This is unforgivable, right?

[HeidiSchmeidi]

I think this is probably unforgivable but just want to run it by an objective audience. This happened a year ago and my ex is trying to get me to take him back (he has been trying for a year) and I wanted to see if I am crazy for even considering it.

My boyfriend and I were long distance at the time, and I hadn't seen him in three months. His ex started working with him. She is a woman (colleague from another office) who he had a brief relationship with (a few months) and he ended it because she was in love with him and wanted more and he didn't return her feelings.

When she arrived though, she relentlessly chased after him. To the point of propositioning him for sex and telling him if he did it she would never tell me and so on. She started sending him messages and so on about how she still loved him and didn't he miss her (he did tell her to stop and eventually blocked her) but it was quite blatant she was trying to steal my man.

In his defense he did tell her to please leave him alone because he was in a relationship (she didn't respect this request) and he was also completely honest and told me everything at the time and shared any texts with me so I was in the loop.

At the time, pre-pandemic, there were a lot of boozy work nights out almost every weekend, and I know my boyfriend very well and he is one of those people who gets absolutely blotto and does and says crazy things (loves everyone), so I was very uncomfortable with him getting wasted drunk if she was around. Not so much because I thought he would sleep with her, but just because I thought a conversation would start that he would not be in control of and so on.

So we agreed he wouldn't go to events which she was at, or if he did that he'd stay sober. Which he did for three months. Then one day there was an event she wasn't meant to be at, but she showed up to and he was already completely wasted when she got there. He was drunk at this point with no boundaries so he didn't think to leave.

She started hitting on him quite blatantly, and he ended up talking to her for a while. I happened to call him, and he told me where he was and that he'd chatted to her and in his drunk state he didn't see a problem at all with it. He actually got quite belligerent with me "I am an adult I think I can make a judgement".

I was home alone, I'd had a really stressful day and I felt very threatened by how persistently this woman was trying to steal my man and so I asked him to come home and call me. So he did and left five minutes later (it was about 9.30pm). He had been drinking all day on some corporate boat trip and he was absolutely wasted.

We never argued much, but I ended up absolutely raging at him, shouting, and told him I wanted to break up with him. I then blocked him on everything. This might seem an over-reaction, but at the time we were under a lot of strain being separated, and I felt he wasn't doing enough to get this woman to stop chasing after him (maybe his ego enjoyed it a bit) and it was making me feel really uncomfortable.

I'd stress we never had ANY problems with trust before (together two years) but this woman was blatantly gunning for him in the most obvious way and I was worried after so many months apart and her constantly trying to get him alone that something might happen everyone would regret.

Anyway, I did my dumping tantrum, and he (already wasted) decided to go back to the party and carry on drinking because he was upset and said he was on a self-destruct mission. She got him talking, he told her we had split up and cut a long story short he went back to her place and slept with her.

The next day he woke up really horrified but he believed we were genuinely split up so he went home. Later that day I called him to try and patch up our fight and sort things out and he confessed what had happened.

I was absolutely devastated, and told him I could never forgive him. He cried for weeks, tried everything he could to win me back but I just could not get past it.

Here we are over a year later and he is still trying to win me back, I am the love of his life and so on, it was a drunken mistake he made when he felt I'd dumped him.

Any thoughts on this? We do still love each other, but although my behavior was bad on that night I couldn't figure out why a few hours after our breakup he went and had sex with the one woman who had been making me feel unsafe for so long.

Obviously I;ve been very uncomfortable

He was totally honest with you but you treated him terribly; controlling, constant monitoring and moaning about something someone was doing to him whilst he continued being honest.

Dont know why he wants you back; you sound like a nightmare.

@MarySanderson

We were on a break

😂

This is Ross and the copy place girl.

@beelzeboob

But he was 100% honest with you the whole time, he tried to block her / ignore her but it would have been difficult when they work together. He got shitfaced one night, you dumped him (totally unreasonably IMO), he went a shagged her probably as a “fuck the world” type action whilst pissed and upset. I think I’d be able to forgive him if I loved him.

Also agree with this. He wasn't unfaithful to you, you dumped him, he was free to do whatever he wanted. I'd have probably done the same as him. I don't think you should be together.

If she was really that full on and they worked together then it’s a bit sexual harassment. He could have stopped it instantly if he wanted.

the bigger issue here is that he has a drinking problem. do you want that from your partner - get out while you still can.

Right, to start with the OW didn’t ‘steal’ him because he’s not an object. He made a decision to sleep with her, albeit a drunken one. If she’s been pursuing him that relentlessly, it’s unhinged behaviour and definitely harassment, but still not ‘stealing’. To poach Atilla’s line ‘what did you learn about relationships when growing up?’ Neither of you is wrong, and neither of you is entirely right. Could be something to work out in couples or individual therapy.

Thanks @Angrymum22 it genuinely was anxiety inducing at the time and really disturbing

he is one of those people who gets absolutely blotto and does and says crazy things

There’s a word for ‘those people’. They are not people to build a life with.

Presumably he isn’t 18. Grown-ups don’t get so blackout drunk that they lose all control and then abdicate all responsibility for their actions.

@StellaStarfleet

He was totally honest with you but you treated him terribly; controlling, constant monitoring and moaning about something someone was doing to him whilst he continued being honest.

Dont know why he wants you back; you sound like a nightmare.

This in spades

Would I want a relationship with a man who regularly gets so drunk, has no self-control, needs me to put in arbitrary controls in place to keep him faithful, has no self-respect, has no respect for women, cries and begs saying it wasn’t really my fault - Hell no!
Give your head a shake for even considering it OP.

Nonsense all of it..the break , the drinking. Get away and don't look back.

For goodness sake, if you love him give him a chance, if you don’t then move on. His relationship with alcohol is not healthy though and from your description it sounds like he may have a drinking problem. You will never be able to trust him without you ... as he may get “wasted” and do something stupid. Ffs.

I also thinks he loves all the drama.

He didn't care enough about you to put a stop to her chasing.

He could easily have told her very bluntly when she was sober that anymore nudes or messages to the work phone would be reported, but he gave you a barrell load of excuses so he didn't have to do that.

He didn't care enough about you to leave or not spend the evening flirting with her when she turned up.

He didn't care enough about you to not end up shagging her five minutes after you two fell out.

He isn't a decent enough man to realise that shagging someone clearly smitten with him just to make himself feel better is a dick move (and a potentially risky one when you are talking about a colleague).

Why would you even consider going back there? Leave him to his teenage-esq drinking binges with his pathetic "crazy" antics and find someone better

I think you’re getting a really hard time on here. I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt when he told you what had happened. Of all the people he could have slept with that night. I think you’d be wrong to let someone who caused that hurt back in. He was drunk, but unless he’s never going to drink again, how would you trust him?

He's a drunk who can't control himself.

@SilverBirchWithout

Would I want a relationship with a man who regularly gets so drunk, has no self-control, needs me to put in arbitrary controls in place to keep him faithful, has no self-respect, has no respect for women, cries and begs saying it wasn’t really my fault - Hell no! Give your head a shake for even considering it OP.

Think of it this way. He’s had a year to give up drinking and get counselling. He hasn’t done it.

If he truly believes what he’s said to you, then he knows that it’s primarily the binge drinking that has cost him his relationship. So why hasn’t he spent a year sorting that out? Answer: cos he is just more into keeping his drinking habits than keeping you. And he’s too cowardly to look into what ‘inner demons’ are driving his behaviours with drink and women.

Far easier to sob at you about forgiveness.

Let him go, not for the infidelity, but because he’s a weak man with little self-knowledge and a destructive drink problem. Sit and imagine what kind of life that would be like at 40, 60 or 70yo for you.

Sounds like he’s spun you such a story. I’m guessing all the previous stuff about how she was actively stalking him and harassing him came from him? I bet she would have a very different tale to tell. The trust has gone, and I think if you got back together, you would spend every period apart stressing about what he was getting upto, especially when he doesn’t appear to have boundaries with drink.

He wasn’t enjoying it ‘on some level’, he was enjoying it full stop. He was just paying lip service to staying out of her way. He’s a prick.

I think you’re getting a really hard time on here. I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt when he told you what had happened. Of all the people he could have slept with that night

If the op hadn't had a tantrum and broke up with him.It wouldn't have happened.
Op comes across as controlling and when she couldn't get her own way,she finished it.
If the bf drinking so much was a problem she could have discussed it.
He didn't go to the parties that the of was at.
And when she turned up,he went home on the op say so.

If anybody had a lucky escape,it was the op ex.

You dumped him. I don’t see what the issue is.

I couldn't cope with all that drama in my life.

Both as bad as each other.

If a partner DEMANDED I came home, I'd have the right hump. Then when I do what they ask, I get dumped for my trouble. FUCK THAT.

He's a dick when drunk.

Think you're both better off without each other.

'shes not very attractive'

🙄

@beelzeboob

So what would be an acceptable amount of time between dumping and having sex with someone else? I know that the same evening is far from ideal, and I would be upset about it, but want to guage what you would have found acceptable? (Genuine question not goady)

I was wondering the same thing. Because if someone dumped me, screamed at me and blocked me on everything, I’d consider myself single and might well fuck the first willing person. And I doubt I’d be sorry.