Relationship Issues Secrets

Anxious over telling my girlfriend that my ex was nearby when we met

So I met my current girlfriend in a foreign country. What she doesn’t know is that my girlfriend was living in the same foreign country at the time that we met, although I had broken up with her before anything happened. Our relationship just did not work out. We stayed together in that country for four months while my ex was about an hours train journey away. My current gf knew I had a gf when we met, and she knew that I had broken up with her. She just did not know where she was living at that time. I met up with my ex-gf in that country but only once and before I met my current gf. We did not see each other again until I had moved back to my country of origin.

I met with my ex-gf when I returned back home by accident. We spoke about our relationship, but I have told my current gf this. I feel guilty that my current gf does not know that my ex was living in the same country when we got together.

I feel like that country was special to us and it would feel weird to say that my ex-gf was also there. She has told me things like "if you cheated on me, but it was a one time thing I would not want to know". I have never, nor would ever, cheat on her. I believe that this is nowhere near as bad as cheating. I suffer a lot from anxiety and over-thinking, and I am not sure if I need to tell her. I am not sure if telling her would actually relieve my anxiety (I worry about my health, future career etc.).

Cheated because we never have sex

I have cheated on my partner of 7 years again. I had previously been seeing a man who didn’t know I had a partner but I told him recently and when we met up to discuss it and essentially end it we ended up having sex. It’s really taking its toll on me. My partner loves me and I do love him but we have not had sex in almost four years. We are like roommates... It’s destroying me, we are both too nice and I guess in love with each other platonically to accept it. I know what I am doing is wrong but when you have not had physical intimacy in that long and men make you feel sexy and special again it’s too hard to resist. I wish I had the courage to accept our relationship fate. It would be best for both of us. We are 31 and I fear my lack of courage will last for the next 30 years. I am truly alone.

Angry at my husband’s cheating

Been with my husband for 7 years and married for 3. Before we tied the knot I found out he had cheated on me through texts in his phone, which he had put under a fake name. Not only did he deny it but got angry and defensive which led me to investigate further where I found emails of proof he was and also her worrying that she might be pregnant. Which was hurtful to read as I had just found out I was pregnant a week before.

Even after telling him that I was expecting he continued to deny it. Sadly enough because of me being pregnant he decides to stay with me. Which obviously made me feel like crap knowing I was 2nd choice and he only stayed with me cause of the baby. A year later he asked me to marry him... because I had his baby. Stupid enough I said yes and now we have 4 Kids. To this day all those emotions I felt that day and what I read have never left my mind because I see this girl quite a lot.

She is my sister-in-laws younger sister. So she attends all our nieces and nephews’ birthdays and some family outings. The sad thing is my husband has never really apologized, or felt bad let alone admit what he did was wrong. He somehow makes it out like if it doesn’t bother him it shouldn’t bother me. It is so awkward when I see them talking by themselves or hear my own kids say her name. This is something that will take me forever to get over and I hope I do.

Cause all I blame is myself that I wasn’t enough and didn’t satisfy him well for my husband to go out and get something on the side. My heart goes out to all whose been cheated on. I really hope that one day it’ll get easier....

Past and present issues

I’ve had a somewhat checkered past. Nothing terrible, but not the chaste past that my boyfriend would like to think of me. He and I want to get married, but in his mind, "we" should reveal all details about our past prior to getting engaged. The "we" means me. He maintains that he has never done anything he is ashamed of, always been a gentleman, etc. but for certain reasons, he believes that I have secrets from him. The truth is that I do have secrets from him. Things that would only hurt him that no longer have any bearing on my life and would only hurt him. At the same time, I don’t believe him for lots of reasons.

We both travel a lot for work. My time away is spent alone in a hotel room, at work, or working out. His time away, I have no idea. We have been together for two years, and there is so much I still don’t know about him.

And, since this is an anonymous post. I have also supported him the entire time we’ve been together. I’ve likely given him $200,000 in cash plus other things. I know how this sounds. It sounds like I am a pathetic woman who is being had by some man. And, you know what, maybe I am, but it could possibly end up on the other side. If it doesn’t, I’ve learned an important lesson. I’ve always thought that if someone is asking for money they must need it more than me. I don’t regret it, but you are all right. I am probably an idiot. He is probably manipulating me and controlling me.

He’s all over the dating sites

I have been with this man since 2008 and he has hurt me time after time. He lies to me, even when I catch him and have proof. He says I’m crazy and I need help. I’ve caught him on all the dating sites with his photo. Caught his texting on our bill and every time he sets his phone back to default. Then I find out seven years later he had a three some with my friend and his friend, but all the years after they were still coming to our house and I hag no clue, but when I bring it up I’m living in the past. He was texting a girl right bedside me and I found out. They’re is a girl at his job he was seeing because I left him after finding all this out and we got back together to work it out and I found out he was still texting her. He use to not worry about his work clothes so much now he does, fusses with his hair all the time, he use to not do. Swears he’s not doing nothing no more loves only me, but I’m so broken hearted and don’t believe nothing he says.

Back with my ex and lying to her

After breaking up with my girlfriend I began a relationship with another girl, which was happy in places but was not nearly as nice as my original relationship. After about 6 months we broke up and I ended up in contact with my previous girlfriend, and it became clear we still loved each other. I wanted to be honest with her and told her I had been seeing someone else, but she was extremely jealous and sad, even though I learned she had also been seeing someone during this time. Consequently I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I had been seeing this girl for 6 months and lied, saying we had only been together for 2. I feel incredibly guilty and anxious about lying, especially since my ex girlfriend and I look as if we might get back together again. She keeps asking questions and I am terrified she is going to find out that we saw each other for longer, but I couldn’t bear her jealousy if I revealed this. I wish she would just forget and stop asking questions, but I am consumed with anxiety. I love her, but I don’t want to always feel guilty and afraid that our new relationship is built on a lie.

I Fell In Love With Someone Else

I still love my wife of 20+ years, but we’ve been distant for 10 years in many ways, especially physically. About two years I began working with a woman I really clicked with, and for the next several months I took more joy in being at work than I did at home. She and I did nothing, said nothing, just worked and talked about everything from God to Goldfish crackers, and over the days shared more and more of our private lives away from work. I fell in love. I didn’t want to, I didn’t try to. In fact, I fought it like all hell, I am a married man, and I have no business being in love with someone other than my wife, no matter how bad our marriage may be at this point. But I did. This was made worse by the fact that I knew my co-worker was in love with me as well. I knew from day one she was attracted to me, not by anything she said or did, but there was that...energy...in the air between us.

Anyway, the struggle went on for about 8 months until we stopped working together. I didn’t see her for about 3 months, and we met for coffee. As soon as she walked in, I knew that all of my bluster and bullshit was just that: bullshit and bluster, because I loved her. I had for months, I had missed her horribly, and my heart was in my throat the whole time.

A few months later, my time became very free as my family was away, and we met for coffee again. At that meeting I told her that she loved me, and by the end of the afternoon she had essentially admitted it—and we were together every day after that...just talking. Within a couple days, she openly said that she loved me...and hearing it come from her lips gave me the courage to admit that I was in love with her too.

I left to be with my family about a month later, our forbidden love still held entirely at bay physically; and here I sit several months later, with my family, my marriage teetering on the brink of divorce. Wanting it and being afraid of it—not wanting to hurt my wife in any way, but wanting to hold someone else my remaining years. She and I "talk" online nearly every night, and the stress is absolutely fucking killing me! It also plays hell on the two of us and our "relationship" such as it is and suffers in ways it would not were we out in the open and together.

I don’t know how long I can go on waiting for my wife to call this to an end, and still not wanting her to do it. Wanting to be with my love hundreds of miles away, but afraid to go for a divorce myself—I have a young daughter who means everything to me, and I can’t afford to do anything that would see me fighting to remain in her life.

It’s a mess, a huge ridiculous flipping mess—worse than any soap opera plot—and it is killing me with depression and anxiety. I don’t even believe at this point that I can really truly trust her...and I can’t bear to not be with her even so.

If only we could actually control our emotions rather than just our actions... Love sucks.

On the Verge of Cheating Again

I love my wife but can’t stop flirting and I had a affair twenty years ago which we have worked through, she loves me and does everything for me she is fantastic but my trouble is I can’t stop looking at other women, my friends daughter runs a business at work and we get on well together she’s twenty years younger than me and she’s tells me she thinks a lot of me. She’s going through a rough patch with her husband at the moment and she tells me everything and I feel things are getting out of hand, although no serious physical contact as taken place I’m racked with guilt that I thought about cheating again like time is passing me by and I won’t get a chance like this again, but it’s breaking my heart that I’ve even thought these things my wife is my soul mate and my best friend we been through so much together and all I want do is mess things up again it’s like I have a self destruct button, when things are going well I just mess it all up.

Made a mess of my love life

I’m a woman in her late 20s now. I have always cheated. But I never took anybody too seriously until I met Brad. Everything was great at first. I really loved him. Things changed about a year in. I had a shit job and it really started to affect me as a person. Brad and I never had sex anymore. I ended up having sex with a friend from work a weekend while he was away. And the weekend or so before then I made out with another male acquaintance. After he got back. It ended the Wednesday. Both of us agreed. I ended up meeting a guy through some friends and dated him immediately. Big mistake. During this break up. Brad had sex with this girl who hung around our group and was known for her discretions/ low self esteem and lack of respect for anybody. A lot of people were hurt. Me included. We worked it out and I felt so much resentment towards him ever since. I cheated on him with my same work friend again and told him. I also fooled around with one of his friends during a drunken, angry night. And told him. I went back to a married friend I used to see. We have sex every 6 months or so. He has no idea. I was talking to a guy from work who I had a huge crush on. But nothing happened. Just a lot of texting. I talk to other men as well. Mostly just picture exchanging and dirty texts. Brad never has sex with me anymore. I’m so frustrated. And maybe that’s why I seek out attention from other men. I needed to get this out. I think I am the only one to blame for my resentment but I don’t know how to tell him.

Learned through my mistakes and keeping it to myself for now

I am mother of a young child, married to a wonderful man, and I had an affair. For some reason, I thought this other guy, who is also married with children, was my soul mate. For about 10 months we wrote and chatted every day, saw each other a few times a week, arranged to meet publicly, and also met secretly. We had sex a handful of times, and we were convinced that we were in love. I still don’t know if that’s true. I honestly don’t know quite what that means anymore. Things started to fall apart when he started talking about leaving our spouses so that we could be together - he and his wife were on the verge of filing - and I told him not to ask me to leave my husband, that if he wanted to get a divorce then it had to be for him, not for me. So he backpedaled, and the next five months were spent with him putting various rules and boundaries in place, and me begging for bits and scraps of anything I could get of the adoration he used to show me, which I had grown addicted to. One day in June something snapped and I was tired enough of being caught on his hook and put in my place that I cut the line, told him the relationship was toxic, and informed him that I would not be speaking to him anymore. It was hard because there were still instances where we were forced to work together, but I avoided speaking to him almost entirely, with a few conversational relapses here and there. That was one year ago. But although things have much improved in all areas of my life since that time, it has been a hard year, and it has been difficult to heal because even though it is over, it is always running through my mind. I regret every aspect of my relationship with this person, except, strangely, for the pain and the lessons it taught me. This experience has forced me to face the lack of self-love and self-respect that made me vulnerable to this guy’s advances the first place. I’ve begun to look at life and love in a whole new way, a way that finally has the semblance of something healthy and whole. It has given me a new appreciation for my marriage and I feel more in love with my husband than ever. But it kills me that there is this secret between us, this barrier to intimacy. But I do not want to put him through the pain of knowing if I can possibly help it. Or maybe I’m just too scared to lose him, especially now that I’m pregnant with our second child. I just want us to move on with our life. He told me last weekend that he loves our life, that he’s so happy. After everything I’ve done to put this family at risk, and after all the work I’ve put into reflecting on myself and my values to make sure this never, ever happens again, I just can’t bear to deny him (and us) the happiness he deserves simply because I need to get a secret off my chest. However, I do, which is why I’m writing here. Maybe one day I will have the strength and courage to tell him, no matter what the outcome. But for now, this secret is mine to bear, my problem, my punishment for a colossal mistake. I’d like to send my love out to all of you out there who have wronged or been wronged - may we all find grace and forgiveness and peace in our hearts.