I could use some advice.
My girlfriend and I live in different parts of California (I’m in SoCal and she’s in NorCal), so we don’t see each other all the time. She recently traveled overseas for work , so it wasn’t a party trip, but she did end up going out one night.
That night, she called me while she was out drinking, telling me she loved me. We talked for a bit, and I told her to text me when she got home. She never did. I thought it was weird but figured it was the time difference or she was tired.
Then around 5am my time the next morning , she blew up my phone, asking me to call her as soon as possible. When I called, she was crying and told me she’d cheated on me.
Apparently, while they were out that night, she and her friend met a group of guys. One of the guys asked her friend to go home with him, and her friend agreed. My girlfriend said she didn’t want to let her friend go alone in a different country, so she went with them. Somehow, she ended up in the friend of that guy’s room, and they ended up having sex. She said it all happened so fast, that she was drunk and wasn’t thinking, and that she regrets everything. She’s been apologizing non-stop, promising to stop drinking, and even said she’ll stop going out altogether.
I’m hurt, confused, and angry. I thought I could trust her, and now I don’t know what to believe.
Has anyone been through something similar?
• Is there any way to rebuild trust in a relationship after this kind of betrayal?
• Can a relationship like this ever truly recover?
I could use some perspective right now.
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And what did you learn from this? You can’t trust her anymore.
I am sorry that this happened to you.
I also don’t know what exactly to tell you. Have you ever had a one-night-stand? Like full on, met a girl, flirt, throw innuendos, walk to her place/your place, started to kiss, started to make out, put the first piece of clothes off and then the second, the third and helped each other? Made kinda awkward small talk about safer sex and protection, about what feels good and not, testing if she’s wet enough, testing if you’re hard enough. Trying to evaluate the best position?
There is just a lot A LOT of time, turns and opportunites to say NO, to say STOP, to say ‘I Dont want this’ – because I have a boyfriend, I really really love. She took NONE of those turns.
You don’t move forward yet. You admit that 25F was not ready for an exclusive relationship and you go back to non-exclusive dating for another year until you both know each other better.
Move on as a single guy OP.
You’ll never get over this and in all honesty, why would you even bother to try?
Just think though. The time spent trying to rebuild something that isn’t worth rebuilding could be better spent finding a gf who won’t cheat on you.
She cheated because she could.
> She said it all happened so fast, that she was drunk and wasn’t thinking, and that she regrets everything.
At any stage she could have said “no, I have OP waiting at home for me so I’ll have an early night instead.” That she didn’t do that and instead dropped her pants and had some fun and then only got the attack of the guilts afterwards shows you that what she told you is complete and utter bullshit.
Your life will be better for telling her “cya ’round like a rissole.”
So she’ll stop drink and going out and attend work events…for ever? Or only for a time, until you trust her again? However long that may take.
OP, I’m sorry but you should cut your losses.
Somewhat long distance relationship, she cheats after making multiple poor decisions on a work trip and you think there is a way to rebuild trust? Why would you want to? Do you like living a miserable life? Cut your loses and move on. You are letting her tears manipulate you.
Some perspective from the other side”, ive seen many women “no, i have a boyfriend”, she did it as she liked him, she didnt loose control of all her mind or body, ive seen women very clearly say no when drunk AND laugh, she will lie to get out of it… think of it this way, being drunk works ALL ways, if they WANT to they will, if they DONT they wont just as powerful, its an amplification, of both yes and no… she wanted to…. you need to have this in the forefront of your mind, i would start to plan to split up. Get a new bank account etc….
Find a new girlfriend who is not a cheater. Don’t stay with a cheater, your not married with kids. Dump her hard, Cheaters are disgusting. Once a cheater, always a cheater. If you stay, she will cheat again, your giving her permission by staying. Run!
Being drunk is not an excuse for poor decision making – she made a series of decisions that led to this, it didn’t “just happen so fast.”
While is possible, it is extremely unlikely for most guys to move past sobering like this. Forgiveness is one thing, forgetting is another – and that shred of doubt, however small, will never go away. 20 years from now, if she “goes out” you will still be wondering.
The silver lining here is that she didn’t try to hide it – you may have never known, or found out after spending years building a relationship on a bad foundation.
Do with this information what you will.
If she wants to fix her drinking problem then that’s on her but you don’t need to be with her while she is fixing her life. You also need to choose what is better for your emotional and mental health.
I mean, my answer would be “fuck off” but a “no thanks, we’re done here” would suffice.
You deserve better than that. Sorry man.
“Is there any way to rebuild trust in a relationship after this kind of betrayal?”
Not that I am aware of. You might be able to forgive but you’ll never forget. Because you will never forget, you’ll never trust her again like you did.
At 24yo, it’s probably best to cut your losses rather than waste years trying to repair the near unrepairable.
>Can a relationship like this ever truly recover?
Well, nothing is impossible. But I rarely see relationships working out after cheating.
Plus, there’s a lot of circumstances here that complicates things.
First if all, if this was a girls trip, it would be possible to put healthy boundaries about that. As in saying you won’t be comfortable with her going on girls trip until you’ve build trust together.
But, this was a work trip, how is that realistically going to work out? She can’t say no to those opportunities, and you’re going to be sick to your stomach everytime she has to leave the country for work. It’s not sustainable.
Yet another issue is that you live in different parts of California, and you don’t see each other often. I just don’t see how you’re ever going to trust her without monitoring her in a way that’s controlling. Checking her location, demanding to know where she’s at with who, etc.
I think staying is going to lead to you becoming a person that you don’t want to be. Insecure, scared, and controlling in fear of being betrayed again.
I had something similar happen to me. I also trusted her 100% and wondered if I was being too harsh since she was drunk and it wasn’t like her.
If you stay with her your self worth as a man will degrade. She called me crying blaming the alcohol but later on months later after I had already broke up with her. she admitted that she wasn’t that drunk and sort of knew what she was doing.
OP leave her. It will be one of the best decision you will ever make.
The trust is gone! There is nothing left. The 1 person who’s supposed to be your ride or die always by your side…cheated.
Sadly, you can’t move forward with her. You will never trust or look at her the same again.
Cheating is a choice, or series of choices, not a mistake.
I also strongly suspect you are getting the trickle truth, sanitised version of what actually happened, the version that allows her to admit cheating but maybe gives her an “excuse” or a way you may forgive her.
My ex wife tried that at first… then I found out there was way more going on.
lol nobody has ever gotten so drunk they don’t know right from wrong. It’s either she got raped or she wanted to someone else.
I would say as soon as she ended up in that guy’s bedroom you two were single and you just didn’t know about it yet.
Here’s how to look at the situation: take away ALL of the words and just look at her actions. That’ll tell you all you need to know.
Life is short. You don’t have enough time to waste it with shitty people. It can get so much better than this.
You are done. Dump her. She violated your trust and will absolutely cheat again. Sorry this happened to you. Time to dump her, heal and move on with your life.
This sub has a zero tolerance policy for cheating or anything even resembling cheating, so you should know what answers you are gonna get here.
In the real world, relationships have been known to survive all kinds of adversity, including cheating. Whether your relationship is one of those or not is almost impossible to tell for strangers on the internet.
The argument for breaking up is pretty clear. She cheated. Trust is broken. You are young with plenty of time. You don’t have kids or anything else that would demand at least considering repairing the relationship.
The arguments against breaking up is up for you to provide. Nobody on the internet can tell you whether those arguments supercede the arguments for breaking up, but what I do know is that you should NOT just break up because that’s what you are “supposed” to do according to some ruleset or according to what strangers on this forum tells you.
Ok, when I read this story, my immediate concern was that your girlfriend may have been raped
Being drunk is no excuse. Alcohol just relaxes inhibitors, it’s a truth serum. She’s not trustworthy.
You are already doing long distance with her. Do you want to be in anguish wondering what she’s doing who she’s with etc if you take her back that’s no way to live cut your losses my friend
The knee jerk reaction is to break up.
However if you truly want to rebuild trust, this is what you need:
All facts of the cheating incident have to be laid out on the table. NO SECRETS.
If you both choose to stay in the relationship then you agree to both commit to putting in the work to fix the relationship, but the cheater has to be prepared to do the heavy lifting.
You have to be very clear about what you need to rebuild trust and she has to be accommodating.
Bonus: Ask her if you cheated, what she would need from you to rebuild the trust. Two heads are better than one.
She agrees to regular STI checks every 3 months until you’re comfortable. Also a pregnancy test.
Is she cool with you having a free pass in the future? If not, it’s probably a good idea to let her go. I’ve always been a firm believer that people that cheat while drunk use the alcohol as an excuse. The story makes no sense. The friend made a decision to go with a stranger. Why would she do the same unless she had intentions also.
Look, you don’t need anyone to tell you what you to do.
You already know what to do.
Think about it this way. She said it happened so fast. But this is how it happened.
She decided to go home with him. She decide to go into his room alone. She decide to let him kiss her. She decided to let him take her panties off. She decided to pull his dick out of his pants and suck it for a while. She decided to let a complete stranger rail her in all manner of positions until he came in or on her.
I get it. I’m being gratuitous. I’m being kinda gross. But this is a gross situation. It’s not an unfortunate accident. It’s fucking strange dick in another country because you’re slightly jealous of your friends single-girl life and then feeling guilty about it the next day and hoping your boyfriend doesn’t realise you don’t care about him or his trust or his happiness.
That’s a pretty nasty person, bro. That’s not girlfriend material. But to each their own. Maybe you’re able to process that in a way that doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself.
But I just don’t think you’ll be able to.
You know what you have to do.
Before you take any action, maybe have a conversation face to face about it. For me, this doesn’t necessarily feel 100% consensual. It feels like both girls were drunk and taken advantage of. If it was consensual, then she cheated, and you can deal accordingly. But, if she felt coerced or under pressure, then you should hear her out. You might not be able to get over what happened, which is fine.
Her actions overall were incredibly risky, drinking to the point where she can’t control her friend, making poor decisions to go with her friend to the guy’s house, probably continuing to drink once there, and then either being taken advantage of or making a very bad decision to cheat.
Also, don’t listen to the person saying “all the choices: to initiate, to make sure she’s wet, to put a condom on”. That person has clearly not had a very drunken one night stand. As someone who has, it’s not a clear decision making process, more just reacting with what your body wants. No clear thoughts, just actions. That doesn’t mean your gf should be let off, she still chose to get that drunk, she still chose to go to the house, etc. It just might not be so clear cut once she got there.
ETA: none of this means you have to stay with her.
So I started dating a chick when I was 19. She was going on a trip for 6 weeks when we just started dating. While she was gone, she asked if we could be Facebook official. I didn’t want to while she was away but I was like whatever sure. She slept with a guy when she was drunk. Same thing, she was sorry and all that crap. I thought it would be super embarrassing if we broke up right after I changed my status. We dated for another 6 years, and we broke up because she slept with someone else while she was drunk. A female who wants to sleep around will sleep around regardless of their situation. Find someone else bro.
Her choice to protect a friend turned into betraying you. That’s not love, that’s deflection.
To get into that guy’s room…took a lot of steps. It’s not like suddenly clothes gone and they ‘accidentally’ fell into each other’s crotches.
Nope. She wanted to have sex with him. Unless she’s all black out (it doesn’t sound like that to me), she was sober enough to want to ‘protect’ her friend by going with her to this guy’s house. The whole ‘somehow she ended up in the friend of the first guy’s room’ is not something that is automatic. Your ‘gf’ there made the choice to go into that guy’s room. Like I said, there are quite a bit of steps to them having sex.
You won’t be able to rebuild trust and you will be resentful. If I were you, I would break up with her now.
I will say that as far as cheating goes, this is the best case scenario. I would probably force myself to try to work to forgive my partner in this scenario.
Not saying it would work and I would forgive her – but it’s probably worth a shot. She could have easily just not told you and kept it hidden forever, but she chose to be straight up with it.
Honestly Op, it rather sounds like she was forced to tell you otherwise she would have been revealed by one of her friends.
Such a betrayal is a massive destruction of trust.
Personally I couldn’t accept that, for the relationship would be over. But Im not here to tell you what to do, but I would ask her of a very detailed timeline and I would ask her friend what she has observed and how your GF acted with this guy. If there are any discrepancies then you know she’s downplaying the whole betrayal 💁🏻♂️
Too little too late. See ya!
Well, I know eeope who personalites drastically changevwhen heavily drunk, I myself am also a mild example of that.
What I mean to say, is that it is completely possible that your gf would never cheat on you when sober. The problem is what should come next. The only solution is to heavily limit consuption of alcohol, only ever gettng drunk “inside”, not in clubs and such.
Well, that woud basically mean your gf can’t ever go out with her friends like she is used to. Since you are confused right now, that is a good idea to test the waters.
Suggest, thst since alcohol makes her do wrong things, she should never get drunk unless it is in home environment (it could home of her friend as well, but not if there are not-very-close-friends included) or with you beside her.
You are 24 and not married. You should leave if someone cheats on you.
Lmao shes full of excuses. Sorry OP, the relationship is over.
Take drunk out of the equation. It means nothing.
Move on before it gets more complicated. She’s shown you that she can’t be trusted, and you will never truly get over this as long as you’re with this woman, trust me.
I don’t know, I find people use drinking as an excuse for cheating ALL the time. The fact is she cheated, it would be a deal breaker for me.
Say, if no alcohol would have been involved, would you also ask if this relationship could recover?
The alcohol hasn’t betrayed you, she did. Plenty of people can go out, have drinks, get drunk and never cheat on their partners even when an opportunity arises. You know why? Because they don’t want to when sober so they also don’t want to when drunk.
Alcohol does nothing else but to make it easier for someone to give in to an already existing desire.
Alcohol is never an excuse. She knew exactly what she was doing, and on top of that, she’ll never ever give you the full story
“it all happened so fast” sure it did. As she continuously made choice after choice to pursue and have sex with this person.
She didn’t do it for her friend. It didn’t just happen. She was already love bombing you before she cheated because she knew what she was going to do.
There’s no recovering from this. I’m sorry.
Clean break. Just break up and block her. That’s for both of your mental health. You’re actually doing her a favor by going 100% no contact.
Let her know she’s single so live it up. Don’t ruin rest of her vacation. So tell her right now.
“drunk actions are sober thoughts”
Nah bro I know my alcohol but if you truly value your partner it is still on your mind to not flirt and fuck other people no matter how drunk you are.
Also the process to hooking up is more than one decision.
You don’t move forward, you move on. Say bye and if it’s meant to be, maybe you guys will come back round again. But staying together after this is too much pressure, and it will likely ultimately break you up no matter what you do.
Bro stop. She was sober enough to accompany her friend so she wouldn’t be alone in a different country but she was too drunk to say no? GTFOH! Listen man, she willingly and wantonly allowed another man to put is dick in her. She didn’t GAF about you, your relationship, what you had together, your trust…etc. here’s how you move on. “Listen, it’s over. Don’t call me, don’t contact me don’t do anything with me. Fuck right off” and THAT is how you move on with self respect.
She made several poor decisions that led to her cheating but being drunk doesn’t excuse her behavior. Unless she was blackout drunk and was sexually assaulted then this was on her. Her guilt caused her to call you immediately or the fact someone would have told you eventually but that’s all circumstance.
It’s your life but she’s old enough to know actions have consequences. If she would’ve ran over someone while driving drunk she would be guilty. Why would this be any different?
Updateme
Cut your losses. End it. Keep your dignity or you’ll never be respected by her or yourself
Bot account
If you forgive her once, she’ll do it twice. If she did it once, will she hesitate to do it twice? Break up with her. If you don’t end this relationship, you’ll end your own worth.