What goes around comes around??

triona82

Hi everyone, am in need of some advice...I've been with my fiancée for 11 years and like other couples we have had our ups and downs but we've been mostly happy.

I'm 29 now and D is 36 years old. Almost two years ago, (whilst I was in my final year of university as a mature student) I had to complete a fourteen week placement in a different county from D. While, I was on placement we continued to meet every weekend and phoned each other every day. This was a tough time for both of us as I was under a lot of pressure from courseload, work and other commitments and basically we weren't in sync. D wanted to see me more often but there was only some much of me to go around. D also a tendency to ring me loads during the day - way to much to be honest - we'd have the same conversation umpteen times.

Anyway, I finished my placement and moved back in with D. I found it really difficult being back, something had changed in our relationship or in my way of thinking as I found myself being really unhappy and had no idea why. During this time, I met another man, this guy was fun, charming, good looking and we appeared to have lots in common. He also offered a form of escapism which is just what I needed at the time. We started hanging out a great deal and I began to drop everything in order to hang out with him. When we did hang out, we drank a lot and would take a lot of drugs - more escapism! Obviously this started to affect nearly every aspect of my life, I became secretive, withdrew from my family and of course D. I would also stay out for days at a time with new guy which obviously started to cause major upset in my relationship with D. To be honest during this time, I became a different person. I was totally besotted with new guy and the fun we were having. Anyways to cut a long story short (sorry if I waffled) this continued for about a year and a half and at the end D found out about my affair...

This was a horrific time my affair broke D's heart and torn my life apart. Of course I knew on some level that what I was doing wasn't right and there was no comparison between D and Mr. Escapism, to be honest Mr. Escapism for all his wit and charm wasn't that nice of a person (and treated me like crap on many an occasion but I was hooked on the excitement he offered. D and I stayed together but obviously he didn't trust me anymore and drove himself half deranged checking up on me. One night we had a particularly bad argument and D assaulted me - I genuinely thought he was going to kill me. D half apologised for hurting me a day or two later but also told me that I caused him to act that way because of what I had done.

A month later I was offered a job in my home county and I decided to take it - I thought it would give me the chance to sort my life out and it would also give me some distance from Mr. Escapism. D was going to move with me but there was a lot of anger, hurt, resentment and fear between us. We constantly fought, and just before we were meant to move we had another major row. I told D that I needed a break from us as I was sick of us fighting. He agreed and I moved back home by myself and he came to our town a couple weeks later. During this time, D was still constantly calling me saying that he wanted us to get back together. I still didn't know what to do so I asked him not to contact me for a while.

He stopped calling so often but would still ring me to say he loved me and missed me. During this time I was able to see that I did want to give our relationship another shot and we've been back together for the last 4 months and things have been great. we're both happy with our jobs, happy with each other and I don't do drugs or cheat. When we got back together, I told him that I had gone on one date when we on a break and that we had kissed - no more. I asked him if he had been on any dates and he told that he hadn't and that he hadn't wanted to because he had missed me so much.

This weekend I found out that he lied, he had slept with a girl he knows when we on our break (even though this was the time he had been ringing me saying that he loved and missed me) I found out that he arranged to meet with a colleague that he had never met but talked to quite a lot on the phone for work. This woman has always been very flirty to him. He arranged to meet her in a hotel in Kilkenny and they ended up in bed. He said that he had regretted it immediately. I know this is going to sound so hypocritical but am crushed, would never have thought he'd do that and can't believe how he could lie when he was the one who said that we had to be honest with each other. He said it just happened but he obviously knew it was going to happen why else book a hotel room? And to top it all off, this woman would not be his type at all - she's 38, has two grown up children and she is a lot larger than me - she's a size 16 and I'm a size 8 - he's always said that he doesn't find larger girls attractive - so MY QUESTION IS DID HE JUST DO IT TO GET BACK AT ME AND WHY AFTER I CHEATED ON HIM AM I SO UPSET ABOUT HIM SLEEPING WITH HER?
Would really appreciate some feedback...thanks

I am a friend

No i would say he did it cos he wanted to. Maybe he wanted someone new who doesn't do drugs and doesn't cheat on him.

This relationship sounds toxic and you have no right to judge him for seeing someone else when you were broken up. To be Frank, this relationship has so many issues the pair of ye could do with counselling

you were broken up, you didn't want to hear from him, and he slept with someone
it's not about you or getting back at you it's what single people do

would also echo that if you want to give it another go you both need couples counselling

Curry Addict

triona82 wrote: »

MY QUESTION IS DID HE JUST DO IT TO GET BACK AT ME AND WHY AFTER I CHEATED ON HIM AM I SO UPSET ABOUT HIM SLEEPING WITH HER?
Would really appreciate some feedback...thanks

not everything that happens is about you OP. he was probably trying to move on.

floorpie

Eh you're probably going to get a lot of flak here but i just wanted to say that, whatever my own emotive reaction to your story was, what happened to you - change in social setting (going on placement) arousing a change in social identity, causing changes in established relationships and lifestyles, even the unease at coming home after placement ('re-entry shock').....it's kind of normal and common, it's just not that often that we'd be hearing it in such detail. When you say "I became a different person" you sort of literally did, it's just not something that people are gonna 'get', because it doesn't really jive with the expectations for social and personal responsibility that people tend to have engrained into them.

It's also normal for the person who cheats first to have a surprisingly strong reaction when they find out that their partner does something like yours did (sleep with someone else even after you cheated, or the partner moves on, etc).

I'm not saying that any of it is right or wrong, but it does happen and it's basically normal.

What's *not* as common is for the relationship to eventually survive, as yours did, so that really stands as a testament to your partners dedication and love.

The relationship isn't toxic, as somebody said. It probably has more potential to be a strong relationship than most, seeing as she's already experienced and dealt with the situations and transformations that cause the demise of pairings, which can happen to *anyone* no matter how strong you think you are, so therefore may be better able to deal with them in the future, compared to somebody who hasn't experienced them.

Edit: Ah and just to add, it's almost amusing (no offense) re-reading your post, at how long and complicated and emotionally deep your explanations for your own affair was, but then your reasoning for him sleeping with someone comes down to, in capital letters, wondering if he only did it for revenge. You know from experience how fundamentally your identity can be altered by circumstance and what those changes can make you do (e.g. have an affair), you have to understand that, after he found out, he had to go through those same changes you did. It sounds like you're still thinking of him as the exact same person he was before the affair and not giving enough credit to the changes he would've had to go through because of it.

LegacyUser

Yes you will get a lot of flake on here. But real life is not always as cut and dry and the moralists on here would have us believe.
Relationships can survive affairs if you put the work in, which it sounds like you are doing.
So what if he didn't tell you? He was probably trying to spare your feelings. He didn't do anything wrong. And there is no point in obsessing about her or how much better you are. She was hot enough for him to connect with. You're hot enough for him to commit to even after everything. Let the man have a private memory. Be glad that all your confusion and mess is over and move on with a man who loves you. Though a few counselling sessions would probably not go astray.

idiotman

+1 for Floorpies comment. You could make a good go of things as you both know what it is like to be hurt badly by someone you love and I am sure neither of you want to go through that ever again.
Going to a good counceling service will help both of you to make the changes that you need in order to salvage your relationship and to prevent you from ever getting back to this position again.
All the best.