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I don't really know what my goal of posting here is. I just need to get this off my chest. I'm brand new and I don't know the lingo so I won't be abbreviating the way I see everyone else doing.

She finally gave up on me.
Around 4 years ago, I met the woman I've always dreamed of, and we were so so happy. But then I cheated.
She tried to stay with me for around 2 years after D-Day. But she just wasn't happy with me anymore.

I will make no excuses, I feel horrible for what I've done, and our future together that I destroyed. Any detail I put here is for context, not excuses.

I was r*ped when I was younger by an older man, and since then I've developed a weird trauma-driven attraction to men. Again, I am not making excuses for what I've done, I made the bed and now I'm sleeping in it.

I cheated on her with a man, it was minimal but still very much cheating. I told her a few days later, I confessed to everything.

We've spent nearly two years trying to learn how to be happy again. She was no longer able to trust me, or show me any kind of affection.

We've broken up before, but usually after fighting. This time was different. It came out of nowhere, I asked "do you still love me?" And it led to us having a long conversation. We both love each other deeply and we both want it to work. But she simply can't be happy with me anymore. I don't blame her. We simply cried and held each other and said goodbye.

I've endured many breakups but nothing like this. Especially it being 100% my fault. The guilt and shame are absolutely consuming me. That poor girl stayed and tortured herself for two years out of love for me. I can't stop thinking about how happy we were in the beginning. I think of the way she used to look at me and smile, and it breaks my heart. I feel like a villain. I cannot believe this is reality and this is where we ended up. The beginning was so beautiful and our future was so bright.

Why did I have to destroy that ? Why did I have to destroy her ? What the hell was I thinking ?

We never tried therapy, I should have pushed harder for it as it was my responsibility to make things better. I sent her a text suggesting we try one more time and go to therapy together. I haven't gotten a reply. It's really over.

I could never hurt her or anyone else in this way ever again. I suppose it's a lesson I needed to learn. But why did it have to be with her ?

Nobody has ever loved me the way she did and I don't think anyone else ever will.

I feel like a demon, like the worst human garbage on this planet. I singlehandedly stole her happiness away from her and destroyed our future. It hurts so unbelievably bad. And I know that she feels even worse.

I don't know what type of response I'm looking for, I just needed to type this somewhere. Please be kind, I already hate myself enough. I regret my decision entirely and refuse to ever make the same mistake. I have no reason to lie in an anonymous forum.

Is it wrong for me to even be trying to contact her ? She's been my best friend for years and the only person I could lean on, I don't know how to handle her absence.

In the end it's her choice. I know that. And honestly, I really just want her to be happy. I've changed and grown so much since then, I know I can be the partner she needs. But the wound is still fresh as it ever was for her.

Is it wrong for me to keep trying ? Should I just accept the way things are and give up on the love of my life ? Will I ever be able to forgive myself for ruining us ? Does it ever get better for someone like me who's made such a horrible mistake ?

I miss her so f*cking much.

Staff have been discussing if this thread should have been posted in the Wayward forum where we can better protect the original poster if the replies get heated. For now, we will respect the OP decision to post here, but ask that anyone replying keep in mind that OP is seeking help and guidance. As per our guidelines:

SurvivingInfidelity.com® is a peaceful, constructive and devoted site with offering our support towards others during such a torturous time in their lives.

This is a complex situation.
Cheating is devastating to a relationship, but a same-sex affair probably adds a heavy twist to the doubts and questions the betrayed partner experiences.
For us – the betrayed – cheating raises so much doubt about us and our qualities and abilities. Why weren’t’ we enough? A good part of the guidance offered on this site is convincing them that we were – the issue is with the person that cheated, not us. If you cheated with a man... well... how can your female partner ever think she can compete with that? I think that might be a key factor in her decision.

What would I suggest?
Well... focus on yourself rather than the relationship per se.

You have a lot of trauma to deal with, and maybe the key question you need to be totally 100% honest and clear on to YOURSELF is your sexuality.
Being raped by a man won’t "make" you gay, but nor would it make you straight if you had homosexual tendencies. I think a key-factor for you is to define your sexuality, to set the compass straight. No matter how much you two care for each other, if your tendencies were towards men this relationship as a couple is doomed IMHO. But clarifying sexuality could make you the best of friends.

In the strongest words I encourage you to seek counseling for the abuse and the trauma it might have caused.

What you can do regarding her is that once you have taken the first steps to your own recovery (as in contacted a PTSD-specialist, rape-victim specialist or whatever and set up the appointments) is ask her to talk. Let her know what you are thinking and have planned, and ask if there is some way you two can remain on friendly terms (maybe even non-dating) for maybe 30-60 days. Just remember – all you can do is ask, and you need to respect her answer.

Are you actively in therapy for your trauma bonding? If anything stands out in your short posting, is that you have been traumatized deeply from your childhood experience. You are not a victim for what you did to your girlfriend, but obviously your victimhood has led you to where you are today. I hope that you can work through that, and break free of your past trauma.

You have to give her space. If you care for her like you claim, you need to let her find her happiness. No matter what has happened to you, she did not deserve this betrayal, and she needs to heal. If she wants you to be part of that process, she will ask for your help. But as for now, she is doing what she feels is best for her.

If you two were ever to get together again, the BEST thing that you can do to make that a possibility is to make yourself as safe a partner as possible. Saying that you can never do that again is one thing; showing through actions, like personal therapy, reading, journaling---is another.

Good luck. Sorry for the betrayals that you both have suffered.

I didn't mean to post in the wrong place I apologize everyone.

You didn’t post in the wrong place...
In General there is a lot more leeway in who can reply and how.
Chances are you will get a lot more responses here, and that can be good for you.
You will also get some direct and hard responses – and that too can be good.

However... what we don’t want is responses that really don’t contribute anything beneficial.
Each forum has a set of guidelines. The wayward forum offers staff more leeway in steering harmful responses. If we move this thread it will be either by your request OR we think the response aren’t in line with our guidelines.

Is it wrong for me to keep trying ?

Yes.

I miss her so f*cking much.

That is your cross to bear.

I hope at some point you will seek counseling and therapy, and start moving forward. To fully accept that what happened happened, and to then put the cross down. Stop driving your car while looking in the rearview mirror. Right now you are desperate to have a different past, but that is of course impossible to realize. The only way is forward.

Sending strength, friend.

Welcome to SI. In the Wayward forum, there are posts pinned to the top that may be helpful to you. Other great posts include:

The things I had to accept https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=642916

The process of discovering our true "Why's" https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=617173

Admitting it vs. Getting it vs. Owning it vs. Living it https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=615240

The Healing Library is located at the top of the site. Not only does it have a lot of great resources, but it also contains a list of the acronyms we use.

If you can, IC (individual counseling) may benefit you. You will need to work on becoming a safe partner. You may with to read How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald. While you are no longer together, this may give you some insight into the magnitude of what she has gone through. Another good book is Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass. You don't need couples counseling. Your partnership didn't cheat - you did.

You should be tested for STDs/STIs and HIV. There are some pretty devastating diseases out there that can affect you and be transferred to any future partners.

Does it ever get better for someone like me who's made such a horrible mistake ?

It can get better if you work on yourself to become a better person. You didn't make a horrible mistake. A mistake is forgetting to grab a gallon of milk at the store. You made conscious, deliberate decisions to cheat on your partner. You had other choices you could have made, but you decided to cheat instead.

Working on your guilt, shame and all of the why questions you asked will take time to work through. Please respect her boundaries and don't contact her until you're in a better place.

There are some waywards who put in the work to become safe partners, and they will admit that it takes a lot of work. You can get there, but it may take time.

One thing I would suggest that could both help her and especially you:

Don’t call the affair a mistake, and don’t minimize it by suggesting the affair was "minimal" but very much cheating.

The affair was a decision. Short of another rape, you always have the option of NOT cheating. As we often say here, a mistake is forgetting to get milk on the way home. By calling it a mistake you are minimizing your actions, and thereby the cause for her pain.
I don’t know what you mean by "minimal" – but for her the victim that’s like saying something like you didn’t intend to break her arm when you assaulted her. Fact is – you assaulted her.

I’m a former cop and as a cop I noticed that nearly everyone I had to deal with had an excuse. They sped because everyone else did, they only had one drink but hadn’t accounted for the effects of the flu or lack of sleep, it was "only" a mugging and no real victim, that guy I beat at the bar had it coming, she wanted it rough... whatever. Excuse, excuse, excuse.
The people that stood out were those that simply raised their hand and admitted their actions and were accountable. These were also the people I only met once...

If you admit that you betrayed her and cheated, and admit that what you did was your choice and your decision... that is a great step in becoming the person that won’t repeat what you did. Because unlike a "mistake" that you can’t really prevent, a decision is something you can always make.

I could never hurt her or anyone else in this way ever again. I suppose it's a lesson I needed to learn. But why did it have to be with her ?

Nobody has ever loved me the way she did and I don't think anyone else ever will.

These are not true, although you might feel that way in this moment.

Breakups are hard. You are absolutely capable of hurting someone else like this again. Why? Because you haven't yet done the self-work to heal from your own past trauma. You will need to spend a long time with a qualified trauma and sexual assault specialist. I hope you do that so that you can become a safe, secure, and self-confident partner in a future relationship. Once you are at peace within yourself, you will love and be loved in a way that you can't even comprehend right now.

Please let her go and take care of yourself.

I don’t think it’s wrong to keep trying, but by trying I don’t mean begging her to stay or trying to engage her. If I were you, I would just offer to do anything to help her pain and nothing more at this time.
It doesn’t sound like you’ve gone to IC over this or your past. You should start right now. Regardless of what happens with her, regardless of how much you exclaim to never do this again, it needs to be dealt with. I do wish you luck.

I'm sorry for the pain you are experiencing. You are mourning the loss of a very important relationship in your life. But that being said, I think you should leave her alone.

If I had to guess, the thing she cannot get over is the dishonesty of you not sharing with her that you had an attraction to men. She didn't have all the information when she entered into a relationship with you. I can completely understand why you probably didn't. I discovered my first husband was gay only about a year and a half into our marriage. We were very involved in a fundamental evangelical church, and him admitting he was gay was simply unthinkable. For him to admit it would mean being ostracized from the church and his entire social structure since childhood. I felt totally had, and Ioved him but in the end I left, because no matter how wonderful he is, I was facing a lifetime of a lack of true intimacy, while being a good Christian wife.

I agree with Bigger that you should focus on yourself and identifying your sexuality. You deserve to be happy too. Don't beat yourself up about the attraction you have to men. But do work on what made you think you could enjoy all that she had to offer without sharing something as important as your attraction to men. It was no less important that if you knew you would have a tendency to not be monogamous and kept that from her.

How much do you deserve?

None of it.

You didn’t deserve the trauma that happened to you, your partner didn’t deserve your poor choices either.

You’re human and please allow for all the flaws we all have when you reflect about you and what has happened.

I’m not a psychologist, but it sure sounds like you need to reach out for some therapy and from someone who has specialized in treating trauma.

Good people do bad things and have an opportunity to learn and improve.

My wife learned and improved and it took her years to learn how to be a safe partner.

Work on you, work on forgiving yourself when you can.

We've broken up before, but usually after fighting.

Did these periodic breakups after fights happen before or only after Dday? If these breakups occurred before Dday, then then your relationship was already unhealthy and dysfunctional; the cheating just made a bad situation worse. I've known many make-up/break-up couples (and was even part of them when I was younger) and it was always toxic, high-drama situations.

As for your questions about whether to fight to get your girlfriend back or continue to contact her, the answer to both of those questions is NO. I know that's not the answer you want to here, but here's the rationale:

-Your girlfriend stayed with you after Dday for 2 years and clearly tried as hard as she could to make it work. The fact that she told she wanted to break up during a period of calm (and not as part of an argument) means she thought about it for a while and made peace with the decision before she told you. If you love this woman as much as you say you do, then you need to respect her decision.

-I think you need to not have any contact with her, not only for her sake, but for yours. The fact is, you don't want to be her friend-- you love her and you want a romantic relationship with her. You're going to be trying to win her back, even if you lie to yourself and her about your intentions. Every time you talk to her, all you will do is rip off the bandaid and set your path to healing back to Day 0. As we often say to betrayed spouses who are trying to get over their grief, no contact = no new hurts. I think the same wisdom applies to cheating spouses who are trying to heal after a break up, too.

And, most importantly, it's not healthy to or feasible to rely on one person as your sole source of emotional support and validation. That's too much of a burden for one person to bear. You need to work on building your base of friends, expanding your social network, and seek professional help so you can become a better, healthier, person and not make mistakes like this in the future.

Lastly, you will not be the first or last person on Earth to screw up a good relationship and lose someone they love. Sadly, cheating is just one of a million horrible things that someone could do that destroy a relationship. You can (and will!) find love again if you learn from the mistakes and bad choices you've made, and continue to grow as a partner.

You should see this breakup as an opportunity to start over with a clean slate.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 7:43 PM, Wednesday, June 25th]

You might be bisexual. You might be so damaged from childhood that you have PTSD. What you do have is the desire and the ABILITY to get help and grow up. That is not written sarcastically. Your emotional growth was stunted in childhood. EMDR, then talk therapy with a well trained therapist whose expertise is childhood rape. Until that inner child gets healed he will always go to what is familiar…a rapist. No one here has the skill to give you advice in how to fix a broken heart, which is what you have lived with your entire life. We can encourage you to find IC.

And stay here because there will always be someone to "talk" to. On weekends and holidays you might have to wait awhile but no one will forget you.

I hope you are on meds for anxiety because it’s there all the time.

I applaud your courage in telling us that you were raped, but what have you done to heal from the trauma? If sex with men is trauma -driven, my guess is that you can do more to heal from the PTSD. I think that's where the biggest payoff is. That is, if you're no longer trauma-driven to have sex with men, I'd expect you to be a lot less likely to cheat.

IMO, healing from the trauma has to come before figuring your sexuality. Maybe you're straight; maybe you're bi; maybe you're gay. But you say the trauma drives you, and that makes sense. If you heal from the trauma, it won't drive you, and you'll be able to see yourself as you really are.

I know healing is by no means easy and by no means a straight line from here to there. It's very difficult work. I'm very sorry you have to deal with being abused so horribly.

I know it's very scary, even terrifying, to open yourself up in therapy, especially since too many therapists will take advantage of their clients, but a good therapist can help a lot. Myreco is to look for a good therapist.

Again, I'm sorry you were raped. That should never have happened.

Dear Ijustwanttobebetter, there are many reasons for affairs, and they are sometimes complex and layered. A trauma response was one aspect of my affair, so your story resonates with me.

Some people might say - I was abused, I didn’t cheat. I suffered worse than you did and I know not to betray my most intimate partner and ally. If that happens, try not to internalize that. People’s trauma responses depend on so many things. Temperament, the sources of support and resilience you have in your life, what happens afterward, etc. Perhaps your experience was framed by the views on homosexuality of your family and immediate culture. Perhaps those views were adamantly against, and that deepened the problem for you. Perhaps you experienced some pleasure in the interaction, either physical (friction is friction after all) or from the attention of an older man. That can leave someone feeling intensely conflicted and guilty. Dan Allender’s book Wounded Heart can address some of those feelings and help you feel that it is normal; if you experienced physical or emotional pleasure, that doesn’t mean you accept responsibility for the abuse. The response of people around you is critical. In my case, after a 13yo rape, subsequent pregnancy and abortion, and sticking to a specific boy for social protection from the rapist, my father’s reaction was to call me a whore and stop talking to me, and my mother’s reaction was to make sure that it was clear that she was a good person and a good mother and any problem I had was my fault. This was not a healing environment, this was a shaming environment. The help you received or more likely didn’t receive is a critical part of how you responded. In your case, intense shame.

You will begin to heal when you treat yourself and your story with truth, mercy, compassion, love, and wisdom. It’s almost impossible to do that by yourself. Finding a support group, counselor, friend, etc to support you is I think an essential step.

Your BS seems to have decided that she does not want to be part of this complicated process of figuring out what happened to you, how you responded, and how you want to live your life going forward. She doesn’t want to participate in figuring it out and drawing closer to you, or processing her response and her pain together with you. This is perfectly understandable and normal even if it’s painful for you. She may think - if he is attracted to men how can I ever be really attractive to him? Or maybe she is disgusted to an extent that you can’t imagine. You don’t know, you shouldn’t project or imagine (she may not understand herself, and she may not be interested in figuring it out), and I think the most important thing is to accept that at this point she does not want to be a part of your story. I would send her a note that says, "although there is nothing more I want that to figure out what is wrong with me and be a good partner to you, I respect your decision to not be with me. I will not reach out from respect and love for you rather than because it’s what I want. As far as I am concerned, the door is always open, and I will keep working on myself."

I mentioned before that I think it’s next to impossible to unravel the knotted ball of yarn without help. If you are not an atheist, and believe in some kind of benevolent creator deity, please start praying daily (or hourly, or minutely). This is, I think, the best kind of help available to you. This is meditation in the presence of a loving witness who can guide you with love and wisdom. Sometimes it will come through insight or emotion that seems to come from no where, and sometimes it will come through another person, or sometimes through an experience that doesn’t seem connected but which connects in a way you couldn’t have predicted. I have specific and deeply held thoughts about God which I hold sincerely but also with a light hand, knowing that tomorrow I may come to understand something new and different as God reveals more of himself to me, as I ask to draw closer. So I don’t want to suggest or demand a specific view of the benevolent creator deity - but I adamantly think that you should figure out what you believe right now, and pray.

I have less connection to atheism, but I can encourage you that if that is what you believe, you are at the tippety top of evolution, you have incredible potential to ease suffering and add love in this world, and that your life can be meaningful to you and others. But first you have to unravel those knots, because otherwise, you will cause unintentional harm that is nonetheless harmful for being unintentional. As you know.

Also, I highly recommend reading John Eldredge’s Wild At Heart. Here is some Eldredge writing (not from that book) that might resonate for you.

Over the years we’ve come to see that the only thing more tragic than the things that have happened to us is what we have done with them.

Words were said, painful words. Things were done, awful things. And they shaped us. Something inside of us shifted. We embraced the messages of our wounds. We accepted a twisted view of ourselves. And from that we chose a way of relating to our world. We made a vow never to be in that place again. We adopted strategies to protect ourselves from being hurt again. A woman who is living out of a broken, wounded heart is a woman who is living a self-protective life. She may not be aware of it, but it is true. It’s our way of trying to "save ourselves."

We also developed ways of trying to get something of the love our hearts cried out for. The ache is there. Despite the best face we put on our lives, the ache is there. As Proverbs says, "Even in laughter the heart may ache" (14:13). Our desperate need for love and affirmation, our thirst for some taste of romance and adventure and beauty is there. So we turned to boys or to food or to romance novels; we lost ourselves in our work or at church or in some sort of service. All this adds up to the women we are today. Much of what we call our "personalities" is actually the mosaic of our choices for self-protection plus our plan to get something of the love we were created for.

The problem is our plan has nothing to do with God.

The wounds we received and the messages they brought formed a sort of unholy alliance with our fallen nature as women. From Eve we received a deep mistrust in the heart of God toward us. Clearly, he’s holding out on us. We’ll just have to arrange for the life we want. We will control our world. But there is also an ache deep within, an ache for intimacy and for life. We’ll have to find a way to fill it. A way that does not require us to trust anyone, especially God. A way that will not require vulnerability.

Hello- fellow ws here. I also understand how cheating sometimes can be trauma induced.

Look, transitions are hard. Picking yourself up and starting again is hard. Suddenly there is a lot of space with nothing to fill it and for some people that is almost unbearable.

I would encourage a couple of things. As you wrote here and journal start being the observer of what you write.

Is it wrong for me to keep trying ? Should I just accept the way things are and give up on the love of my life ? Will I ever be able to forgive myself for ruining us ? Does it ever get better for someone like me who's made such a horrible mistake ?

I am using this as an example. Certain narratives you are telling yourself maximizes your pain and minimizes hers.

You say she gave up on you. No. That isn’t true. You threw away the relationship, she tried to find a way to get over it and found that there just wasn’t a way.

"The love of your life."

I think that makes it seem like there is not big love ahead for you. That is not true. We have the capability to have more than one big love in our life. I watched my late mother in law lose her husband of 40+ years. It was dark. She went on to have two other big loves, the last one was probably way more the love of her life than my late father-in-law. It was a wonderful relationship she enjoyed for the last 15 years of her life.

You have not met all the people you are going to love yet.

Reframe: what is this here to teach me? What are the things I can heal?

After my affair was over I have to say it was the very darkest of my life. And from that pain came a woman who slowly learned how to rise above it. New coping mechanisms, I have faced and healed a lot of my past, and I have become very strong in my value system, communication, loyalty, etc. Above all else, I have learned to love myself and others, and I have learned to receive love. I am saying all this to you because your best days have not even come yet. You haven’t met all the people yet that will love you and you them.

Of course, there is a lot of pain here. But learn from it. Heal from it. Become greater than you are now. Your affair likely was more than trauma based, there are more things to examine and work on.

What I am trying to say, focus on you and working towards who you want to become. If this is a meant to be relationship, she may enter your life at a later time when you are more ready to take on the type of relationship she needs. Or you may discover that this relationship really wasn’t for you, instead it was sent to teach you and build you. I agree with blue if you have broken up a lot in a the four short years of being together then it may just be contributing to a cycle of toxicity that you are meant to be free from.

There really is life after a break up. Your longest relationship is with yourself, if you get that part right there is a lot of richness ahead for you.

Personally, I would just leave her have the space she is seeking right now. You should respect her wishes. In fact, to tie a bow around it- our relationship with ourself will echo in every external relationship. If you respect yourself, you will respect others. Begging is not something a self respecting person does. Loving yourself means you believe you are worthy of love, this will allow you to receive love from others. It will also allow you the ability to give it.

A lot of what you wrote reads more like attachment. Loving yourself means you want the best for you. Loving her is about wanting whats best for her. If she has just been a best friend to you and someone cheated on her, and you watched as she struggled to accept that for 2 years, what advice would you give her? To break up with the one who is a constant source of pain, right?

Learn to talk to yourself like you are your own best friend. Use the extra time and space to read, journal, go to therapy, to try new hobbies and practice self care. Learn to have that foundation within yourself. I think what you will find is an improved you will attract even better relationships. And eventually you will truly be ready to be someone’s big love and be able to return that in a way that is unmistakable.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:11 PM, Thursday, June 26th]

I wasn't sure if I would reply to this as I am divorced, but it may help. I chose to D because my EXWW made my trauma all about her. Her exact answer to my question was, "I can't be there for you until you are in a better place because you make me feel guilty". This was in response to me asking what she was doing to help me heal.

Much has been written about the guilt-shame-remorse-regret relationship, so I won't touch on that other than asking you if you are fo used on her or yourself? It may help her to know what direction you are facing.

The same sex relationship probably adds a layer of complexity I'm not qualified to comment on, but my guess it adds to her uncertainty.

I hope you both find your way. Good luck and keep moving forward.