I’ve done something really stupid

[whatisnormalanyway101]

I’m on holiday with some girlfriends and stupidly hooked up with a guy a few nights ago. I’m not single so I’m expected to get roasted for for this which is fine. It’s a fairly new relationship but still.

There’s nothing anyone can say that I’ve not already said to myself. I’ve been pretty promiscuous in the past but have done a lot of work on myself with my therapist and thought I’d made progress and changed. Clearly not. I was drunk but no excuse.

I saw him briefly later the next day but he made it obvious it was a hook up - he got what he wanted and that was it. But I feel utterly worthless, haven’t left my hotel room all day in case I saw him and have cried a lot. I have mental health problems and this has triggered me massively.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this or what I expect to get from it. He lives in another country miles away from the uk so i’m never going to see him again.

Will this crushing guilt go in time? In the past, guilt has not been an emotion I’ve felt as i’m clearly an arrogant fuckwit.

Should I finish with my man at home? Should I tell him? Do I just chalk it up to experience, give myself a good talking to and try and forget it?

Nope. I think a mistake isn't always best revealed. A repeated mistake is. If it's a repeated mistake then it isn't a mistake but is a pattern of behaviour

I'd agree with you that on the whole, Mumsnet tends to be completely hypocritical when it comes to judgement of men versus judgement of women in the exact same circumstances, but in this instance I'd be saying the same thing no matter the sex of the "offending" party or the sex of the "innocent".

OP is not going to make anything better for anyone by coming home and being brutally frank and honest. Nothing to do with the sexes involved, everything to do with needlessly upsetting an innocent party to a greater degree than is necessary.

Oh hun that sounds like it was a painful experience.
I’m sorry - but my advice is going to sting, but I really believe 1) it’s important to be honest with your partner.
2) therapy is what you need, not a relationship.

focus on therapy. You’ve fairly recently left an abusive relationship - and this kind of self-sabotage is not really surprising, because you have got healing to do still.

be alone for a while and heal. And please stop beating yourself up. This happening is a signal to you that you need more work on your self love and valuing yourself.

take care of yourself. You deserve to be healthy and happy, and it just takes some time after what you’ve been through.

I'm confused. On one hand you feel remorseful for cheating on your new bf and saying you're sorry and it won't happen again etc etc

But in the next breath you seem upset/disappointed that the man you slept with has made it clear it was a ONS. What if he hadn't? Would be interested in sleeping with him again before you go home?

You need to work on your own self esteem so rejection by a guy you slept with once isn't such a big deal. In fact if you weren't so desperate for validation perhaps you wouldn't have done it in the first place

Honestly I’m sure I’ll get judged for this but I wouldn’t tell him. I slept with someone very early on in my relationship with my now husband, I think we’d been together about 7 months. I regretted it instantly and knew I wouldn’t do it ever again. Now 12 years later we are happily married with 3 kids and the thought of being with someone else makes me feel a bit queasy tbh, I just couldn’t do it.

Reflect on what you did but remember life isn’t black and white.

I will say absolutely no one else knew about the above encounter, do your friends know what happened?

I think if you test too early it could be that any STI hasn't had time to develop sufficiently yet. I'd double check timescales but think you may need to wait until it's been 2 weeks since the contact for some types of std

See this as the catalyst for never having a one night stand again.

The man on holiday saw you as somewhere to put his dick inside. He didn't care about your thoughts, feelings or welfare.

You were reduced to just being a hole, albeit voluntarily.

That should spur you on to rebuilding your self esteem and putting the past behind you so you can build relationships where you feel secure, loved and wanted with no reason to subject yourself to making yourself vulnerable with a stranger.

As for the boyfriend, you need to tell him.

The promiscuity I mentioned was in my 20’s. I did what the fuck I wanted and had no regrets. I’m 50 now and look back on how I was with disgust.

Telling him won’t alleviate the guilt at all. If anything it would make it worse.

Yes it was consensual and no I didn’t want more (he lives on a totally different continent). I think part of my problem is that it validates my feeling of not being able to trust myself or anyone else. This man has proved that as he was clearly spinning me a line to get me into bed and that stings. obviously I play a part in this too - if I’d have stuck to my guns and said no it wouldn’t have happened so I’m not saying it was all him.

he’s left now - I avoided him all day yesterday and we leave today.

my friends know about it - I’ve not really talked much to them as I internalise everything, isolate myself and try and beat myself up. I will of course speak to my therapist about it. My friends are of the opinion that “what happened in [destination] stays here” so wouldn’t say anything.

I think you sound distraught and have a little more work to do on your mental health through therapy. Impulsiveness, drama, promiscuity, fear of abandonment are are all signs of an adult who is not emotionally stable and possible still dealing with trauma?

I may be wrong but I am sure that you're not a bad person - you are just finding life difficult, especially with a EA ex partner.

I do think it's really really sad for you as it may well have messed up your present relationship but you don't need to carry self hate with you. Everything is OK x

The point is that the partner's sexual health isn't impacted yet, but if the OP doesn't say anything when they get back home from this holiday, and carries on as normal then that puts the partner at risk, so if the partner did somehow find out, that's when they'd want to get down to a clinic and get tested.

OP needs STD check
OP also needs to be honest with the partner immediately - to give them the option of calling time on the relationship, and not sleep with them until that conversation had taken place.
if I were the partner, I'd walk away from it - after 5 months there is no real repercussion on their life and quite frankly it evidences how little the OP valued their relationship so get the hell out.

You need to tell him. It will be worse if he finds out later.

Poor op you feel shit about a shitty thing you have done and rightly so. You cheat and you are now making yourself out to be the victim... this whole thread screams poor me.

Totally this.

I think you need to reflect in why you did it. Sounds like you already have

Don't let this ruin your holiday any more

Don't tell your partner. Hopefully this will never happen again

"Cheated"?

OP is not married! She doesn't have a "partner"! She's been seeing a guy for less than 6 months! There's nothing to "confess".

OP, get home, get tested, don't have sex with your home guy until the tests come back clear.

You had a fling and it wasn't great, it made you realise you want to be a one-man woman. Okay then! Onwards! Have the "exclusive " talk with your man.

personally I would
chalk it down to experience, not tell
him and just forget it ever happened. If you love your boyfriend then maybe this is the sign that you needed. And don’t be too hard on yourself. People do silly things they regret all the time,
mistakes are
human. the important thing is to learn from it.

My friends are of the opinion that “what happened in [destination] stays here”

Being in a different country doesn’t excuse adultery.

I think you should re-consider the company you keep.

What line was he spinning you? And if you have a loving relationship at home, why did you need that validation? Why is it upsetting you fell for his spin if you didn’t want to/couldn’t take it any further? Why do you feel the need to avoid him? Why is it so upsetting he just wanted a hook up, if you did too. Or did you actually want more?
Not to beat yourself up. Just to understand why you did it.
Analyse why you did it. Accept that you made a mistake and then forgive yourself. We all make mistakes and it sounds as this is just a setback to lots of work you’ve done on yourself. A bit like binging after you’ve done so well on a diet. Were you self sabotaging?

As to whether you should tell your partner, depends on all of the above. If your relationship is good, you understand why you did it but immensely regret it, then perhaps the best thing is to get yourself std checked out before you sleep with him again, but move on and learn from your mistake. Or tell him and be honest about why you did it and how mixed up you are etc and say that you are telling him in the name of honesty and that you want to work on why you did this as you don’t understand it yourself. Why would you want to sabotage a really good relationship? Either way, more therapy is probably a good idea.

Whether your current relationship survives or not, then it’s important for you to realise we all make mistakes and that’s ok as long as we learn from those mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Resolve to do better in the future and forgive yourself. Get therapy to help understand why you did it in the first place.

Adultery?

Tell me you're joking.

Emdr therapy is better than cbt therapy in this case.

I agree.

You need to stop wallowing in self pity, get on with your holiday and deal with this when you get home.

You’ve made a mistake but you are going to ruin your holiday and your friendships if you spend the whole time sitting in your room crying feeling sorry for yourself.

It has only been 5 months and OP has cheated already.

Why should the boyfriend be left in the dark? He has every right to this information and to then do with it what HE wishes. Given the newness of the relationship he can walk away from someone who sounds likely to do this again.

I would also hazard a guess that OP's distress now is more to do with being treated like a hook-up, rather than genuine remorse for cheating.