong! I hate it.

Beagle

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

Can't tell you how much plain negativity I get about this subject - when all I'm doing if trying to find peace.

I think a lot of that is just the age difference. I am at the point in my life that I can kind of look back on it and see the patterns.

I can tell you he isn;t exactly surrounded by the best people.

It's easy to draw the conclusion that he's acting this way because he's being influenced by his associations. However, it's more likely that "birds of a feather flock together."

Do you think he'll ever come around again??? Friends think he will, but not for a while. That is if he is not with that other girl still.

I agree.

To add insult to injury, the girl is 10 years younger. (I'm 34). He's gonna be 31.

Not relevant. Would you really feel better if she was older?

Then I found myself feeling liek I did something wrong - or trying to figure out what I could have done different.

That's very common and is based on your personality makeup. That's a trait that I have also. When things go wrong, personal or work, my first instinct is to blame myself. It sounds like his is to blame someone else. That's where you've got to learn to look beyond the emotions to see what's real. The logic here is "I feel it therefore it must be true." Actually, emotions can be very deceptive. The old adage "Don't let your mind tell you what to feel and don't let your heart tell you what to think" is very applicable.

Even felt guilty when he came over the last I saw him to drop off his "dear john" letter, and he learned I was out on a date. He has the nerve to say "you weren't even going to tell me". WHAT? I was angry. But I feel guilty about going out with that man!

That's not uncommon. I had a woman break up with me, move a guy in the next week, then get mad when she found out I was dating someone. Really, the same answer as above.

I'm going out with him a second time tonight and feel guilty again, like I'm doing wrong! I hate it.

This is where objective outside feedback, from someone who isn't emotionally involved in the situation, can be very helpful. He cheated on you and is involved with someone else. That ended your obligation to him. Even Jesus told his followers it was ok to divorce a cheater!

Healthy guilt is the emotion that tells us we've done something wrong and we should never do it again. Neurotic guilt is when we feel guilty when we haven't wronged anyone. This is definitely the latter, and you need to confront it as such. This is where you have to use your mind to override your emotions, reminding yourself "HE cheated on ME! I'm not doing anything wrong."

As hard as it is to believe right now, you won't always feel this way. As a friend said to me once, "The sun will shine again." It's hard to believe now, but it's true. The day will come you will look back on this as just a bad memory, separate from all the pain you feel now.

A healthy question right now is "What can I learn from this?" Also, "What does this tell me about myself?" I kind of suspect you may be so kind-hearted that you allow others to take advantage of you, but that's a question only you can answer. I suspect you need to learn to hold people accountable for their own choices and not let them "dump" blame for their behavior on you.

tina_danj..

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

All great points/opinions. (I'm very glad I found this forum!)

I know that a big part of me is in denial about how everything happened, after all the fighting I did for the past year to save the relationship.

I'm not so much a push over as it might come off. My issue is that I always forgive people. Been that way my whole life. I try to live by the "what would Jesus do" question. I know people make mistakes, lord knows I do too. But in this case, I fear that my staying may only have made him have no respect for me despite what he has said.

He told both myself AND the other girl (she told me) that I'm a fighter and I've always fought for him, and proved my love to him. She actually has told me that she would ask him, then what's the problem? Don't you think it's strange that he would talk to her about me in such a manor but not visa versa???

He also told me himself that it's my fight for the relationship and how I've stuck by him through everything that makes him fall in love with me more.
So why the heck run back to her?????? That's the one big question that circles my head constantly. If he felt this way about me, why did he run back to her and live in more lies for 3 months????

UGH!
I'm definitly trying to learn form this and figure out where my life goes from here..... but I'm not ready to let go yet. So many unanswered questions.
In his letter he said, "he hates who he's become and has to find his way back by himself, he can't allow me to try anymore, or pick up the pieces for him. Me being around is a constant reminder of what he's put me through. Its time for him to face the music".
I had 3 thoughts... he trying to be noble, hoping I'd beg him not to or simply a cop-out. Who knows the answer. I wonder because when he showed up here with it, I was just getting home, as I said I was out on a date... he said to me "well, I guess there's nothing left to talk about". Well, if he planned to drop that off, doesn't that mean there wasn't anything left to talk about anyway??? Plus he broke it off a month prior! why a second "break up". Add more pain?

I've been praying for answers. Even praying he finds his way ... and I snap out of this mental state I'm in and stop wanting him to show up at my door.
So, I'm working on getting over this hump in a healthy way.
So, you really think him and i will get a chance to meet again and get some closure on all of this? God I hope so. Funny, cause, I never believed in closure until this.

Beagle

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

In reading your original post, I'm pretty sure he's deliberately manipulating your emotions. Especially, the talk about wanting to have a child together and the image of you in the wedding dress. That sounds just a little too much like what you want to hear. I think he's also playing the "poor me" card with all the talk about how he hates who he's become. I think that is an attempt to play on your sympathy. He obviously doesn't hate it enough to change his behavior.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I think you're dealing with a player. I think he knows where you're emotionally vulnerable and he's using these to manipulate you. I would recommend that you consider that if he tries to get back into your life.

I deal with drug-seekers and welfare cheats for a living and I've gotten pretty adept at seeing signs of manipulation, and they're all over the place here. You're probably not a pushover in most circumstances. It sounds like he knows where you're vulnerable.

tina_danj..

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

Do you think it's the same case with her... that he has just been manipulating both of us? I'd like to blieve that if the two of them did get together, it wouldn't work for long. For her, this is the 3rd time. the initial time, then he apparently he kept her around through last summer, then told her a couple months later he wanted to be with me. 8 months later (bringing me to this past June) called her again and said we'd been broken up and haven't spoke. Then she heard for me and the truth revealed it's ugly head yet again!
She even told me that last summer, she stayed at his house and at 3am I text him, so he kicked her out. She had no where to go and had to sleep in her car. I never even knew that they kept in contact through the summer.

Anyway, a couple days after that evening I last saw him - I got a text message that said "lets go to the honda store today" ... obviously, right away I thought he sent to the wrong person. So a little while later, I text back asking if that was meant for me?
He didn't respond to me for 3 days! and he wrote "sorry, that text the other day was for ~so and so~".
I never wrote back.
A friend of mine said he thinks that he did it on purpose to see if he'd get a reaction - cause he said he's done that himself.

Lord I feel so pathetic even trying to figure this out! :(

Beagle

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

And a couple nights later, he decided to drop a "dear john" letter to me saying he hates himself for who he's become, me being around is a constant reminder of what he's put me through, he has to face the music.... ect ect.

"You're so great and I'm so unworthy, so I'm breaking up with you." Yeah, right. Guys' minds just don't work that way. I'm a male, and I know our faults. When we think we're somehow not worthy, we try that much harder. What I suspect happened is that the other girl made him send the Dear John letter and he's trying to rationalize his behavior.

For me the first warning flag was the statement about envisioning you in a wedding dress while he was cheating. That is just too a little too much what a woman wants to hear. Of course, men think that way when they're in love. The fact that he was saying stuff like this while he was cheating tells me he's playing your emotions.

I am afraid you have some blind spots here. After all, if you accept the premise that he's manipulating, doesn't everything else make sense? Of course there are no absolutes regarding human behavior, but I think him running a game is the most likely hypothesis. I'm going to bet that if you did some digging, you're not the first recipient of this treatment.

I think you need to step back and clear your mind until you can start thinking objectively about this. You need a objective-thiking friend you can share all this with so this guy doesn't manipulate you into doing something you'll regret later.

Lets look at the known facts:

1. His words don't match his actions. (Beyond dispute) He talks about loving you then takes actions to hurt you.
2. He has exhibited a pattern of cheating behavior. (Beyond dispute)
3. He has probably been cheating on the other girl as well.

I'm not a fan of country music, but sometimes those sad songs tell it like it is. There's a line "Met somebody just the other night/started thinking he was Mr. Right-Wrong. I might never have known if a friend hadn't brought it to my attention/He's got a wife he forgot to mention." You love him, and you're not wanting to see the bad in him. It's time to take the blinders off and see this situation for what it is. He's been playing two (that we know of) girls at once. This guy is going to be nothing but pain for some girl. There's no reason for it to be you.

slittylic..

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

He learned so much from me just in how I've handled the past year and fought for him. I never said yes or no to staying.

He learned that he could cheat on you and you would still want to be with him.

The tendency to do this can be a result of your upbringing and the dynamics in your family.
When I went through something similar, I realized that I was acting out by repeating what was done to me. I would attract abusive, unavailable partners, then I would hold on to the relationship, regardless of whether my boundaries were being violated.
Friends kept telling me "I had to take my power back."
I know what that means now.

tina_danj..

Re: He cheated twice, with the same girl.

2 years ago

EEK! Ouch!
I wasn't thinking that she put him up to that. I mean I guess anything is possible but wasn't thinking it. my cnversations with her led me to believe she was done.