Messed-up fiance

LegacyUser

My fiance and I have recentley split up because we have constant problems about his past behaviour. We've been together 4 years. No matter how much I try to get over things he's done, they still hurt so much and I caused about 90% of rows because of this. In the early days, he flirted heavily, via text, email etc with a few other girls. He was 22 at the time, still in college. Then about a year and a half ago, he briefly kissed some girl at a party, having gotten depressed and gone back to his old way of feeling better about himself. He rang me straight away, literally 5 minutes after it happened, crying and ashamed. I asked him the other day why all this happened, so I could make the choice to give things another go or not. I know if I do, that I have to completely let this stuff go. This is what he said:

"I did love you. I did fancy you.
I did care about you but I was also selfish and insecure.
I thrived on female attention. I found the girls attractive and I enjoyed the flirting.
It was selfish and wrong of me. I was stupidly getting my self esteem from **** like that.
I know I would never have had the necessary evilness or heart to hurt you by going any further than flirting but what I did was still wrong.
I put a stupid kick and thrill I got above your feelings.
That's why I say I don't deserve you"

He's agreed to go to counselling to get to the root cause of this behaviour. Should I give him another chance? In all other ways he's the sweetest, kindest person.

neveah

I'm a little confused, are you arguing about an incident that happened a year and a half ago? Did you discuss this at the time when it happened? Why has it come to the surface again now? Have you noticed any improvement in his behaviour since this incident? If you have then I'm not sure why you would be bringing it up again.

If he is willing to go to counselling in order to solve this problem then I think that is a very admirable move. Maybe see how this goes for a while before you make a final decision. If you love him and it sounds like he loves you and wants to make it work and he's apologetic about his past behaviour then I can't see a reason why you can't sort things out. The thing is you also need to sort yourself out too, once this stuff has been resolved you can't keep bringing it up and throwing it in his face in the future. It's going to take the two of you to make it work.

Neyite

heartbroken girl wrote: »

My fiance and I have recentley split up because we have constant problems about his past behaviour. We've been together 4 years. No matter how much I try to get over things he's done, they still hurt so much and I caused about 90% of rows because of this. In the early days, he flirted heavily, via text, email etc with a few other girls. He was 22 at the time, still in college.

are you still upset over flirting that is 4 years ago? by now, you should have resolved this. if you are still bringing it up in rows now, then the fact is you cannot forgive this, even if you say you do. and this isnt even cheating - this is something that should have been dealt with at the time. it has no place in rows four years later.

heartbroken girl wrote: »

Then about a year and a half ago, he briefly kissed some girl at a party, having gotten depressed and gone back to his old way of feeling better about himself. He rang me straight away, literally 5 minutes after it happened, crying and ashamed. I asked him the other day why all this happened, so I could make the choice to give things another go or not. I know if I do, that I have to completely let this stuff go. This is what he said:

"I did love you. I did fancy you.
I did care about you but I was also selfish and insecure.
I thrived on female attention. I found the girls attractive and I enjoyed the flirting.
It was selfish and wrong of me. I was stupidly getting my self esteem from **** like that.
I know I would never have had the necessary evilness or heart to hurt you by going any further than flirting but what I did was still wrong.
I put a stupid kick and thrill I got above your feelings.
That's why I say I don't deserve you"

He's agreed to go to counselling to get to the root cause of this behaviour. Should I give him another chance? In all other ways he's the sweetest, kindest person.

he messed up and kissed someone. immediately, he told you, and for the last year and a half has been waiting for you to forgive him. if you cant, then leave him. again, this is something that should have been resolved and forgiven by now, especially if he has shown you that he is remorseful and has shown you that he has learned from his mistake.

i dunno. it ok if you cant get over these issues, but pretending you are when you really are not, means that you both suffer. if it were me, i would give him a second chance -its not like he slept with her, but you do need to decide if you can really forgive - enough to never speak about it again and put it fully behind you both. if you cant, then you need to move on.

shellyboo

Should you give him another chance?

heartbroken girl wrote: »

My fiance and I have recentley split up because we have constant problems about his past behaviour. We've been together 4 years. No matter how much I try to get over things he's done, they still hurt so much and I caused about 90% of rows because of this.

Sounds like he should be giving you another chance. It was one kiss, he's been apologising for a year and a half, he's nailed the reasons he did it (he doesn't need counselling over *one* kiss, by the way), he understands why it happened, and he's the "nicest, sweetest, kindest person?" Stop being a martyr and let it go already. It's practically a non-event (a drunken kiss in college) and you've spun it out for a year and a half. No wonder you two split up, that sounds like a nightmare.

Ickle Magoo

There is only one way your relationship is going to work and that is if you can draw a line under his behaviour and move on - accept what has happened in the past is in the past and open a new chapter on your relationship. If you can't do that then there is no point getting into a relationship with this man because no amount of chances will make you feel vindicated and he'll spend the relationship walking on egg shells and getting resentful which is a recipe for further disaster.

Best of luck.

LegacyUser

There are 2 possible scenarios here:

1 he was engaged to you when he kissed someone else or
2 you got engaged to him knowing he had pretty recently kissed someone else...

If it's the former then I don't blame you for finding it hard to let go bu if it's the latter then I would be curious why you got engaged to him without sorting yur head out first.