My relationship took a big turn for the worst. We were engaged, together for 3 years, and I have never loved someone like I do her. Here's what happened:

A year and a half ago, a week before her birthday, I kissed another girl. I had 8 shots of 151 and was at a party grinding with my friend Katerina. The house got busted (we were underage at the time) so we all booked. I saw her walking in the shadier part of town where a lot of robberies and shootings happen, so I walked her back to her place. When we got back to her place, I said fuck it and kissed her. Then I said I have to leave and went back to my place and felt like shit. I have always been so against cheating ever since my very first girlfriend cheated on me. If you cheated on me it was a deal breaker. I don't like to lie or keep secrets so I decided to tell her after her birthday. I didn't want to ruin her birthday. So I waited. And the week after I was tearing myself up trying to figure out how to tell her.... And then her dad died in a tragic boating accident. Exactly 7 days after birthday. So there was no way I could tell her now. That would have been too much negative emotion and stress for anybody to handle. So I buried it. And it ate at me ever since. I would think about it two or three times a week.

She fell into a depression after her dad passed, and I tried my hardest to be there for her and be happy. I tried to be happy and somewhat upbeat (not too much, that'd be annoying) to help lift her up, even when I was down. If I had a shitty day, I put it aside for her. She never asked me to, or implied that I should do this for her, but I did this for like 10 months. It emotionally drained me and left me emotionally exhausted. I had nothing left. So the second she got up to what she used to be, I slipped. I fell into a depression myself.

And at the start of the summer, she vowed to be more fun and outgoing. Nothing wrong with that. But I work nights and she works days so I can't go out with her. So she found a replacement so to speak... a 35-year-old guy named Ben she used to work with at a small time paper editing job. They had the same minimum wage job. Yeah, he's going places. Anyways, so they started going out every Thursday. Not a problem, I'm not a jealous guy. But he only wanted to hang out if they were in a fun environment. He just got out of a long term relationship himself, and he never seemed to respect the fact that she was in one. He would make little jabs at our relationship and she would just laugh. So they only hung out when they were going to do something super exciting. But even though he lived within walking distance of his work, every time he got off work (since she didn't have a car) he insisted on driving out of his way to pick her up and then go back to his apartment. So she would sit in the living room while he would shower and then they would go out.
They also started texting all the damn time. When we first got to college, she would text me while she was with her then boyfriend and she would like to him about me. Well, they started texting all the time and it would even be during times where we were hanging out with my family. There was a time where she said “I want to show you this text my sister sent me!” She pulled up the text screen on her phone and between the two of us, we had 72 text messages. But they had over 240. And she deletes her texts all the time because her phone doesn’t have that much memory. It was an everyday thing.

Well two weeks ago she got home at three in the morning after hanging out with him. She said was hammered. She said he was drunk too but they drove anyways. He walked her up to our door but didn’t come inside because he knew I was in there. After that, she was very off putting to me for a few days. I wrote her a note talking about how we need to work out some kinks in our relationship, she said she needed a few days to think. We decided to go on a drive and talk. She admitted that they kissed. I told her that I kissed Katerina as well. She said she vented to her friends about this and they said that she needs to focus on what she needs as an individual, not as a couple. And they think we should go on a break and find ourselves. I said that wasn’t a bad idea, but in no way is this a breakup.
The next 5 straight days she hung out with Ben. I work 9pm-2am. Every night after I went to work, she would get picked up by him at 9:15 and they would “go get food” or “watch movies.” Then, the Thursday after she made out with him, she didn’t come home (we just moved into an apartment together in July). She told me she just crashed at Ben’s. I sat her down that Friday and broke things off. When I kissed Katerina, I broke off our friendship because that was the right thing to do. You never stay friends with the person you cheated on your significant other with. But she hung out with him every night for 6 hours AT THE LEAST at a time. I told her I don’t believe for a second that she didn’t do anything with him. This could have been a test in our relationship, but she failed. She admitted that something happened between the two of them, and it feels awful. I said that now this is just knowing when to call it quits, and I’m calling it quits. She bawled her eyes out. She called her mom and left and she was an absolute mess.

I didn’t talk to her for a few days, but then I sat her down again and we talked some more. She had been a wreck the past week after I broke up with her, crying nonstop, not eating and smoking a pack a day. We talked more. Things were looking better. I was thinking about forgiving her and getting back together and really working on our relationship. At first I thought "I'd be a fool to stay with a girl like that." But then, the more I thought about love, I thought "I'd be a fool to not stay with her and try to work things out." We talked again the next day… and she admitted that they had sex twice. Once on Wednesday, and it felt horrible, and then on Thursday because she thought when I told her I was going to hang out with my friend Kayla that we were going to fuck, which all we did was go on a 3 hour drive. She got jealous went back to him.

A few days later, on a Thursday, we talked again. She said she stopped talking to Ben. Awesome. A couple days passed and I was venting to our mutual friend Torie, and Torie said that she talked with Ben the same night after we talked saying she stopped talking to him and that they met at the bar. We talked again Monday and I told her she lied. I said I wanted to look at her phone. Remember we talked on Thursday and she said that she stopped talking to him… They had 62 texts. This is what I found reading through them... After I went to work Thursday night she texted him “Are you going to Thursdays?” (Thursdays is a bar here in Akron) and he replied saying yeah so she said “Great! See you then!” The next day texts were blah blah I’m so hungover blah. But in one text he said “Come over. I miss you and want to cuddle some more.” She replied with “Haha, I can’t :p” Fuck. After a few more texts he said something like “I’m so bad! Do you like that I’m bad?” Her reply “No. But yes…” FUCK. Then he was talking about how he’s not a good person and she wrote him this super long text about how he is a good person, she can see it, and she wants him to see it too. And in that text this was included, and I quote, “I threw my relationship away for you. And I don’t regret it. But if I could go back I’d do it differently.” FUCK FUCK FUCK.

But when she talks to me I can see how sincerely sorry she is. She cries so hard and she looks so hurt. She even swore on her dad’s ashes that she did not mean it the regret part the way she said it.

I’m so torn up and lost. Any help would be appreciated, if you actually took the time to read this. If you did, thank you.

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-Bedrock

"The society that separates scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." - Thucydides

Seize the day with love

Sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you learn.

I feel for you brother.

At any rate you can't marry this girl the way that you are now. You haven´t done anything wrong, it is all on her. She has probably even fallen for this other guy. It doesn´t look like she is ready to leave him for you and vice versa.

Do you really think you deserve this? After how well you treated her during her depression she disses you because of bad logistics with work hours.

I think you should give her a last chance not necessarily to fix your relationship but to see her true colors so you don't have any regrets.

Does this advice help in anyway?

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No matter what, I must live without regret

Life is good

Live it for yourself

Hey man, I know how you're feeling. I was at that point about 8 months ago. Unfortunately, I wasn't man enough to break it off myself. Until I said I don't do "breaks" and we broke up. The similarities are uncanny.

My ex had some depression issues in the middle of our relationship, which lasted 3.5 years before it ended. I stuck with her through that, until she seemed she was happier. And then I fell into a little slump myself, with the stress of starting a new full-time job, and fear that my mom might lose her job because of layoffs. Plus, the health of my grandparent's was deteriorating. Long story short, she found some new guy at school and they started talking all the time. One night she went to his house for a party, said she would be home around 2am. She didn't get home until 5am, after ignoring some texts from me asking if she was ok. I don't have any proof anything went on between them, but the next day is when shit hit the fan and we broke up for good a couple days later.

Now, I'm not going to tell you what I think you should do. I think you already know what is best, you are just afraid to be single (alone) again. Instead, I am going to give you some insight as to how things will be post-breakup.

First week is going to be tough, you were together for a long time and are used to having someone to talk to every day. Do not reach out to her, do not respond to anything she sends you. Instead, reconnect with old friends you may have neglected, or family members who can support you. When I was going through this, my family and friends really shocked me at how much they supported me. It felt good to know I had them to back me up.

After a month, you will still think about her, but it won't be as bad. You will now think more about the bad times, rather than the good. This is good, as long as you don't act out against her and say some angry things to her. It is best to be mature and keep things civil. You will now realize, however, that you don't need her around to be happy. During this month, you have worked on yourself and are building yourself up as an individual again. You can start dating, but keep things light. Don't rush into a relationship with someone else, rebounds never work.

After 6 months, you take a look back at how you handled things and feel proud of yourself. You have reshaped yourself as a person, and people around you notice. She may try to contact you again, and force herself back into your life. Don't let this happen. Chances are her rebound didn't work out, and she needs confirmation that someone still wants her. This is when you realize you don't want her. You have had a blast being single the past few months, and are exploring bigger (not literally ) and better things. Life is looking good, and you may actually want to thank her for screwing up so you had an excuse to leave the relationship.

Beyond that, who knows what happens. That is where I am now, and I hope you realize you shouldn't go back to that toxic relationship. You're still young (from what I gathered with the whole underage party thing), you gave a long-term relationship a chance. It didn't work out, now its time to get back into single life and have some fun.

I wish you the best, good luck. If you need anything, feel free to PM me.

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The hottest ginger you'll ever meet.

I don't have an ego, I just love how awesome I am.

I can't in any way tell you what the right thing to do is. This is something you're going to figure out for yourself.

But I can what I would've done, and the short version is - dump her.
Yes you love her, and yes she might be sorry but had it been me i'd simply not have tolerated the level of disrespect that she has shown!
- short and honest

I hope the best for you

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Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
/J. Caesar by W. Shakespeare

I completely agree with 96Firebird here.

I was in a similar situation as you both: 6 years together, 1 year engaged. She was in a slump for a couple years and I was *MORE* than supportive about everything. I go into a slump for a couple months, and I get ignored.

I tolerated this behavior for longer than i should have and let me tell you, the longer you try to make it right, the more miserable you'll be. There's some driving force to this guy right now and it's like a drug for her. She can cry and say she's sorry all she wants, but her actions are showing you she doesn't care what will happen. Her selfishness won't just majically disappear; it will only get worse.

The way I look at it, if you're engaged, you shouldn't be hanging out with other single men that often....you're just playing with fire. The same goes for us guys hanging out with single women. The temptation will be there and that isn't how relationships should be at all.

Save yourself your sanity and do a clean break. I'm 8 months out of my broken engagement and there were some VERY hard months. After around the 2-3 month mark, I was the person I used to be and the depression and anxiety magically disappeared. I loved my girl to the bitter end and thought I could forgive her, but you'll be questioning everything she does if you get back together and it will kill you both. Trust is a hard thing to earn back, and at the end of the day, they disrespected us and they don't deserve a second chance.

your engaged live-in girlfriend fucks another guy, promises to dump him, keeps seeing and texting him, tells him she is OK with fucking up your relationship for him, and you wonder what you should do just because she cries and says "sorry" to your face

reality check: if she were truly sorry, she would have stopped any and all interactions with this guy after kissing him. she would be like "OMG what did I do? I knew this was gonna happen. oh fuck.. what do I do now? you, Ben, get the fuck outta my life. I need to figure out what to do with Bedrock!! Are you still here piece of shit Ben?"

In fact, guess what, this is what you did after you kissed another girl. You did not text the other chick saying "You are so bad. I like it." or any shit to that effect. You were sorry. She is simply trying to avoid the "slut" label by getting your approval: "yes honey it's all right, because you are sorry. you are crying, so you are not a slut."

best solution is to kick her ass to the curb, telling her very clearly that she is a dirty filthy worthless whore.

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nice guys don't get laid
"It's disrespectful not to bang them when they sleepover." (Hellhound)

Goddamn right. Women can cry very easily, by the way. Don't feel that because she's crying that she's genuinely sorry about anything. Action speaks louder than any blubbery words.

96Firebird, that was eloquent. Truly well said, sir.

Also, I know it's not the theme of the story, but this Ben guy driving a car when both he and your girl were hammered? Unacceptable. I hope you let her know how stupid that was.

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"Let me ask you something. If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?"

Alright man well I think you have learned two very valuable lessons from this!

1# It should never be ok for your gf to hang out alone with another male, men only want one thing, they don't hang out with women to be friends, they hang out to get laid or start a relationship. Women are naive and weak, they don't understand this, she put her self in a very bad situation and you allowed it to happen right in front of your eyes. Im sure she didn't think she would cheat at the beginning but she can't help it shes a women.

Women are emotional, they go were the value is and in her eyes he is high value, perhaps higher then you (I know its hard to hear)

2# If a women tells you something that makes to much sens, or uses common sens to explain her self its bull shit! as soon as a women start to become logically its means nothing, she might mean it in the moment but women are emotional beings, they think with the emotional part of the brain, and so they follow their emotions. When a women says "I love you" it means I love you for now, and its your job to keep her in a constant state of "love". How? be a high value male, be passionate, speak your mind, lead, take care of your self.

Here is the deal and it something I had to learn the hard way! women want a leader, they want boundaries, this doesn't mean you have to be an asshole it just means you have to draw some lines so that she knows what is ok and what is not ok....this might sound barbaric but honest to god women love men who lead.

The way things are now I would leave, I would tell her your gone and learn from your mistakes! you will cry, times will be hard, but you will get over her I promise!

I agree with dude here, you should have set boundaries the moment you knew she was hanging out with another guy alone... thats a fuckin no no in my book. You should have put your foot down a long time ago. In a way its kind of good that this happened, because if you would have gotten married, and then this happened it would have been that much harder to deal with...

The bitch is a cheater and can not be trusted, simple as that... if she did that with you, she will probably do it to the next guy as well given the opportunity, shes definitely not wife material.

To make it easier on yourself ... i would try my best to emotionally detach myself with her while continuing to be with her... only staying with her temporarily though, in the meanwhile i would actively go hunting for a new woman, and this time thoroughly screen her before you decide to fall in love. This girl should be dead in your mind, she crossed the line of no return. I know its hard because of the feelings involved, fucking another guy while shes with you is pure disrespect and should not be tolerated AT ALL.

Dont be afraid to speak your mind next time, in order to not come off as beta, thats bullshit... if somethings bothering you, bring it up before it becomes something bigger, even if it means a fight or an argument.

All in all my friend, detach yourself from her, think only about yourself right now, and dont give a fuck what she's done or is doing... because shes not worth it

I get the point of this 100%. And, yes, this guy failed to recognize the potentially dangerous situation before his eyes.

However, how do you deal with pre-existing long-term guy friends (who are beta chumps - orbiters at best) with which you know there is no sexual tension at all (you met the guy before to make sure), and which your GF thinks it's OK to meet without you around like once a month?
do you still say "NO WAY"? I'm kinda hijacking the thread, I know..

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nice guys don't get laid
"It's disrespectful not to bang them when they sleepover." (Hellhound)

Its very simple

"I am not comfortable with you hanging out with other men alone, we can hang out as a group but I see no reason to put your self in a bad situation"

When in a relationship neither of you should be hanging out with the opposite sex alone...and if one person can't handle that then they shouldn't be in a relationship, cheating is just about the most selfish thing a person can do imo.

Lets get something strait here. We are all capable of cheating, every one of us, some more then others but non the less if you put your self in a bad situation it could happen.

Part of being an adult in a relationship is understanding that if you put your self in bad situations, bad things could happen, especially when booze in involved.

For example give me a few drinks, have me hang out with one of the hb 10's I know, and have her throw her self at me....what do you think will happen???? now I would like to think I wouldn't cheat but am I going to put my self in a situation were I could? Hell no!

which means you would be ready to walk over this? because otherwise we know that your GF is gonna lose any and all respect for you if you set a boundary and then don't enforce it

not sure where you are from, but apparently here in California the culture is much less stringent about it than Southern Europe.. I have myself had one-on-ones with girls with boyfriends, and nothing bad happened out of it, and I had no bad vibes about jealous boyfriends feeling threatened..
so, I am somewhat hesitant to enforce that boundary with the beta chump friend.. random guys like Ben, I would not hesitate a second, but that's a very very different situation
that is not a problem.. my GF almost never drinks. it's really rare, and I think it never happened when I was not around.
two things that in my scenario are different: the guy is a chump and doesn't know how to make a move.
of course, a little voice inside of me is still uneasy with it.. but I tend to dismiss is as the voice of AFCness. but I am open to different opinions.

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nice guys don't get laid
"It's disrespectful not to bang them when they sleepover." (Hellhound)

Just tell her straight up your not comfortable with her hanging out with other guys, let her know that guys are manipulative in that way, and will say they're just friends, but could have other intentions in mind... but honestly if they've been friends for the long term, and they are beta, theres probably nothing to worry about... thats most likely all they'll ever be

if you can, make them look silly in front of her....make fun of them in a playful/subliminal way.. i would also look them straight in the eye when shes not looking, and give them the dont fuck around stare... lol... just look dominant in front of them and they will probably pussy out from hitting on her because they know you wouldnt take lightly to that if you found out.

Good luck

we are talking about a 10-year friendship, with a guy who has never been seen with a girl. when I met him, I tried to gauge his skills but either he is the best actor ever or he is totally unable to hit on anything with a vagina.

Worst case, he is an orbiter.

And this is pretty much why I am hesitant to say "NO WAY".. it seems to be not worth it, and a huge boost to this guy's value for no good reason

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nice guys don't get laid
"It's disrespectful not to bang them when they sleepover." (Hellhound)