Dear Cary,
I have been with the same man for more than six years. We met in high school, our relationship survived college and living together as recent grads.
About six months ago, my boyfriend moved to another city, five hours away. The long-distance thing was hard but I still had my life in our first city and he had a couple of friends in his city so we figured we could make it work.
Things really were going great -- we'd see each other on weekends regularly, and during the week, even when living together we were both so busy we were OK with talking on the phone constantly and other forms of communication.
A month ago, he mentioned that he would like to "loosen" the rules to our relationship and that if he happened to be out somewhere and meet a girl he wanted to be friends with he felt like as soon as he mentioned his long-term girlfriend the new girl didn't want to even pursue a friendship. We decided that it was OK to not say anything and even kiss other people but no current friends and no sex (in the Republican sense of that word). As a safety precaution, I told him I would want to know everything that happened -- some friends called me crazy but I am glad I did this.
Last week, he called to tell me that at a friend's party he made out with a girl. I knew he was lying and demanded to know all the details. Turns out he had "intimate relations" and sex with one of his friends. By the way, we were each other's first and only.
I feel like I should cut him out of my life for betraying me so deeply but I still love him so much.
My friends all say different things, from dump him, to accept his apologies, to move down there to keep an eye on him, to just give it time. One thing I find frustrating is that he doesn't seem to regret getting together with this girl, but he seems genuinely sorry that it hurt me.
We always communicated so well when we had problems and this is the first time that we are unable to come up with a solution. I thought we would get married, but now I feel like I can't trust him.
Betrayed
Dear Betrayed,
When he first mentioned to you that he wanted to "loosen" the rules, did it worry you at all? Was there anything different about the tone of his voice or his choice of words? Did it bother you in some way that you couldn't quite articulate? Perhaps it bothered you but you wanted to be reasonable; perhaps you wanted to prove to yourself that you could trust him. At any rate, maybe he didn't have a clear plan to sleep with this woman, but something had probably crossed his mind, and he was testing the waters. This conversation was an opportunity for you to express your reservations about where such a loosening of the rules might lead. He may have been looking to you, in fact, to express such reservations. When you instead agreed to his proposal, I think you implicated yourself in the outcome. I'm not saying he's not responsible for what he did. But your acquiescence increased the likelihood that he would commit this indiscretion. For that reason, I do not think it was such a terrible betrayal. It was more like a foreseeable accident.
What you did, it seems to me, was akin to telling a kid it's OK to play with matches in the forest as long as he doesn't start a forest fire. It's your responsibility to see where his actions might lead, and to prevent it.
Perhaps in some murky, unacknowledged way, you were testing him to see how far he would go. People have only so much willpower and so much awareness of their own drives. If you test them enough, they will eventually fail. That doesn't mean he doesn't love you. It just means he's human.
So to now condemn him on the basis of his failing this test seems harsh to me. On the other hand, his rationale about women not wanting to be friends with him when they find out he has a girlfriend sounds like a typical load of boyfriend bull. Women will be friends with you if you have a girlfriend. They just won't sleep with you. That lame-ass story makes me suspect he really did have a plan in mind and was just looking for permission.
But I don't think you need to break up with him. I just think you need to be a little more realistic. Since he's your first partner, you're young and you've been together since high school, you probably didn't see this coming. But it's something that was bound to happen, given the risk you took. I'd suggest you forgive him and try to stay together. Just tell him point-blank not to kiss other women.
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