SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I don't really know what my goal of posting here is. I just need to get this off my chest. I'm brand new and I don't know the lingo so I won't be abbreviating the way I see everyone else doing.

She finally gave up on me.
Around 4 years ago, I met the woman I've always dreamed of, and we were so so happy. But then I cheated.
She tried to stay with me for around 2 years after D-Day. But she just wasn't happy with me anymore.

I will make no excuses, I feel horrible for what I've done, and our future together that I destroyed. Any detail I put here is for context, not excuses.

I was r*ped when I was younger by an older man, and since then I've developed a weird trauma-driven attraction to men. Again, I am not making excuses for what I've done, I made the bed and now I'm sleeping in it.

I cheated on her with a man, it was minimal but still very much cheating. I told her a few days later, I confessed to everything.

We've spent nearly two years trying to learn how to be happy again. She was no longer able to trust me, or show me any kind of affection.

We've broken up before, but usually after fighting. This time was different. It came out of nowhere, I asked "do you still love me?" And it led to us having a long conversation. We both love each other deeply and we both want it to work. But she simply can't be happy with me anymore. I don't blame her. We simply cried and held each other and said goodbye.

I've endured many breakups but nothing like this. Especially it being 100% my fault. The guilt and shame are absolutely consuming me. That poor girl stayed and tortured herself for two years out of love for me. I can't stop thinking about how happy we were in the beginning. I think of the way she used to look at me and smile, and it breaks my heart. I feel like a villain. I cannot believe this is reality and this is where we ended up. The beginning was so beautiful and our future was so bright.

Why did I have to destroy that ? Why did I have to destroy her ? What the hell was I thinking ?

We never tried therapy, I should have pushed harder for it as it was my responsibility to make things better. I sent her a text suggesting we try one more time and go to therapy together. I haven't gotten a reply. It's really over.

I could never hurt her or anyone else in this way ever again. I suppose it's a lesson I needed to learn. But why did it have to be with her ?

Nobody has ever loved me the way she did and I don't think anyone else ever will.

I feel like a demon, like the worst human garbage on this planet. I singlehandedly stole her happiness away from her and destroyed our future. It hurts so unbelievably bad. And I know that she feels even worse.

I don't know what type of response I'm looking for, I just needed to type this somewhere. Please be kind, I already hate myself enough. I regret my decision entirely and refuse to ever make the same mistake. I have no reason to lie in an anonymous forum.

Is it wrong for me to even be trying to contact her ? She's been my best friend for years and the only person I could lean on, I don't know how to handle her absence.

In the end it's her choice. I know that. And honestly, I really just want her to be happy. I've changed and grown so much since then, I know I can be the partner she needs. But the wound is still fresh as it ever was for her.

Is it wrong for me to keep trying ? Should I just accept the way things are and give up on the love of my life ? Will I ever be able to forgive myself for ruining us ? Does it ever get better for someone like me who's made such a horrible mistake ?

I miss her so f*cking much.

Staff have been discussing if this thread should have been posted in the Wayward forum where we can better protect the original poster if the replies get heated. For now, we will respect the OP decision to post here, but ask that anyone replying keep in mind that OP is seeking help and guidance. As per our guidelines:

SurvivingInfidelity.com® is a peaceful, constructive and devoted site with offering our support towards others during such a torturous time in their lives.

This is a complex situation.
Cheating is devastating to a relationship, but a same-sex affair probably adds a heavy twist to the doubts and questions the betrayed partner experiences.
For us – the betrayed – cheating raises so much doubt about us and our qualities and abilities. Why weren’t’ we enough? A good part of the guidance offered on this site is convincing them that we were – the issue is with the person that cheated, not us. If you cheated with a man... well... how can your female partner ever think she can compete with that? I think that might be a key factor in her decision.

What would I suggest?
Well... focus on yourself rather than the relationship per se.

You have a lot of trauma to deal with, and maybe the key question you need to be totally 100% honest and clear on to YOURSELF is your sexuality.
Being raped by a man won’t "make" you gay, but nor would it make you straight if you had homosexual tendencies. I think a key-factor for you is to define your sexuality, to set the compass straight. No matter how much you two care for each other, if your tendencies were towards men this relationship as a couple is doomed IMHO. But clarifying sexuality could make you the best of friends.

In the strongest words I encourage you to seek counseling for the abuse and the trauma it might have caused.

What you can do regarding her is that once you have taken the first steps to your own recovery (as in contacted a PTSD-specialist, rape-victim specialist or whatever and set up the appointments) is ask her to talk. Let her know what you are thinking and have planned, and ask if there is some way you two can remain on friendly terms (maybe even non-dating) for maybe 30-60 days. Just remember – all you can do is ask, and you need to respect her answer.

Are you actively in therapy for your trauma bonding? If anything stands out in your short posting, is that you have been traumatized deeply from your childhood experience. You are not a victim for what you did to your girlfriend, but obviously your victimhood has led you to where you are today. I hope that you can work through that, and break free of your past trauma.

You have to give her space. If you care for her like you claim, you need to let her find her happiness. No matter what has happened to you, she did not deserve this betrayal, and she needs to heal. If she wants you to be part of that process, she will ask for your help. But as for now, she is doing what she feels is best for her.

If you two were ever to get together again, the BEST thing that you can do to make that a possibility is to make yourself as safe a partner as possible. Saying that you can never do that again is one thing; showing through actions, like personal therapy, reading, journaling---is another.

Good luck. Sorry for the betrayals that you both have suffered.

I didn't mean to post in the wrong place I apologize everyone.

You didn’t post in the wrong place...
In General there is a lot more leeway in who can reply and how.
Chances are you will get a lot more responses here, and that can be good for you.
You will also get some direct and hard responses – and that too can be good.

However... what we don’t want is responses that really don’t contribute anything beneficial.
Each forum has a set of guidelines. The wayward forum offers staff more leeway in steering harmful responses. If we move this thread it will be either by your request OR we think the response aren’t in line with our guidelines.

Is it wrong for me to keep trying ?

Yes.

I miss her so f*cking much.

That is your cross to bear.

I hope at some point you will seek counseling and therapy, and start moving forward. To fully accept that what happened happened, and to then put the cross down. Stop driving your car while looking in the rearview mirror. Right now you are desperate to have a different past, but that is of course impossible to realize. The only way is forward.

Sending strength, friend.

Welcome to SI. In the Wayward forum, there are posts pinned to the top that may be helpful to you. Other great posts include:

The things I had to accept https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=642916

The process of discovering our true "Why's" https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=617173

Admitting it vs. Getting it vs. Owning it vs. Living it https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=615240

The Healing Library is located at the top of the site. Not only does it have a lot of great resources, but it also contains a list of the acronyms we use.

If you can, IC (individual counseling) may benefit you. You will need to work on becoming a safe partner. You may with to read How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald. While you are no longer together, this may give you some insight into the magnitude of what she has gone through. Another good book is Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass. You don't need couples counseling. Your partnership didn't cheat - you did.

You should be tested for STDs/STIs and HIV. There are some pretty devastating diseases out there that can affect you and be transferred to any future partners.

Does it ever get better for someone like me who's made such a horrible mistake ?

It can get better if you work on yourself to become a better person. You didn't make a horrible mistake. A mistake is forgetting to grab a gallon of milk at the store. You made conscious, deliberate decisions to cheat on your partner. You had other choices you could have made, but you decided to cheat instead.

Working on your guilt, shame and all of the why questions you asked will take time to work through. Please respect her boundaries and don't contact her until you're in a better place.

There are some waywards who put in the work to become safe partners, and they will admit that it takes a lot of work. You can get there, but it may take time.

One thing I would suggest that could both help her and especially you:

Don’t call the affair a mistake, and don’t minimize it by suggesting the affair was "minimal" but very much cheating.

The affair was a decision. Short of another rape, you always have the option of NOT cheating. As we often say here, a mistake is forgetting to get milk on the way home. By calling it a mistake you are minimizing your actions, and thereby the cause for her pain.
I don’t know what you mean by "minimal" – but for her the victim that’s like saying something like you didn’t intend to break her arm when you assaulted her. Fact is – you assaulted her.

I’m a former cop and as a cop I noticed that nearly everyone I had to deal with had an excuse. They sped because everyone else did, they only had one drink but hadn’t accounted for the effects of the flu or lack of sleep, it was "only" a mugging and no real victim, that guy I beat at the bar had it coming, she wanted it rough... whatever. Excuse, excuse, excuse.
The people that stood out were those that simply raised their hand and admitted their actions and were accountable. These were also the people I only met once...

If you admit that you betrayed her and cheated, and admit that what you did was your choice and your decision... that is a great step in becoming the person that won’t repeat what you did. Because unlike a "mistake" that you can’t really prevent, a decision is something you can always make.

I could never hurt her or anyone else in this way ever again. I suppose it's a lesson I needed to learn. But why did it have to be with her ?

Nobody has ever loved me the way she did and I don't think anyone else ever will.

These are not true, although you might feel that way in this moment.

Breakups are hard. You are absolutely capable of hurting someone else like this again. Why? Because you haven't yet done the self-work to heal from your own past trauma. You will need to spend a long time with a qualified trauma and sexual assault specialist. I hope you do that so that you can become a safe, secure, and self-confident partner in a future relationship. Once you are at peace within yourself, you will love and be loved in a way that you can't even comprehend right now.

Please let her go and take care of yourself.

I don’t think it’s wrong to keep trying, but by trying I don’t mean begging her to stay or trying to engage her. If I were you, I would just offer to do anything to help her pain and nothing more at this time.
It doesn’t sound like you’ve gone to IC over this or your past. You should start right now. Regardless of what happens with her, regardless of how much you exclaim to never do this again, it needs to be dealt with. I do wish you luck.

I'm sorry for the pain you are experiencing. You are mourning the loss of a very important relationship in your life. But that being said, I think you should leave her alone.

If I had to guess, the thing she cannot get over is the dishonesty of you not sharing with her that you had an attraction to men. She didn't have all the information when she entered into a relationship with you. I can completely understand why you probably didn't. I discovered my first husband was gay only about a year and a half into our marriage. We were very involved in a fundamental evangelical church, and him admitting he was gay was simply unthinkable. For him to admit it would mean being ostracized from the church and his entire social structure since childhood. I felt totally had, and Ioved him but in the end I left, because no matter how wonderful he is, I was facing a lifetime of a lack of true intimacy, while being a good Christian wife.

I agree with Bigger that you should focus on yourself and identifying your sexuality. You deserve to be happy too. Don't beat yourself up about the attraction you have to men. But do work on what made you think you could enjoy all that she had to offer without sharing something as important as your attraction to men. It was no less important that if you knew you would have a tendency to not be monogamous and kept that from her.

How much do you deserve?

None of it.

You didn’t deserve the trauma that happened to you, your partner didn’t deserve your poor choices either.

You’re human and please allow for all the flaws we all have when you reflect about you and what has happened.

I’m not a psychologist, but it sure sounds like you need to reach out for some therapy and from someone who has specialized in treating trauma.

Good people do bad things and have an opportunity to learn and improve.

My wife learned and improved and it took her years to learn how to be a safe partner.

Work on you, work on forgiving yourself when you can.

We've broken up before, but usually after fighting.

Did these periodic breakups after fights happen before or only after Dday? If these breakups occurred before Dday, then then your relationship was already unhealthy and dysfunctional; the cheating just made a bad situation worse. I've known many make-up/break-up couples (and was even part of them when I was younger) and it was always toxic, high-drama situations.

As for your questions about whether to fight to get your girlfriend back or continue to contact her, the answer to both of those questions is NO. I know that's not the answer you want to here, but here's the rationale:

-Your girlfriend stayed with you after Dday for 2 years and clearly tried as hard as she could to make it work. The fact that she told she wanted to break up during a period of calm (and not as part of an argument) means she thought about it for a while and made peace with the decision before she told you. If you love this woman as much as you say you do, then you need to respect her decision.

-I think you need to not have any contact with her, not only for her sake, but for yours. The fact is, you don't want to be her friend-- you love her and you want a romantic relationship with her. You're going to be trying to win her back, even if you lie to yourself and her about your intentions. Every time you talk to her, all you will do is rip off the bandaid and set your path to healing back to Day 0. As we often say to betrayed spouses who are trying to get over their grief, no contact = no new hurts. I think the same wisdom applies to cheating spouses who are trying to heal after a break up, too.

And, most importantly, it's not healthy to or feasible to rely on one person as your sole source of emotional support and validation. That's too much of a burden for one person to bear. You need to work on building your base of friends, expanding your social network, and seek professional help so you can become a better, healthier, person and not make mistakes like this in the future.

Lastly, you will not be the first or last person on Earth to screw up a good relationship and lose someone they love. Sadly, cheating is just one of a million horrible things that someone could do that destroy a relationship. You can (and will!) find love again if you learn from the mistakes and bad choices you've made, and continue to grow as a partner.

You should see this breakup as an opportunity to start over with a clean slate.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 7:43 PM, Wednesday, June 25th]

You might be bisexual. You might be so damaged from childhood that you have PTSD. What you do have is the desire and the ABILITY to get help and grow up. That is not written sarcastically. Your emotional growth was stunted in childhood. EMDR, then talk therapy with a well trained therapist whose expertise is childhood rape. Until that inner child gets healed he will always go to what is familiar…a rapist. No one here has the skill to give you advice in how to fix a broken heart, which is what you have lived with your entire life. We can encourage you to find IC.

And stay here because there will always be someone to "talk" to. On weekends and holidays you might have to wait awhile but no one will forget you.

I hope you are on meds for anxiety because it’s there all the time.