I was unfaithful.

It’s going to be impossible to not make this long-winded, but I’ll do my best. Long story short, I cheated on my girlfriend. I’m not looking for sympathy or anything like that. Just would like to hear some different thoughts and opinions that I can take into consideration before I decide what my next step is. Background: I’m 23 years old, she’s 22. We have been dating for a little over a year and living together since the first of May. I met her in a different state last summer when I lived there for an internship. We started talking through an online dating site and eventually met and had a really good connection and started dating almost immediately. That lasted for two more months until I had to move for a full-time job a couple of states away. We continued our relationship long distance with the future plan of moving in together around May or June if things worked out (obviously it did). Since moving in things have generally gone well. We have had our ups and downs and some serious fights - not related to infidelity - but we’ve generally pulled together and persevered through them and I believe it’s generally made us stronger. I’m not sure if this is relevant, but she has clearly stated that she would love to marry me some day. We are both in love with each other, but I am not as quick to say such a strong statement because I would never say something like that if I wasn’t 100% sure - mostly because I don’t want to disappoint her and I promised within the first couple of months after I met her that I would never hurt her. That’s why this situation is so difficult for me. So this past weekend I went to Las Vegas for the first time with five friends who I’ve known since middle school, and one of their younger brothers. It was the typical debauchery-filled Vegas trip - far too much alcohol consumed, not nearly enough sleep had. The second day/night of our trip was definitely the craziest and we were all the drunkest. We went to a strip club late that night - this alone would never be a problem with my girlfriend, she even encouraged me to go to one before I left. The strip club was fun and of course by the time we got back to our casino/hotel we were even more drunk. I blacked out that night so my entire recollection of the night’s events is very fuzzy. I don’t even remember hwen we leaved the strip club or coming back to the casino. The next thing I remember is I’m back in one of the hotel rooms with two working girls. I vaguely remember them discussing how much whatever I wanted cost. I don’t remember how much I paid. But basically I remember they each gave me a little bit of oral with a condom on and also handjob. But because I was so drunk I could not get off. I remember being a big jerk to them and basically making fun of them, like the whole thing was a joke. I did not find them attractive, and I don’t remember when I met them or actively seeking them out. I am fairly certain I was probably somewhat taken advantage of in that I was drunk, but I am not excusing my behavior because I do remember being in the room and I could have kicked htem out. Anyways, like I said, I could not get off and I must have reached my time limit and I was over the whole situation so I basically told them to get the hell out. The next day was our last full day in Vegas and we still had the party atmosphere going. I was never in the state of mind to truly think about what I had done. I was too embarrassed to tell my friends exactly what transpired in the room but they knew there were hookers there. I originally intended on never telling my girlfriend, taking a “what happens in Vegas” mentality. Waiting at the airport by myself two days after the incident - the most sober I had been in a few days - and I realized how terrible of a thing I had done. It’s the day after that and we have been together all day and she has been a wonderful sweetheart to me as always, practically worshipping the ground I walk on. But I’ve been a huge grouch, using the excuse that I’m just tired from Vegas. Which I am, but the real issue is I’m practically depressed because I’m hating myself so much for what I did. I have an extremely guilty conscience and come clean to her about petty things that would not really affect our relationship. I have a number of things going through my head as far as what I could do -I can obviously tell her and come clean bout everything. I’m not worried about salvaging our relationship - I want to stay with this girl and if anything this weekend’s events showed me that I might be even more of eventually marrying her than I thought. But I’m also level-headed enough and selfless enough to know that if she deosn’t want to be with me after learning about this, then she deserves that and she deserves someone who will treat her as amazingly as she treats me. And even if she did want to stay with me I’m not sure it would work because I’m not sure that she’ll ever trust me fully again and I’m not sure if we would be able to recover. -I can keep it to myself and hope that the guilt subsides and I can stop thinking about what happened and just try to treat her as best as I possibly can. There’s always the very rare possibility that she would somehow find out through one of my friends, and that would be awful. I know the guilt is probably especially strong right now since everything is so fresh, but it’s hard for me to even look at her right now knowing what I’ve done. The hope with this option would be that it would go away and hopefully things would work out. -I can come up with another reason to break things off with her, but still take the blame - IE: I don’t know for sure if I want to marry you and you know you want to marry me. It’s not fair for me to continue to date you and possibly lead you on and not give you what you want in the end. She would obviously still be hurt but I would assume not as much. I’m also worried about running her for all future relationships. I want her to be able to have a happy, healthy relationship with someone else in the future should we not be able to keep it together. More background: I did cheat on a girlfriend in the past, and the situation was similar - very drunk. But in those situations I still sought the action out for the most part and was conscious of what I was doing the entire time. I also did not have as strong of a relationship and feelings for the girl I am currently with. I am not defending myself, but just trying to lay out the truth. If you want to call me a scumbag or anything, go ahead, but it isn’t anything I’m not already telling myself. I’m really at a loss with what to do and this is the closest I’ve ever come to committing suicide. I wish I could go back to Friday and tone down my alcohol consumption or could have just kicked those girls out of my room or not even gone to the strip club. Any thoughts or opinions or advice - really anything - would be much appreciated. Thank you.

I think you should come clean and be completely honest with her. I am trying to put myself in your girlfriends's shoes and see how I would feel, because my relationship is a bit similar to yours - I am 22, my bf is 23, we've been together for almost a year and I have expressed to him that I can see myself marrying him in the future. If my boyfriend did this to me, I would be completely devastated obviously. But if you truly feel like you love this girl and that you do have a future together, you have to tell her. If not, it will be in the back of your mind forever, and you might even end up blurting it out if you are drunk or you're having an argument with her. The longer you leave it the worse it will be. However, if you have done this in the past when you were drunk then there is a high possibility that it could happen again. So really, really think about what you want - do you want to spend your life with a girl who clearly loves you very much and who you could be very happy with, or do you want to be single and have the option to sleep with any girl anytime you want. Because if the latter sounds more appealing, then you really should just put your gf out of her misery and be single. Also, I really dont think that your gf wants to get married straight away, she just wants you to know that what she sees for you guys in the future, which I think is sweet.

Hey there. I had a similar experience as you actually, I was unfaithful to my boyfriend a while ago. My incident was a bit less extreme than yours (one time internet thing) but I think the same principles apply. I couldn\\\'t get myself to tell him at first. I waited for almost six months. In the beginning I just blocked it out but as time went on that became harder to do. I kept thinking about it, and it was giving me these fits of guilt whenever he said or did anything nice. Eventually, I came clean a little over a week ago. My boyfriend actually forgave me. The first thing he said to me: Don\\\'t worry. You are thoroughly stuck with me. But I need time to process this. Then he took a couple of days to himself and after that we talked, and I explained what had happened at what had been going on with me ever since. Obviously, this has had a negative impact on our relationship, but I\\\'m doing everything in my power to make him feel better and he truly isn\\\'t worried about it happening again, since he knows how torn up I was about it. But enough about me. What I wanted to do was encourage you to come clean, since in my experience keeping the secret was horrible. Also, my boyfriend was actually more upset about how long I had kept this from him than about the actual incident. I realize that I was very lucky, but I believe that if you guys have a real strong connection you should trust her to forgive you. However, one thing in your post confused me. You suggested that you would break up with her for different reasons. Do you want to ? Or are you out of your mind ? Would you really break up with a persony ou love rather than telling them the truth? But then you have no hope. . . In any case, I believe there is hope in your situation, and you should come clean. Also, you seem to have a problem controlling your alcohol consumption... Good Luck :)

Everyone has really great responses to this post. One thing is, I think you shouldn't be as hard on yourself. It sounds as if you were very, very drunk at the time. 'I believe that if you guys have a real strong connection you should trust her to forgive you.' I quoted derp because that was awesome, and I think a great point. I also think that you should consider as well whether or not you want to stay with her and not let something like this have you break up with her for dishonest reasons. the marriage part? why not think seriously about the future some? you don't have to marry immediately, but you can be in a relationship geared towards that mindset and possiblity. hope this helps and best of luck. <3