How to deal with girlfriend's past transgressions

Hi all,

This has been paining me for a while so i decided to write here and get your thoughts. Sorry for the lengthy post, i just wanted to be thorough and give you as much information as i can.

Here it goes...
I met this girl one night in late march. She had just broken up with her boyfriend and was crying and i took her home, we talked and slept together. Since then we saw either other about one or twice a week on a casual basis for 3 months. Slept together every time, and she seemed genuinely into me. She would bring wine every time we got together, treat us to dinner, and even offered and did my laundry. Sex was amazing too. I slowly started falling for her but also had my guard up because she would be on her phone a lot and often act weird (sleep on the sofa, leave in the morning after we spent the night).

On our 3rd month of knowing each other i had the talk asked her if she wanted to cement our relationship and be committed. she said its ok if i talk to other girls. i got mad and asked her what does that mean and if kissing or sleeping is ok to her. then i told her in very strong tone that that would not be ok with me. She said thats ok, and that i could if i felt i needed that. Later on the way home she started crying and said she still hasn't fully gotten over issues with her ex.

That weekend, we had plans to get together sat night and i said i'm going to a friends bday party (didn't invite her). she said ok i'll make other plans. That night as i was out i saw her walking with another guy. i confronter her (buzzed), she said she was sober and the DD to her friends and she's driving them home. i asked if she's coming back and she said probably not. I was devastated as i saw her walk away.

The next day she called me, came over, we talked she apologized said she felt sick about it and we cemented our bf/gf status. That was the end of june.

We started to get closer, went on trips, and she told me she's falling for me. In august one night i felt we were a little off, and checked her phone, something i've never done before despite my suspicions. I found out that she has been texting/talking to her ex almost every day. While recent conversations it was very mundane, going back to jun/july it was sexual in nature. I woke her up confronted her, and asked her if she had anything to confess, she said no. i called her a lier and kicked her out. she came back crying but i told her i didn't want to talk to her. she tried to reach out throughout the weekend but i ignored her.

We talked on the phone couple days later, almost as a breakup talk. she apologized for everything and repeatedly said she did not cheat on me. i told her her ex was using her and she should stop communicating with him for her sake and she said she would. we met the next day for me to pick up my stuff and we had a long talk on the couch. i asked her to confess to everything that had transpired until now. she was reluctant but i told her this is all or nothing. She told me she had met with a guy she used to date during our first month of knowing each other, got drunk and slept with him.. but did not sleep with him the night i saw her walking with him. She said she drove him they talked and that was it. She also confenced that the infamous ex came over early in may and they slept together as well. She said she thought i was seeing other people at the time.

She also said she was naked facetiming that ex from time to time until she ended that in august. They were still talking platonically though. She said she was in love with him for the longest time (she had 3 bfs since then and maintained touch with him throughout all that time). and at the beginning when we met she was lost, didn't have a job, and thought about moving away from the city so she was not sure what was gonna happen with her or her life. She said she didn't think the facetiming was cheating because it wasn't physical, and confessed she was doing it while in a relationship with past boyfriends. She said that what she thought relationships were supposed to be like until she met me, and i believe her. She said she sees now how wrong it was and cant say sorry enough and that it will never happen now.

It was the hardest thing i ever had to hear.... she said none of this has been happening for months now. We had sex.. feww days later we started to see each other again and talk a lot. she wanted to make it work. She told me she told him she doesn't want to talk with him anymore, and blocked his number. We've talked every day.. serious tough talks abotu what had happened. We said "i love you" together shortly after that and she did something with me she's never done with anyone before.

we wrote "trust rules" that include not communicating with any exes, complete access to phone email etc. which she completely agreed to. she even got a droid (like me) to leave the iphone stuff in the past.

We are in the best place we've even been, talking all the time, spending every night together, saying i love you, she takes care of my every need and really seems to trying to make it work. She said that she realized what i meant for her that night after we broke up when we talked and we both confessed about our past. She agreed to talk to a couples therapist together and do what it takes to make it right. She keeps saying that none of the past stuff will ever happen again, that she's different now, thanks to me and what she's learned about relationships ( she had a bad experience in college, and in relationships before).

I should note that i wasn't perfect either, but not to that extent. Also, after everything came out i did call her a disgusting *****, which i regret saying.

It's been two months now of us spending every day together, almost perfectly. every time i seem upset she will ask to talk (even though she feels very uncomfortable with it) and willing to do anything that will help reduce the triggers i get. She told me she believes i'm the one for her (with her reasons), and loves me more than anything (she wasn't like that before

So we've been at it like that for 2 months now. We have plans to celebrate our december birthdays and booked our first real vacation to PR together.

Now... i love what we have and i love her and where we are. she said she's even being standoffish to guy co-workers to not be emotionally attached to anyone else but me. (she used to be very flirty before). I look at her phone records online every so often and she talks to no other guys.

We are great now and she's doing everything right but the past still haunts me. I don't know what i should do?? it makes me upset every time i think that i was falling for her and she was cavalier with my emotions and invested in her ex. But on the other hand she chose me over everyone and has never cut off talking with her exes and she has with me. She keep saying i am everything to her now. I do love her and want to give it a second chance especially since it feels different. But i often wonder if there's more she's not telling me but how do i forgive and forget the past? Should i?

If you love her get over the past and continue your relationship. She is being very open, allowing you to basically spy on her at any time. There has to be mutual trust or there is no relationship.

If you just can't let it go , well then it's best to end it for your sake and for her's .. You can't hold her actions over her head forever and expect to have a healthy relationship.

Either be 100% in or remove yourself from it.

Surprises (character/personality) are inevitable when you have sex with random strangers and start instant relationships, cemented or not.


Unfortunately, for many the surprises tend to be unpleasant...


Like Chris said, if you find it impossible to trust her, let her go.

This sounds controlling on your part. When you say "we wrote", the image that gets conjured up is that of collaboration. But then you wrote "she completely agreed TO", revealing that in reality you wrote the rules.

By the way, "trust rules" is an oxymoron.

With the droid, it sounds like you are being controlling and she for some reason is being desperate and intimidated by you, but I cannot figure out what her reasons are. At any rate, it seems that you are trying to have her conform to a mold that does not fit her, and is, admittedly, making an all-out effort to conform, but that is a sprint - this is not sustainable for a marathon. So I would drop this for the sake of both you guys. By dropping it I do not mean breaking up, but just stop talking about being "the one" for each other and chill a bit instead. It just does not sound like an egalitarian, fair deal between the two of you. And you apparently did something that in your book qualifies as a transgression that is of a smaller scale than hers, if I read you right; and then you conveniently skipped explaining what it was. I get a whiff of double standard in that "omission of information that the poster deemed irrelevant because it suited his purposes".

Back to the title of the thread - you call what she did a transgression. What did she transgress? Did you discuss things in advance? You made assumptions that just because she offered to do your laundry she was yours. By the way, why did you allow her to do your laundry? Was it the most chivalrous way to proceed, in hindsight?

Reading your post gives the impression of a relationship with a severe power imbalance headed for an eventual disaster.

When you describe yourself, you use terms such as:

- in very strong tone
- confronted her
- "woke her up to confront her" - you spied of her and felt entitled to wake her up from her sleep. I guess I should not have even bothered bringing up the laundry issue because it it pales in comparison with "woke her up" to confront her
- called her a liar
- kicked her out (apparently, that was from feeling deep gratitude for the wine she brought, the dinners she treated you to, and the laundry she did for you)
- "she takes care of my every need" !!!
- you love her (I wonder what you mean by that...)

And when you describe her, it is apologized, apologized, apologized, cried, apologized, confessed, cried, apologized...

See the difference?..

Another highly, highly striking linguistic phenomenon in your post (as opposed to countless other posts I have seen on here) is the overuse of terms "best" and "perfect" and "great". Most other people are able to see, discern and appreciate subtler tones; it is not all black-and-white for them. Most other people would write that, say, now things are BETTER than in the past, but to use superlatives as much as you did in the post is a little unusual.

But the most striking part is this: "We are great now and she's doing everything right"

Now let us compare with the above - "she takes care of my every need"

My friend, you should call it quits - I take back about just stopping the talk about "the one for me" and chilling - just call it quits and apologize to her for wasting her time and thank her for the laundry, wine, lovemaking, dinners, and so on and so forth. Tell her that at your present stage you do not deserve her and want to set her free.

This is because you do not have the requisite emotional maturity to be in a couple. Your writing clearly reveals that you do not hold yourself to any kind of moral standard and yet feel entitled to holding others to your own standards which you devised for them without their input. Your sense of entitlement is gigantic and you also manifest black-and-white thinking. Plus, all the odd mentions of perfection. We are not supposed to diagnose mental illness here, but we can say that fact ABC make us suggest that you see a therapist to discuss possible XYZ. So with that kind of preamble, let me tell you that you sound:

- narcissistic to a high degree
- borderline a bit (now called emotionally unstable)

The black-and-white thinking can be an aspect of borderline, but overall you do not seem borderline. You do however seem narcissistic and you view the world from an egocentric perspective - SHE had to meet ALL your needs (which needs of her were you meeting, I wonder), she had to stop being invested in her ex simply because your majesty developed feelings for her and was falling for her, and yet, tears of immense gratitude did not immediately well up in her eyes so now she would need to be repenting and "doing everything right" for the rest of her days. Looovely.

Even if you do not have narcissistic traits, and there is a questionnaire right on this website that you can fill out and see what it yields, you need to be in therapy to prepare yourself for future relationships, to learn that relationships involve give and take and compromises etc. It is not all about your gf's satisfying your every need and even dropping the innocuous flirtatiousness that characterized her and started being unnaturally standoffish to guys at work simply to please your majesty. What is she, a serf of yours? And yet, you are treating her as if she were a serf of yours.

I realize that these words are harsh and that you wanted someone to join you in your "self-righteous indignation", but as you see, none of us are doing that. I would suggest that you reread your post many times, paying attention to the choice of words, because the choice of words is so striking that I simply cannot believe I just read what I read.

So that is the honest opinion by way of supporting you - not supporting you in your self-righteous indignation, but supporting you growing to comprehend the give-and-take nature of human relationships and becoming a better person and better partner through that. I hope you do not take offense but instead look inwardly for answers to the question as to why, in the whole long OP, you expressed regret only once, for calling her a disgusting ***** (btw did you express regret to us or also to her? if to her, what did she say about your being regretful?), but she was apologizing and feeling sorry again and again and again. If you word count of various words that you used to describe how sorry she was and contrast that with the ONE mention of regret on your part, that disparity ought to open your eyes.

Again, do not take offense but please do analyze your post.

Awesome post Hammy

Simply put- you don't trust her
Without that the relationship is doomed.
Trust her and move on- that means wipe it and learn from it but forget it- it stays in the past or split up.
Trust is everything.

PS folks living a century ago, before the advent of modern usage of psych lingo by lay persons ("narcissism" etc.), would have said "a petty tyrant" about the combination of traits and attitudes presented in the OP.