A bit of background information, I (19M) and my partner (19F) have been dating for a little over 3 months now, and have been going on dates and such for about 4 months. She’s my second serious committed relationship (had a 1 year relationship 2 years prior to seeing her), my second sexual partner and by far my first time I have ever felt truly comfortable with a person. I am her 4th committed relationship, and we started dating about a month after she left her last relationship of about 8 months. Her ex, her, and myself all worked at the same casual job up until earlier this year, when they both left. I had many interactions with her ex, we never really got along but I made every attempt to keep things friendly (not a very confrontational person).
She and I have a pretty stable relationship (atleast relative to the amount of time we have been together) and I am for the most part happy with how things are. She is very evidently very happy with me, regularly makes an effort to show her commitment to me, and is in general my favourite person.
However, I have recently been finding myself more and more occupied with thoughts of her past and in particular the little gap between her ending her last relationship and starting seeing me. To add to this, she has directly told me that she was still engaging with her ex sexually before our first date together (I don’t know exactly when they last did, I don’t want to know). This information, whilst slightly distressing at the time, on its own doesn’t really bother me. She did nothing wrong, she had no commitment to me, she admitted that she did have feelings for me at this time but I had yet to reciprocate anything towards her and as such it is my opinion that, whilst slightly disappointing, it isn’t a big deal. However, a few weeks into seeing her he did get quite upset at her when he found out she was seeing me, and both of us received threats from both him and his roommate. This, coupled with knowledge that they were still somewhat seeing each other, and the fact that she admitted he attempted to get back with her (she denied), made me somewhat cautious that I was potentially getting involved in something, but since then nothing has happened.
Now, a few days ago I was out clubbing with her and a few others, and on the bus ride back to where we live, somebody mentioned the rice purity test. The test has a checklist of 100 things (mostly related to sex) that supposedly shows how pure someone is by how little they have done. I did the test, and then handed it to my girlfriend who did it herself. After she had finished, she handed me my phone back and I went to swipe back to leave the website, but instead of seeing the Google home page I saw her checklist with her results. I at first went to just keep going back until the page closed, but then out of curiosity I went and looked at what she had done, and I then found that she had clicked the box for whether she had ever cheated.
Now she had told me early on that she had never cheated (the topic came up since I was cheated on my last relationship) and this was a direct contradiction to this. Furthermore, she had admitted that she started seeing her ex pretty much the day she ended things with her ex before that, but had emphasized that she didn’t cheat on him. I thought that it was kinda shitty, but also I don’t know what their relationship was like, and I just moved on.
However, after learning about the fact that she has cheated on somebody, I’m starting to spiral on when this was, who this was on, and why this was hidden from me. Whether she actually didn’t end things with her ex before she slept with her previous ex, whether she didn’t end things with her ex before she saw me, etc etc.
So, earlier today I asked her. I went to her house and I showed her the test results that I had screenshotted, and I asked her what this meant. She said that it wasn’t on me, had nothing to do with me, and she didn’t want to talk about it. I told her thatz whilst I know it wasn’t on me, this breaks my trust in her and makes me see her differently. She maintained that I shouldn’t even care, she hasn’t done anything to me. I encouraged her to talk about it, and told her that her inability to even have a conversation about it makes me even less trusting in her. She then kicked me out of her house. Since then we have talked over text, more or less the same stuff we talked about in person, she hasn’t given any details.
I’m willing to put the past behind her. I am not bothered by the idea that she has had other relationships (not should I be) or that she cheated on somebody. I think it’s shitty, but I understand that people do shitty things, and that it doesn’t make them lesser. However, I think that only applies if that person can admit to what they did as being shitty, and shows a commitment to not repeating those same mistakes. And so far I haven’t seen that from her. So far, to be reductive, I’ve seen a pattern of her jumping from relationship to relationship with little regard for the other person and little regard for giving herself time to be single and reflect on what happened.
I do not want to leave her. I believe she is a good person despite times she has done bad things. I believe that she cares about me and I believe that she is serious is her commitment to me. But it is hard to ignore what I’ve mentioned above.
So I turn to you, Reddit. Any advice?
tl;dr: discovered girlfriend of 3 months has cheated on a prior relationship despite previously assuring me she had not. When asked about it she shut down the conversation. Unsure of where to go now.
Comments
Oh buddy. Leave or prepare to get gutted
Teenagers should not be doing long-term relationships in the first place. They have a hell of a lot of growing up to do which is not an insult, everybody has to do it and go through it. You weren’t in high school that long ago.
Dude, you should be focusing on getting education and getting your career figured out. Should be meeting people and dating, having life experiences and figuring out who you are.
There’s a reason why people who get married when wonder both parties is under the age of 25 are most likely to get divorced out of any group.
Just don’t be in a long-term relationship with anybody until you’re 25. People in their late teens and early twenties seem to freeze their brains for some reason when they’re in a long-term relationship and they don’t grow very much. Just go have fun. Don’t worry about her. Worry about you.