Hi everyone,
This is my first post here and I am looking for some advice and different perspectives on my issue. I have been in a relationship for 2 years with girlfriend and we have recently moved in together. She is the most important person that has ever been in my life, I love her a lot and up until last week thought that maybe within a year we might get married. We have a deep connection, both emotionally and spiritually, I often feel like we are two sides of the same coin.
In our relationship the thing that I value most is trust and honesty and not lying to each other. In regards to this, I have confessed to her some things about my sexual relationships that I am not proud of which she accepted. However, for me, things I have not done is had an affair with a married person or continued relationships with multiple sexual partners.
My girlfriend mentioned about her past at the beginning of the relationship. She talked about previous relationships but she said she had never cheated on anyone, that she had never had affairs with married men and couldn’t do one night stands as she thought they were dirty as needed to trust the man she was with (I have since discovered she has done all these things). She also disclosed that she was sexually abused as a child.
During our relationship I have always felt I could trust her and built up an image in my mind and felt safe with that and feel in love with that image of her. This is important to me as was subjected to physical violence as a child and actually this has caused me relationship problems as I tend to fear being trapped in a relationship or family as it makes me vulnerable to emotional abuse and being hurt (not physically though). I have gradually overcome this and decided to move in together a couple of weeks ago.
In the past, I have seen my girlfriend’s diary lying around, once I picked up an old one while clearing her drawers and it opened to a page detailing a past sexual relationship. I didn’t read it as I don’t want to know too much about her past. I want to love her for who she is now and not be burdened by details of past lovers. I told her about this and asked her to hide her diaries or take them to her parent’s house. She never did and I came across them again and the same thing happened. I told her again and asked her to move them as I didn’t want to read them. She said she was impressed as if it was her, she would be curious and would have read them. Anyway, curiosity killed the cat, I betrayed her trust and let us both down and read her diaries back to 2009. I found out too much about her history, it is so different from the person she led me believe she was that it has fundamentally undermined my ability to trust her and I fear that she may have cheated on me.
I found out that she has had affairs with three married men. One she was considering having his child as he said he would provide one his apartments to her and money. Apparently, he had another mistress as she said she didn’t mind being his 2nd girlfriend! I believe she may have had n abortion or miscarriage as a result of a pregnancy with him. During this time she had sexual relationships with two or three other men whilst seeing the married man.
Then I read about a particular time period of her life when she said she had no relationships; however, her diary clearly shows she had a sexual relationship possibly two during this time and maybe a one night stand – not a big deal, just why lie about things all the time. Then I read about 3 ½ years ago she was having unprotected sex with two guys she was dating at the same time and got pregnant and didn’t know who the father was. On one occasion she slept with one in the morning and another in the evening. She had to have an abortion as the fetus was deformed due to medicine she was taking for back problems at the time. She had relationship with these guys for about 2 months at the same time.
After she finished with both, she then had a relationship with some guy for about 4-5 months. They is no evidence she cheated on him, they broke when he had to leave the area. After this a diary entry suggests she met three guys at a bar and then the next week she had sex with one, then the following week she began a sexual relationship with the other and this continued for a period of a month or two. During that time, she had sex with a guy she seemed to know previously and also near the end began an affair with another married man. She also says she met the final one of the three guys again that she met at the bar and went home with him – don’t know if they had sex (but again multiple partners at the same time and the diary said one was worried about her getting pregnant – so it seems she was still practicing unsafe sex)
She then started dating her previous boyfriend to me, she had sex with the married man whilst they were dating, but when she slept with her ex-boyfriend after the 10th date, there is no evidence she slept with anyone else. They then broke up after a year and then we got together and have been together for about two years.
About 6- 9 months into our relationship, she contracted the HPV genital wart virus. I always suspected that I was a subclinical carrier (no symptoms) and had maybe just given it to her. Now, knowing about her history, I suspect she may have cheated on me. I cannot confirm this from her diary as the entries are usually short one-liners and sporadic – sometimes there are no entries for 3-4 months. About a month or two later, I then read that during our relationship we broke up for a while but were still friends and still sleeping together. We agreed that we wouldn’t sleep with anyone else and that if we were going to we would not sleep with each – honesty with each other. However, I read an entry that said she had that she had a hot night with some guy, after which she came round mine.
I am in the position where the image I had of her based of what she told me has been shattered. I find it shocking that she had relationships with married men, considered having one of their children in return for an apartment and money. I am shocked that there are numerous occasions where she is having multiple partners at the same time, practicing unsafe sex without condoms, and also one-night stands are apparent – something she said she has never done. Can I trust something that lies so blatantly to my face? I understand she was worried what I would say, but why leave the diaries for me to find, despite me warning her twice?
Firstly, I don’t like to see that my girlfriend has acted sexually in the ways above as it doesn’t fit my image of her and goes against what she has told me. Had she told me these things, I could have accepted them. However, I feel my idea of who she is was destroyed and feel like I don’t know she is now. These things only happened a couple of years – could she have changed that much? What does this mean for our relationship?
I am looking at our relationship completely differently now – did she get the HPV wart virus by cheating on me? Did she sleep with another guy while she was me? I just feel like I have no trust in her now. I am trying to focus on my love for her and what I feel for her and I know she genuinely loves me. However, I feel like my trust has gone.
I am also hurt as she is incredibly special to me, it seems that she has given herself away cheaply and been treated cheaply by others, it hurts me to see this and this is not how I see her. It is apparent she has engaged in risky, unprotected sex with multiple partners - what does this say about her?
I know she was sexually abused by a family member and I feel this may have contributed to her actions. I have been reading about how sexual abuse can affect people in adulthood and I can see many parallels with her life. She feels like her body is ruined and worthless, like she is responsible for what happened (she isn’t) and she has said that because of this she feels she can give her body to anyone – it doesn’t matter as her body is already ruined. I can see she has low self-esteem which shows up in her work-life and our relationship as being competitive and a perfectionist – perhaps trying to cover-up the negative feelings she feels inside. This lack of inner-worth has raised itself once when she self-harmed by scratching her arms with scissors. Is this low self-esteem responsible for her behavior, has she learnt that all she is good for is sex – is that she why behaved this way. Or is she using sex as way to gain power to manipulate men – trying to recover the lack of strength she felt. Or is it because as a child her boundaries were destroyed and she never learnt to say no to men? Is the unsafe sex a way to punish herself?
My situation is now a bit of a dichotomy. I feel betrayed that she lied to me about her past and allowed me to build a false image based on lies which has now cracked and I am struggling to trust her because now I look at our relationship differently and suspect she may have cheated or me. I have lost my feeling of safety because of this lack of trust and worry about whether I will be emotionally safe in the relationship. I have always felt she is hiding things from and worry if we get married what will come out then. The fact she self-harmed once terrifies me and I live in fear of doing her something to cause pain to herself or even attempt suicide. On the other hand, I care for deeply for her, I feel that her behavior could be because of past-trauma and don’t’ really want to abandon her and I want to try and help her and work through things.
I found about this last week, I haven’t discussed it with her as she has had a important job interview which I didn’t want to distract her from and we are going away this weekend. I also feel like I need to contemplate things further, feel my emotions and see whether I can accept this and find some direction. I will discuss this within a week or two. I will tell her that I read her diary, that I know about her history and that she lied to me and that I suspect she has cheated on me. I will tell I am hurt by this and my ability to trust her and been lessened and feel like my heart has closed up now. Then I will see what happens – a step into the unknown. But right now I am considering these questions:
What does her past behavior say about her and how does it affect her relationship? Can I accept that behavior?
How much of this behavior could be attributable to the abuse she suffered as a child? How can I help her with this?
Did she cheat on me? Can I trust her not to cheat on me if she did it previously?
Can I trust her not hurt me emotionally in the future?
Is it possible to relax my heart and build my trust?
Why didn't she hide her diaries if they contained stuff that could be damaging to our relationship?
In the meantime, I would appreciate any advice or opinions based on people’s experience? In particular, I interested in peoples' opinions about how much this situation could be affected by abuse and how I should handle it.
This is my first post here and I am looking for some advice and different perspectives on my issue. I have been in a relationship for 2 years with girlfriend and we have recently moved in together. She is the most important person that has ever been in my life, I love her a lot and up until last week thought that maybe within a year we might get married. We have a deep connection, both emotionally and spiritually, I often feel like we are two sides of the same coin.
In our relationship the thing that I value most is trust and honesty and not lying to each other. In regards to this, I have confessed to her some things about my sexual relationships that I am not proud of which she accepted. However, for me, things I have not done is had an affair with a married person or continued relationships with multiple sexual partners.
My girlfriend mentioned about her past at the beginning of the relationship. She talked about previous relationships but she said she had never cheated on anyone, that she had never had affairs with married men and couldn’t do one night stands as she thought they were dirty as needed to trust the man she was with (I have since discovered she has done all these things). She also disclosed that she was sexually abused as a child.
During our relationship I have always felt I could trust her and built up an image in my mind and felt safe with that and feel in love with that image of her. This is important to me as was subjected to physical violence as a child and actually this has caused me relationship problems as I tend to fear being trapped in a relationship or family as it makes me vulnerable to emotional abuse and being hurt (not physically though). I have gradually overcome this and decided to move in together a couple of weeks ago.
In the past, I have seen my girlfriend’s diary lying around, once I picked up an old one while clearing her drawers and it opened to a page detailing a past sexual relationship. I didn’t read it as I don’t want to know too much about her past. I want to love her for who she is now and not be burdened by details of past lovers. I told her about this and asked her to hide her diaries or take them to her parent’s house. She never did and I came across them again and the same thing happened. I told her again and asked her to move them as I didn’t want to read them. She said she was impressed as if it was her, she would be curious and would have read them. Anyway, curiosity killed the cat, I betrayed her trust and let us both down and read her diaries back to 2009. I found out too much about her history, it is so different from the person she led me believe she was that it has fundamentally undermined my ability to trust her and I fear that she may have cheated on me.
I found out that she has had affairs with three married men. One she was considering having his child as he said he would provide one his apartments to her and money. Apparently, he had another mistress as she said she didn’t mind being his 2nd girlfriend! I believe she may have had n abortion or miscarriage as a result of a pregnancy with him. During this time she had sexual relationships with two or three other men whilst seeing the married man.
Then I read about a particular time period of her life when she said she had no relationships; however, her diary clearly shows she had a sexual relationship possibly two during this time and maybe a one night stand – not a big deal, just why lie about things all the time. Then I read about 3 ½ years ago she was having unprotected sex with two guys she was dating at the same time and got pregnant and didn’t know who the father was. On one occasion she slept with one in the morning and another in the evening. She had to have an abortion as the fetus was deformed due to medicine she was taking for back problems at the time. She had relationship with these guys for about 2 months at the same time.
After she finished with both, she then had a relationship with some guy for about 4-5 months. They is no evidence she cheated on him, they broke when he had to leave the area. After this a diary entry suggests she met three guys at a bar and then the next week she had sex with one, then the following week she began a sexual relationship with the other and this continued for a period of a month or two. During that time, she had sex with a guy she seemed to know previously and also near the end began an affair with another married man. She also says she met the final one of the three guys again that she met at the bar and went home with him – don’t know if they had sex (but again multiple partners at the same time and the diary said one was worried about her getting pregnant – so it seems she was still practicing unsafe sex)
She then started dating her previous boyfriend to me, she had sex with the married man whilst they were dating, but when she slept with her ex-boyfriend after the 10th date, there is no evidence she slept with anyone else. They then broke up after a year and then we got together and have been together for about two years.
About 6- 9 months into our relationship, she contracted the HPV genital wart virus. I always suspected that I was a subclinical carrier (no symptoms) and had maybe just given it to her. Now, knowing about her history, I suspect she may have cheated on me. I cannot confirm this from her diary as the entries are usually short one-liners and sporadic – sometimes there are no entries for 3-4 months. About a month or two later, I then read that during our relationship we broke up for a while but were still friends and still sleeping together. We agreed that we wouldn’t sleep with anyone else and that if we were going to we would not sleep with each – honesty with each other. However, I read an entry that said she had that she had a hot night with some guy, after which she came round mine.
I am in the position where the image I had of her based of what she told me has been shattered. I find it shocking that she had relationships with married men, considered having one of their children in return for an apartment and money. I am shocked that there are numerous occasions where she is having multiple partners at the same time, practicing unsafe sex without condoms, and also one-night stands are apparent – something she said she has never done. Can I trust something that lies so blatantly to my face? I understand she was worried what I would say, but why leave the diaries for me to find, despite me warning her twice?
Firstly, I don’t like to see that my girlfriend has acted sexually in the ways above as it doesn’t fit my image of her and goes against what she has told me. Had she told me these things, I could have accepted them. However, I feel my idea of who she is was destroyed and feel like I don’t know she is now. These things only happened a couple of years – could she have changed that much? What does this mean for our relationship?
I am looking at our relationship completely differently now – did she get the HPV wart virus by cheating on me? Did she sleep with another guy while she was me? I just feel like I have no trust in her now. I am trying to focus on my love for her and what I feel for her and I know she genuinely loves me. However, I feel like my trust has gone.
I am also hurt as she is incredibly special to me, it seems that she has given herself away cheaply and been treated cheaply by others, it hurts me to see this and this is not how I see her. It is apparent she has engaged in risky, unprotected sex with multiple partners - what does this say about her?
I know she was sexually abused by a family member and I feel this may have contributed to her actions. I have been reading about how sexual abuse can affect people in adulthood and I can see many parallels with her life. She feels like her body is ruined and worthless, like she is responsible for what happened (she isn’t) and she has said that because of this she feels she can give her body to anyone – it doesn’t matter as her body is already ruined. I can see she has low self-esteem which shows up in her work-life and our relationship as being competitive and a perfectionist – perhaps trying to cover-up the negative feelings she feels inside. This lack of inner-worth has raised itself once when she self-harmed by scratching her arms with scissors. Is this low self-esteem responsible for her behavior, has she learnt that all she is good for is sex – is that she why behaved this way. Or is she using sex as way to gain power to manipulate men – trying to recover the lack of strength she felt. Or is it because as a child her boundaries were destroyed and she never learnt to say no to men? Is the unsafe sex a way to punish herself?
My situation is now a bit of a dichotomy. I feel betrayed that she lied to me about her past and allowed me to build a false image based on lies which has now cracked and I am struggling to trust her because now I look at our relationship differently and suspect she may have cheated or me. I have lost my feeling of safety because of this lack of trust and worry about whether I will be emotionally safe in the relationship. I have always felt she is hiding things from and worry if we get married what will come out then. The fact she self-harmed once terrifies me and I live in fear of doing her something to cause pain to herself or even attempt suicide. On the other hand, I care for deeply for her, I feel that her behavior could be because of past-trauma and don’t’ really want to abandon her and I want to try and help her and work through things.
I found about this last week, I haven’t discussed it with her as she has had a important job interview which I didn’t want to distract her from and we are going away this weekend. I also feel like I need to contemplate things further, feel my emotions and see whether I can accept this and find some direction. I will discuss this within a week or two. I will tell her that I read her diary, that I know about her history and that she lied to me and that I suspect she has cheated on me. I will tell I am hurt by this and my ability to trust her and been lessened and feel like my heart has closed up now. Then I will see what happens – a step into the unknown. But right now I am considering these questions:
What does her past behavior say about her and how does it affect her relationship? Can I accept that behavior?
How much of this behavior could be attributable to the abuse she suffered as a child? How can I help her with this?
Did she cheat on me? Can I trust her not to cheat on me if she did it previously?
Can I trust her not hurt me emotionally in the future?
Is it possible to relax my heart and build my trust?
Why didn't she hide her diaries if they contained stuff that could be damaging to our relationship?
In the meantime, I would appreciate any advice or opinions based on people’s experience? In particular, I interested in peoples' opinions about how much this situation could be affected by abuse and how I should handle it.
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