A couple was progressing in their relationship, but then a revelation from the beginning threw things into chaos. The man, age 27, was left wondering if or how he could past something his girlfriend, age 22, did.
Needing a different perspective, he turned to the Relationship Advice subReddit.
Redditor throwra-hugf posted:
“My girlfriend of a year slept with another guy while we were ‘taking it slow’ a month into dating me.”
He explained:
“I have been with this girl I’ll call Jess for close to a year now. Since specifics matter here, we started dating around last Thanksgiving, but it was only about a month later when we said were in an official relationship.”
“I really liked this girl from the get-go and we’ve gotten very close since then, and were actually planning on moving [in] together soon.”
“Here’s a problem, recently Jess and I ran into a guy at a small get-together with mutual friends. They exchanged a weird look like there was something between them but I didn’t think too much of it at the time.”
“During the party something came up about the place Jess went to for a date (the time was clear since it was a Christmas market in my town) and again I thought something was off about the guy. Well later that night I actually get a text from him (he got my number from one of the mutual friends), but said ‘hey I don’t know you but I thought you should know that Jess and I hooked up right after Christmas’.”
“I confronted Jess about this and I could tell she tensed up right away. She got this sad look on her face, but confessed right away.”
“She said she had met this guy on Tinder and hooked up a couple of times but stopped any contact before we became official.”
“She said she wasn’t sure we would get into a relationship at that time but she still felt bad that I found out this way. She said she considered telling me but was afraid it would ruin things between us.”
“I told her I needed some time to think and proceeded to get drunk that night and ignored her texts. The thing is I feel very betrayed and I am really considering ending things.”
“Sure we weren’t ‘official’ when this happened, but we had already been on multiple dates at that time, and I thought it was pretty clear that we were moving towards a full fledged relationship. On my side, I had no interest in pursuing other girls at that point because I only wanted to be with Jess.”
“And on her end she was definitely hinting at us evolving into a couple and strongly hinting at exclusivity.”
“The other part that kills me is that during this early stage, Jess specifically said she wanted to take things slow physically until we knew each other better. But during this same time she hooks up with a guy she barely knew from Tinder?”
“When I asked her this she said it’s different because she took it slow with me specifically because she thought we would get into a relationship, but it was somehow different with a casual hookup. That logic makes ZERO sense to me.”
“I don’t really want to talk about [this] with my friends because I think they would hate Jess if [we] end up staying together. But I would like to hear opinions on here.”
Finally, the Original Poster (OP) asked for advice.
“Would you stay in a relationship like this if things were going well but the beginning was so shady?”
Redditors offered their insights.
“All other things aside, it does make sense (for me) to take things slow with someone I’m pursuing a relationship with, but it doesn’t matter for casual sex/flings.”
“I am thoroughly not into dating multiple people, though.” ~ Ancient-Party
“Not that it matters here but it’s a common thing. While I never talk to more than one person at a time. I know there a plenty of people, men and women, who do.”
“To them, if it’s not an official relationship it’s not a problem or issue. For me, I literally can’t do it because that’s just not who I am.” ~ MaySangriaTwenty
“To add to this, my opinion why people ‘talk to’ more than one person at a time is because any given person may not work out, so committing to one person without having a specific conversation with them that you are mutually willing to commit, is setting yourself up for heartbreak.”
“I think it’s a consequence of modern communication methods and OLD, but to be clear I’m not sure it’s a definitely positive thing. I sympathize with your position, I share it myself, but unless you’ve agreed with someone that you’re not going to have any kind of sexual/flirtatious relationship with anyone else, you can’t expect them to be exclusive to you.” ~ StructuralEngineer16
“In my opinion, if you’re dating someone and moving towards a serious relationship you DON’T FREAKING BANG OTHER PEOPLE!”
“This would be a deal breaker for me, but you do you man. If you can’t get past it then end it.” ~ Hardline61
The Original Poster responded to this comment.
“Yea that’s how I feel as well. It would have been one thing if she was just talking to other guys in the early stages while we where still defining things. Of course that’s fine and normal.”
“But it feels like a slap in the fact that she found another guy to sleep with after we had already gone on quite a few dates and I made it clear I thought we were moving towards a serious relationship, which she seemed to also acknowledge. There is no way she didn’t know I would feel hurt that she did that.”
He came back over three weeks later to update everyone on how he handled the situation.
“I broke up with her.”
He then gave Redditors the details.
“As the title says, I decided to break up with Jess. I kept going back and forth because I was worried I was throwing away a great thing over something that happened in the past.”
“But the problem is I thought I really wouldn’t [be] able to get past it.”
“I can’t help what she did was really sh*tty. Yes, I know that technically she did not cheat. But she knew that I wanted a real relationship and that we were potentially moving in that direction.
“But, meanwhile she expected me to plan (and pay for) interesting dates, court her and prove that I was ‘worthy’ of her while she happily hooked up with randos who basically did nothing but show an interest in f’king. F’k that.”
“In a follow up conversation it also came up that her friends sort of guided her to act like this. That she should basically allow herself to have fun and to keep her casual options open but with me to ‘make me work for it’ and show that I wasn’t just looking for sex but was capable of being a committed partner.”
“The whole thing just seems so manipulative and ugly, and these were also mutual friends who I considered to be nice girls and now my friends as well. Now I never want to see any of those pieces of sh*t ever again.”
“Anyway, I know this is starting to sound a bit like a rant, but I felt pretty pissed off and basically called it quits. The actual breakup was actually quite unpleasant.”
“No harsh words were exchanged, but Jess cried and we kind of talked about some happy times.”
“I guess that’s the hardest part about this, like I don’t think she is a bad girl and maybe we could have had a nice future together like we did over the past few months.”
“But in the end, I do think I made the right decision, I want to be with someone who treats me well from the get-go, not someone who manipulates me while playing games just so she can have her cake and eat it too.”
Crowdsourced advice can give people a lot of options and perspectives they may not have thought of. But what a person does needs to feel comfortable for them, whether it’s the popular choice or not.
After all, only the OP has to live with his decision, not the anonymous people of Reddit.