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 Mentally Cheating? - steve02
I've got a new dilemma to the twist my relationship.
Something I was chatting about yesterday w/some GREAT
folks from here using the online chat. My g/f is
"mentally" cheating on me.
I stumbled upon an unfinished letter she was typing to
NOT me, but some other guy at work. He's 35, married, 2
kids and she's 20. 1st paragraph - she explained about
her hobbies..blah..blah..blah. 2nd paragraph - I almost
fell outa my chair! She dumped out the emotions. Writing
how she felt, that she loved this guy, couldn't stop
thinking about him day and night, day dreamed of him
constantly at work and at home and just couldn't rid him
of her mind. What a devastating thing for ME to read!
Here's the twist. She never finished the letter, thus,
it never reached the intended party. My g/f doesn't know
I know of this letter, let alone have a printed copy of
it. Her letter is gone now due to me (out of anger)
erasing the disk (found the letter on a disk).
Another twist - I called the guy and and talked w/his
WIFE first, then him the day that I found the letter.
Boy, was his wife pissed (although she knew of
"their" situation 3 days before I called. He,
on the other hand, wasn't too amused that I called. I
basically explained to him that even though I'm having
some troubles w/my relationship, I'm still trying to
achieve something here and I really don't need outside
pressure influencing her away from me. I didn't straight
up read the letter to him, but I did generalize on how
SHE felt about him. Yes, he was rather shocked. He
explained his feelings he has for her (which I got the
feeling were to be most excellent friends - as in best
friends) and that he had never considered any wild,
loving emotional ties w/her. He assured me (about 20x's)
that he'd talk w/her, set her straight and go back and
fix his damage w/his wife. After all, I tried to reason
w/him on how he'd feel if I was fooling around w/his wife
(which he understood). So, I left w/the feeling that it
should end soon, that she'll be dumped before even
getting off the ground and that's that. I talked w/him on
Sunday, but have no idea if he talked w/her yet.
What I'm confused about is...well, I don't know. I
have not confronted my g/f about this yet, but I do have
the desire to call this guy back and say "well, did
you talk w/her yet?". I don't know if that will be a
wise choice, but I just have this deep passion to call
this guy and keep setting him straight till I feel better
about this whole ordeal. I do plan to confront my g/f
about this AFTER I am assured that this guy has talked
w/her. I'll admit it - I do want her to be embarrassed,
feel stupid and hurt so she'll learn a lesson or of some
sort. After that, I guess I'll see what happens.
Maybe I'm just rambling here because I haven't really
asked any specific questions - but I'm sure there is
someone out there w/feedback. I'll just go w/my flow and
see where my path leads me right now....(more updates in
the future)
 From: mzet
This will sound harsh. Sorry. My personal experience
with my wife's affairs is that most of what you are doing
is NOT helpful. I know because I was like that!!! It all
backfires eventually. You are trying to control a
situation that you cannot control. You are trying to
influence the situation and the actors in that situation
around your girl friend in the hopes that things will
turn out the way YOU want them to turn out.
It is and it will be interpreted as manipulation by
everyone around you, even if you don't intend it in that
way. And on top of that, it really is not getting to the
core of what the problem with you, your girl friend and
your relationship may be. I don't have any magical
answers for you, but I would caution you against
continuing on the path you are on. Things will come back
to bite you.
I don't even know what the right questions are, but I
can tell you that to me the question is really not about
whether she is mentally cheating on you or not. Hope this
helps a little. Take care. I know it is not easy. It is
very, very painful. But that pain is telling you
something. What? Only you can find that out.
From: Bernd
Steve, She may learn a “lesson”, but not the
one you intend. What she may “learn” is that
she was “right” to fall in love with this guy,
because her view of you will change to one of anger, and
that you’re more interested in hurting her back,
than you are in your relationship. Think carefully about
the REAL messages your choices are going to send.
Whatever you don’t heal in genuinely loving ways are
things that are going to come back and affect - in
negative ways - your future relationships, whether with
her, or anyone else. Whatever we send out comes back to
us in even greater measure, sooner or later. If you want
good things coming back to you, it’s going to
require some very careful looks on what you’re
sending out.
Vent your anger here. It’s a safe place. Take
time to really look at what you want MOST in your
relationship. Do you want to end it? If so, any arrows
you throw at her will eventually boomerang back to you.
Be selfish, and try to find the most genuinely loving way
of ending it, honestly. It will pay you huge dividends
back. Expressing your anger and hurt to her is healthy;
trying to make her feel as bad, or laying a blame or
guilt trip, will backfire. She WILL feel as much - if not
more - hurt than you do right now, even if you don’t
see it. The worst pain is the stuff that comes from
inside us, our own awareness. Let that pain help her, not
hurt her more.
If you want to try and salvage the relationship, then
you need time to get thru the initial shock, and begin
dealing with the swamp of pain and hurt that’s been
brought up inside you. Reach out as much as you can for
help and support. Go thru the affairs section of the
Comment Forum Archives, and keep going back and reading
them. There’s a lot of help there, that will give
you some guidance and solace.
Lynda and I have been thru 4 affairs - real ones that
involved sex. We’ve made it thru, and so can you,
but it’s not an easy road at first by far. But
it’s very worthwhile. Take time to picture yourself
a year from now; do you want to be wearing an albatross
of continued hurt and resentment, or do you want to look
back and be grateful for the newfound freedom and love
you’ve discovered since the affair - whether
it’s with someone else, or her? The destiny is in
your hands. Be selfish. Choose the path you want most,
then commit yourself to following that path. Hang in
there guy. And be kind to yourself.
From: steve02
Thank you for your comments...I have now realized that
the path that I want to journey down is NOT the right
path (but VERY difficult to get off that path...).
Although I am filled w/deceitful revenge upon this
married guy and my g/f, I do still remind myself that I
just want her to be happy. I promised her I'd never (or
at least stray from it as far as possible) hurt her,
physically and/or mentally (including emotionally). I
want what is best for her, yet I still want to look out
for her and make sure she's ok (now and in the future).
I know that if I call this guy, one of two situations
can happen: (that I can think of): 1. He'll get highly
pissed at me for bugging him, tell my g/f that I called
him, then she'll be pissed at me like never before and
maybe never talk to me again. 2. He'll sympathize w/me
again and set her straight, then I'll confront her (which
I"m still working on a approach on that one right
now).
All in all, I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm being
hurt right now and it HURTS! I don't want anyone to go
though what I'm going through, esp. my g/f - I love her
to much to actually make her feel this way - and if she
did feel great hurt due to some action of mine, I'd feel
even worse. I want to be more positive here in this
situation, but it's hard to see positive.
I yelled at her last Sat. night. Hoped right outa the
car while driving and said I was walking. (yelled on the
sidewalk at 1am). I let it all out on how she's been
hurting me, how much pain I have due to her actions over
the past few months and how I don't like it anymore. Yes,
she got a HUGE wake up call. I just wonder if that having
feelings for this other guy and me, well, has changed her
to stop thinking of this other guy. Hoping that she's
realized what she has done to me and now she wants to
heal me. Hmm, high hopes - guess in time I'll see.
I guess right now, I'll just wait and wait. As bad as
I want to call this guy, I KNOW I shouldn't, and I won't
(I've been convinced). I don't want bad karma w/my
g/f...no thank you. But, what I will do is confront her
about it. I must admit though, I'm terrified to confront
her about. She doesn't know what I know and she might be
thinking that I'll NEVER know such a thing of her
thoughts (but she's the one that typed them out). So,
it's gonna be a hard one for me to get by on why I was
invading her privacy and all. Hmm, what to do in the
meantime....I'll figure something out. Be back later....
From: mzet
I really don't see anything wrong about talking to her
about what you found. The whole mess needs to be brought
up, but what concerns me is that you tend to have a bit
of a paternalistic view of her. She's old enough to make
her own decisions. You don't need to look out for her,
now or in the future, really. She's an independent person
and if she is not, she should be. Maybe that's what she's
trying to do. Do you know?
Plus it seems to me that you need to deal with your
pain first. Leave her alone for a while. Give her space
man, you guys are not even married and have no kids!!!
You do have a lot of emotional investment in the
relationship, but if you want to rebuild the relationship
on stronger grounds, she needs to freely chose you. She
needs space in order to do that. And that, again, does
not mean saying good-bye, it means talking about what you
found and how you feel, without blowing up and without
being judgmental and then stepping back a little to
concentrate on what this whole mess is saying about you.
You know how I feel about talking with this guy.
You're still trying to control him, and through him, your
gf also!!! LEAVE HIM ALONE. It's none of your business!
You are wrong about result #2. It's BS. Nobody can
"fix" your gf. Not you, not that guy. Only she
can do that. Any kind of confrontation, from you or this
guy is not going to do it. Even if she comes back to you
under those circumstances, she'll be pissed-off, and it
will come back to hurt both of you later on.
The wake up call is for YOU as much as for her.
Concentrate on your side of the equation first. And
forget about being comforted by her after she finds out
how much she hurt you and all of that BS. Only you can do
that for yourself. And you should, regardless of whether
she apologizes or not. Why are you so scared of talking
with her? What does that tell you about your relationship
with her? Why did you "invade her privacy" to
start with? Why will she be so upset? These are questions
that point to things that you need to work out yourself
also.
Don't be so black and white. You seem to think you are
right and she is wrong. The reality may be gray. Take
care and let go. I know it's hard to realize that being
the injured party you have to do so much work. It doesn't
seem fair, you hurt so much so shouldn't she work on it
just as hard or harder? She will, but the ironic thing is
that the whole process starts with you, the injured
party. Not fair, but that is what I have found works
best, at least it has for me so far. Good luck buddy.
From: ju-ju-bee
Well, I was just interested to know if you had ever
made any kind of explicit agreement not to write
"love" letters to other people in your
relationship with your GF? If you have not, then it seems
that there may not be any wrong to your GF writing a
letter of love to another person, whether she sent the
letter or not. From your description of the situation, it
seems that you do not know if she has sent another letter
and you do not know if she has been sexually involved
with the other man, though you have assumed that she has
not sent any letter and that she was not sexually active
with the other man.
The basic thing that concerns me is that for two
people to be able to have a "good"
relationship, they need to be able to communicate
effectively with each other. This means that they need to
be able to come to some type of mutual understanding and
even some type of "agreement". This further
means that each person needs to be explicit about what it
is that they understand and also what it is that someone
else understands, so that no
"mis"-understanding results. Much argument is
created when one person says or does one thing and the
other person interprets it to mean something else (other
than what the other person actually intended it to mean).
Your GF may have been expressing perfectly
"normal" reactions to some type of attraction
that she had to the other man. This may or may not have
anything at all to do with your relationship to her. It
may be that she simply thinks that the other person is
handsome, attractive, a good father, or whatever, and
that she may interpret that as "love", and for
some reason that the male species may find hard to
understand, she may feel some obligation to
"express" those feelings to the other man
through a letter.
A similar thing, though by no means the
"same" thing, may be a man who sees a beautiful
woman walk down the street and think to himself, wow,
wouldn't it be great to have a girlfriend like that? The
point is that there is nothing inherently wrong with
finding other people attractive or thinking that other
people are good looking or even "sexy", though
if you have a verbal or written commitment to another
person not to "cheat", then it is wrong if you
act on those feelings and engage in some kind of
"affair". What I am trying to say to you, is
that you should not act out on some type of
"non-written" agreement that you think you have
with your GF, but should try to create a mutual
understanding between your GF and you. You and her need
to come to some type of resolution about what kind of
commitment you are making to each other, such as if it is
required to inform the other person if you "go
out" with any other person, if you write any
"love" letters to any other person, or if you
become intimately (or sexually) involved with any other
person. You two should also clearly understand what it
means to be sexually involved with any other person such
as does it mean to kiss another person on the lips, or
does it mean to take each other's shirt off and kiss and
hug, or what does it mean. The more clear each of you are
on what it is that you expect from the other person, then
the more easy it will be for arguments and
misunderstandings to be avoided.
Your blowing up and getting mad at her is possibly the
result of some "unvoiced" expectations that you
have of her, or perhaps some "unwritten"
agreement that you think exists (though she does not
think exists). There is another possibility which you
might think about as well, and that is the following: she
may have been simply trying to sort through some of her
feelings and thoughts and it may have been easier for her
to put them in the form of a letter, similar to how you
rely on this internet to get to the "bottom" of
your feelings and thoughts. If that was true, then you
may owe her an apology. Yet, if both of you have agreed
with each other not to become involved with anyone else,
and she did become sexually involved with the other man,
then she owes you an apology and perhaps some good
explaining as well. Try to develop some good
understanding between the both of you before you try to
make any accusations against her. It may be that you are
making some assumptions and because of those assumptions
you may feel that you are justified in being angry with
her. However, until you are "sure" of her
position on the issues, it is better not to make any
pre-judgments or any false accusations, because if you
do, that can do more harm to the relationship then it
does to help the relationship.
It is relieving to "let it out" and to
accuse her of hurting you and doing all of these things
to hurt you, though she may be completely unaware of what
you are talking about. The reason for that is that she
may have different viewpoints on the RULES of the
relationship. You need to verbally communicate the RULES
of the relationship and thereby clarify what is allowed
and what is not allowed. You may think that rule #1 is
not to write any love letters, while she may think that
rule #1 is to write love letters but not to send them.
Try not to let this kind of lack of communication to get
in the way of your relationship. Also, try not to make
any false accusations against her. There is no positive
reasons why you should feel any need to accuse her of
breaking the relationship rules, unless both of you are
clear on what those rules are. It is for this reason that
you need to talk openly with her to see if she is even
interested in establishing some kind of relationship
rules. It may be that she is not interested in
establishing relationship rules at all, and she may even
think that relationship rules are stupid. On the other
hand, you may think that relationship rules are not even
needed, and that any person should "know" what
to do without asking. If that is true for you and your
GF, then at least you should both be aware of it so that
you know where you stand.
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