A Word of Advice... on trust

By Joshua O'Connell
Posted Monday, December 29, 2003

Today's discussions came from the forums.

I think my bf is reading my diary beacuse he knows how I am feeling all the time. Do you have any ideas on how I can prove this so I can dump him with out looking like I made assumptions. I don't want to accuse him without cold hard proof - I'd come out of the relationship looking like the [bleep].

--Diary dilemma

Have you thought about putting a note in your diary? Put a small line somewhere about how you caught him kissing another girl or you met a guy and are thinking about dumping him... something to see if it's really true. In fact, you won't have to come with him - if you pick the right stuff, you probably will have him coming after you and trying to talk to you about it, meaning he's outed his own mistake.

I have been with my girlfriend for 16 months. When we were around each other, the world disappeared and it was just us two. Sure, we had a few arguments, but they are always necessary to learning about and growing to love and accept each other.
Our sex life wasn't that great. When we did have sex, afterwards she would tell me how she didn't want to, or she would stop halfway through and cry and tell me how bad she was. I was understanding and said it was ok.
She said to me one day that she would understand if I had sex with someone else. She said that maybe I should, so I would get it out of my system and then wouldn't cheat on her. She brought this up a couple of times.
So one night, I was with someone else. I didn't want to; I just wished it was my girlfriend. I stopped straight after we started because it was wrong.
When I saw my girlfriend again, I told her. I couldn't keep it from her. I never wanted to hurt her, I love her so much. I only ever wanted her to be happy. How can I save us?

--My cheating heart

There's two problems that have to be addressed here:

1. Why is your girlfriend having problems with sex? You should have never taken advantage of her offer, which seemed like a really bad thing to even offer to begin with. You obviously cared about her, but your letter gives me no indication you ever chatted with her about why sex is so problematic. Was she a virgin prior to having sex with you? Sex, especially the first few times, is uncomfortable. She might also think just because she didn't have an orgasm that she was doing it wrong.

The truth is about 2/3 of women don't orgasm from sex alone. Many women don't learn this until they start opening up and chatting with others about it (or reading Cosmo), and a show of hands when they take their group trips to the ladies room finally verifies this fact at some point or another.

2. Why did you cheat? What was the motivation? Was it dissatisfaction with the sex life? Was is the girl? You need to figure out why you did this - odds are against you that she just happened to trip, land on you when you just happened to be naked, and the sex began. You said you didn't want to have sex, but yet you did. Why? You need to figure this out before you can salvage the relationship - your motives are a key piece to whether she can forgive you.

I do believe that someone can cheat, learn from their mistake, and salvage the relationship with honesty and communication. Learning from the mistake is the pig question mark though: if you truly are sorry about this situation, you need to tell her two things: one, that it will never happen again (her trust with you after your actions will determine if she can accept this) and that instead of having some stupid offer that you can sleep with other girls (leave stupid out when you're talking to her, of course), that you'd rather help her with her intimacy issues and make her more comfortable. It's not that it's something wrong with her, but it's something that you think will help you both have a better relationship overall.

Find out what's causing these issues and help her move through them, which will prove you do care about her and want to be with her. It's all about her in this circumstance, and you need to prove it. Fast.

Good luck, and thanks for asking.

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