Question for remorseful cheaters

[SubterraneanHomesickBlues]

Not long ago I found out my boyfriend cheated when we were long distance for university. He is remorseful and trying to get a second chance, but I'm just trying to understand why people do things like this.

Were we terribly serious when it happened? No, not really. We'd been dating for a while and he had told me he saw us together long term and we were exclusive. That was something he asked for, not me.

If he had decided he didn't want to do long distance fidelity, I'm not sure why he didn't just tell me he had met someone else - then he would have been legitimately free to be with this other person.

I asked him this question and he said he never wanted to be with this other person, he was just extremely lonely and wanted companionship. He said a lot of drinking and living in the same hall led to sex but sex wasn't what he wanted.

I think he very much liked the other person but he says it was me he was in love with and never wanted a romantic relationship with the other person. None of that really makes sense to me at all.

Do some people have some weird capacity for compartmentalising?

Why would you even want to have sex with one person if it were another you wanted to be with?

I don't think he's any kind of casanova. He's a bit socially awkward and I think from what his friends told me that she threw herself quite aggressively at him but to me that's not really an explanation.

I am just trying to understand, because he's very tearful and desperate and begging but I can't wrap my head around why he'd do this.

Do I believe it was just for sex? Not really. He doesn't seem like the type, but maybe it was. He's not the womaniser type. It just seems incredibly destructive behaviour.

He says I'm the girl he always wanted to find and meet and he's ruined it all now, but I'm trying to grasp why if he felt that way that he would jeopardise something that's evidently of value to him.

We're not 15. We are PhD students, and being separated was part of a big academic achievement for us both and the plan was to be together after we had finished.

I think, as you say people compartmentalize. I had a boyfriend who admitted he repeatly cheated in a previous relationship but was the family man at the same time he loved his children. I think men are more prone to this. When your bf was cheating he wasn't thinking of you at all.

I don’t think it’s a terribly complex situation in need of massive analysis. He was lonely, he was attracted to somebody, probably flattered by somebody liking him, he didn’t think you’d find out, so they had sex. Perhaps at the time your relationship didn’t feel “real” because it was long distance, perhaps at the time he was feeling distant from you emotionally as well as physically and doubting that the relationship would actually last. I suspect both are pretty common in long distance relationships and that more people in them cheat than are ever found out, usually simply through opportunity.

Some people find it pretty easy to compartmentalise sex. I’m one of them: I don’t think of it as something sacred that you should only do with one person for the rest of your life (hence why my relationship is open) and I can easily have sex with somebody and not want anything else. I think it’s a more common attitude in men, who aren’t bogged down with the same load of social conditioning around sex and relationships and sex as an expression of love as women are.

I think it’s fine to take your time in deciding whether it’s something you can overlook or whether you’d rather just end the relationship. It’s totally fine to be able to get to a point “understand” why he might have done it in an academic level, but still not feel that you want to forgive it.

I understand its pretty obvious in some ways: lonely, drinking, someone paying you attention.

The part that confuses me is the absence of cost / benefit analysis.

He's been crying for about a month, completely desperate, and I can't really comprehend how he didn't think through consequences.

Presumably either

A) he thought I'd never find out
B) he thought I might find out and calculated it to be worth it

Neither seem appealing.....

They also seem incongruent with his general character, which is to catastrophise

I also think he very much is not a person who doesn't associate sex with feelings.

Worryingly, I think perhaps what happened is that he started out using her as some sort of proxy for me. Like a stand in.

Then I think he developed actual like and caring for her. I don't think in the same deep, romantic sense he feels for me, but certainly she wasn't meaningless.

I am trying to work out if I want to give this second chance, but Im not sure I can live with tye fact he formed attachment and caring towards this other person.

Drunken sex in the early days of a long distance relationship feels like something I could maybe move forward from.

Caring about her on some level feels worse.

I can't really trust him to tell me the truth right now because he'd say anything to get back together.

The part that confuses me is the absence of cost / benefit analysis.

I think this might be where copious amounts of alcohol comes in. I am not excusing his behaviour but Ive done things I regret whilst drunk (although I have never cheated on anyone); I wasn't performing cost / benefit analyses at the time, I could barely put one foot in front of the other. How old are you / him? I haven't been so drunk I've done things I regret for a long time (I'm 38) but it wasn't an uncommon occurrence in my early 20's.

Unfortunately I think this is one of those things that cannot easily be understood from an analysis only perspective - his decision was not based in logic. You can read about why people cheat, scientific papers, phycological journals etc etc. However what your situation boils down to is whether you can accept HIS reasons and work together to move forward together or decide for you that you can't move past it to rebuild the relationship. Either outcome is possible, but no matter how much you ask for his why's, you are in charge of deciding if the relationship can be ongoing.

I think you making this all too rational.
Loneliness, alcohol, proximity of living quarters=easy access - all made this what it was. Every person - no matter how rational and thoughtful has a capacity to act impulsively. And at that moment - there are NO coat/benefits calculation that is considered.

What you do with it - is harder to say. I’d take some time to see what I feel.

Well I'm trying to be rational. It's not something I'd personally do, regardless of loneliness or drink. Am I unusual? A few friends have told me they might do what he did, but I really can't picture circumstances where I would.

Firstly I wouldn't want to. Secondly, I wouldn't want to bring harm to someone else. So I'm concerned those two things seem lacking.

Also it wasn't impulsive. It happened several times over a period of months so it was clearly a conscious decision he repeatedly made. Also concerning.

Lol. Cost/benefit analysis has no place in romance or sex, you’re never going to have peace of mind over this if that’s the approach you take.

I’m sorry for the inevitable pain, hurt and confusion this will be causing you. I think you need to take some time out without trying to think or analyse it, and see how you feel deep down - whether you miss him, wish he was there, feel love/happiness towards him. Or whether you just feel the hurt and betrayal. At that point you may be able to make a decision.

I agree that the fact it happened multiple times makes a difference. I think I might be able to look past one drunken instance during a long distance relationship (when I was younger) but I would struggle to justify why it happened multiple times. Plenty of time for Cost / Benefit Analyses the day after and I would expect him to decide it was a terrible mistake and not do it again.

Well, if you think of humans as animals, then cheating in a long distance relationship is probably natural. You get sexual pleasure, hormones, cuddles, someone to nurse your hangover and laugh with you.

The question for me is that what should stop you from doing it is the risk of harming someone you claim to love, as well as losing them from your life. So in his mind I feel he must have made a decision those things were worth the risk.

@Ibetthatyoulookgoodon

I would expect him to decide it was a terrible mistake and not do it again

Exactly. He apparently did do that and did say that repeatedly to her (according to his friends) but then it "ended up" happening a lot.

So either he's got no self control, no respect of any kind for me.... or perhaps he feels a bit more for this other person?

I've asked him. He said she was providing close friendship when he was lonely and he didn't want a romantic relationship with her, but she was always there, so "stopping" was difficult. He says he tried a lot and told her a lot.

I can't really make it add up.

No amount of rationalising is going to stop this hurting you. Feel the pain and move on. This weak willed man is not your person.

When I was first with my now-DH, in the early days, neither of us were sure if our relationship had a future (long-distance and other factors), and one time he came to visit me he mentioned that he'd had sex with someone else and asked if I wanted to continue seeing him. I chose to continue. She was sort of "unfinished business" from his past, an itch that went away once scratched, and they were both quite happy to go their own ways (this is verified by the way, I was careful enough not to just take his word for it!).

Your situation is rather different. It does sound as though he used her as a sort of stand-in for you, which is wrong on so many levels!

He obviously needs a female companion he can turn to at all times. That's not very reassuring 😨

Sometimes, yes. My current partner (of only 2 years) is very much adamant of that. He states he’s no interest in anyone else, and that for him to cheat and risk losing me it would have to be someone better than me, else what’s the point? And given he’s convinced I am the best person he’s ever met, it couldn’t possibly happen. All very sweet of course!

BUT….. the difference here is that my partner was married for a long time to a woman who ultimately made him unhappy. He claims they shared a love, but he never felt the same connection he does now. She didn’t fulfil his sole desire of affection and love. He was miserable for a long time. And I truly think that knowing what life CAN be like, and seeing how different life is for him now and how it feels to love and be loved properly helps him see it wouldn’t be worth it.

it sounds like you’re still very young, and it’s unlikely your bf will truly understand that yet. I highly doubt he was thinking about whether it was worth losing you over. He probably wasn’t thinking at all. And likely did/can “compartmentalise” those two elements of his life.

humans aren’t meant to be monogamous, that’s a societal construct. We can love and be intimate with more than one person at a time, or throughout our lives, and as such it can make us struggle with relationships. Ultimately only you can decide whether you will trust him in future, and I wish you all the best with it.

He obviously needs a female companion he can turn to at all times

I think this might be accurate. I honestly feel, from the endless conversations and questions that he was sort of place filling.

That's not to say she was worthless as I don't believe she was. I think he considers her one of his closest mates and has a fondness for her.

Which I'm not sure is better or worse.

I think that's the problem, OP – it's like there's a female-shaped gap in his life and he fills it as best he can, depending on the circumstances.

Maybe the biggest problem, though, is that he was telling you one thing (pushing for an "exclusive" relationship) while doing another. Why? How can you trust someone like that? I mean, students do a lot of shagging, it's part of the culture, so it must have felt normal to him in some way.

But by lying to you, he wasn't giving you a choice. You might, for example, have preferred a different contraception method, or even to stop having sex with him altogether, if you'd known what was going on. Or even to stop seeing him.

Out of curiosity, how did you find out? I'm guessing he didn't tell you.

I'm afraid it does sound a bit like bitter remorse about not being able to have your cake and eat it. Sorry, OP.

No, I absolutely would have ended it if I known. I ended it immediately once I found out.

No, he didn't tell me. She did. She wanted more from him, a relationship, so telling me got me out of the picture.

Wow, she sounds like a right catch! Is he still seeing her (I assume he says he isn’t - do you believe him/have proof?)

No, he stopped seeing her right away, which leads me to question why he didn't just do that before. He must have wanted to continue otherwise he wouldn't have.

She seems all right, just completely different to me. It wasn't a nice thing to phone me I suppose but I'm glad someone told me even if it was an awful way to be told.

I'm sure he's not seeing her. She keeps on ringing and messaging me trying to fish for information. She's very upset. I think she expected them to end up together and he's clear he doesn't want that even if I'm gone.

The whole thing just seems odd to me. She told me he was "hesitant" and she admits (through tears) that he told her that he loved me and wanted to be with me. Actually I've felt a bit like I was comforting her which was bizarre.

I asked her why she didn't just stop if he'd said that and she said she hoped he'd change his mind. No idea why either of them continued with it.

If your social conditioning is such that you believe in monogamy then what you decide will be determined by that belief unless (1) you re-evaluate your beliefs or (2) engage in a non-monogamous episode which throws you into confusion.

It's a warning signal.

In years to come when you are older or ill this man may not stand by you.

He needed the emotional and sexual whilst you were apart but lied about this so you would not have the same opportunities, he obviously thinks you are a person that would not do the same to him.

He lied, liars are not a good bet.

Get a STI test.

Monogamy is one part of it: I find it very upsetting he was intimate with someone else, and the emotional side is more hurtful than the physical side.

The other part of it is being lied to. Deception. Being prevented from deciding for myself.

I wasn't keen on having a long distance relationship. He was.

I sacrificed opportunities to meet other people, enjoy sex, mini breaks, companionship etc. and I was invested and knowing I was being tricked feels very unpleasant.

I did see us together long term, it was a great relationship by my measurements, but it wasn't that serious when he was offered the placement.

The relationship definitively was too early for him to give up the opportunity, and I wouldn't have asked him to, but we had a very earnest conversation where he asked me to commit to long distance and I explained I would only do that if I felt he was "the one" so to speak.

So this is all a shock really. He was free to be single if he wanted to be.

This is going to hurt now but it is better to find out now that this bloke isn't capable of fidelity than after you have had a dc and he needs to take a supportive role in your life rather than center stage.
He simply is too weak and self centered with too little self control to be a decent life partner. He is also dishonest and deceitful.
There will be someone much better out there.

Also what kind of tool shags someone while telling them they are in love with someone else. It is so disrespectful to both women.
Honestly you are well rid of this.