After the girl cheated, is it fair to ask her NOT to spend a week at a retreat with him, and others?

March 31, 2009 7:32 AM

After the girl cheated, is it fair to ask her NOT to spend a week at a retreat with him, and others?

Girl and I started dating rather swiftly after the end of her last relationship. (Though she didn't end the relationship for me; it was on its way out.)

We elected to "be exclusive" (that is, it was verbally agreed to) rather early on, about two weeks in, despite my cautioning that it might be too soon from her last relationship and that if she wanted to date around, that was not a problem.

She was actively being courted by another long-time friend. I knew he was interested, and I knew they spent time together, but she said nothing had happened, and that she was interested in me.

About three weeks pass and finally things reach a fever pitch with this guy and she makes it clear she's not interested. It then comes out that she DID sleep with him, after we had made clear we were "exclusive". I make it clear that this is unacceptable and, given her history, that she has basically killed our trust.

She begs and pleads for me to stay and make things work. She calls guy in front of me and tells him things won't work and she's decided to go with me and that's that. She promises it will never happen again. After much deliberation, I explain that she's basically on a zero-tolerance policy. She agrees.

Fast forward two months or so. Things are going swimmingly. I've explained that it's still a rebuilding and regrowth process with the trust, but she's done absolutely nothing wayward at all and is VERY expressive of her commitment to me. I genuinely believe she's set, and chose to rationalize the cheating as her shopping around and having pulled the trigger on "exclusivity" too soon. Still unacceptable, but at least a rationalization that works for me.

She mentions today that her friend (another girl) asked her about the retreat her (and several others in their group) go on for about 10 days. The other guy is one of those friends. I express trepidation; to me, I can't stand the thought of her being up at a retreat with this guy, no matter how limited their contact might typically be. No matter if I do trust her or are working towards trusting her, or whatever-it's WILDLY frustrating, just the thought of it, and I'm going to be going nuts for those 10 days no matter what. (It's out of town, and I can't go with.)

I explain to her that this is the case, and that I *hate* being that guy--I don't want to tell her who she can or cannot spend time with, or to take away an event she gets a lot out of (it's actually helping kids), but I just can't shake how terrible it makes me feel. She promptly and sincerely offers to simply not go: "You're too valuable to me for me to do that to you and it's only fair."

And I accept that, despite telling her that I don't want to force her away from something like that, but that I just... can't... be okay with it yet.

Am I out of line here? She wasn't really terribly upset. And she's thrilled with how things are going between us, as am I--things are only getting better. I actually really appreciated and respected her willingness to NOT go, knowing how crazy it would drive me.

I'm just wanting to poll the crowd and see what they think--she hangs out occasionally with other guy friends, and it's not an issue for me; I don't control who she spends time with, etc. But I think it's reasonable as the offended party to expect her to not contact the person with whom the affair was with again, including staying in close proximity for 10 days with him and other close friends somewhere...

Thoughts?

posted by anonymous to human relations (37 comments total)

I dont think you are out of line at all. When a breach of trust occurs in a relationship, you ] put guidelines into place that enable you to continue. One of those guidelines should (probably) be "no spending time with this guy."
posted by milestogo at 7:40 AM on March 31 [5 favorites]

Sacrifices are a joy when they're done for a greater good. She'd rather be with you than be entirely independent, and your feelings aren't unreasonable. Sounds like she's made her choice. Respect it, be thankful, and treat her extra special for those 10 days.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:40 AM on March 31 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I think you're morally in the clear about demanding that your current, exclusive-relationship girlfriend not go out of town with the guy SHE CHEATED on you with.
posted by jedrek at 7:41 AM on March 31 [2 favorites]

I had expected more booing, to be honest, considering the Hive's reaction to posts hinting at jealousy or a need for control in a relationship.

I wouldn't like it either, and I would certainly talk about it with her. And if she sees your point, all the better for you.
posted by NekulturnY at 7:45 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

If it was causing you anxiety, then asking her was the right thing for you to do. Whether or not she agreed was up to her. Fortunately for you, she did. Now go do something to make it up to her that she's missing out on the retreat.
posted by lizbunny at 7:47 AM on March 31 [4 favorites]

I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with it, either, and the fact that she so readily offered to not go speaks volumes to me.

To assuage the guilt you feel about being "that guy" (even though I don't think you are being "that guy" in this situation), perhaps the two of you can find a charity to donate your time to, together.
posted by cooker girl at 7:48 AM on March 31

I get where you are coming from....and I have been on the other side of the coin and thus agree with you..I think it is ok to let her know how you feel and let her know that you hate to be that guy but it is something you dont feel comfortable about.......just the fact that you dont like it either would really help me understand that you are doing it cause it really makes you feel better rather than being some control freak.
posted by The1andonly at 7:49 AM on March 31

Am I out of line here?

You really need to know that this is all on her. This whole situation is because of her actions, not anything that you have done. It is a shitty situation, but it's a shitty situation that she caused. You have the high ground out of circumstance, don't slink to the low ground because you don't want to hurt her feelings.. this was all caused because she hurt you.
posted by pwally at 7:52 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

I'd take it one step further. The fact that she even needs to ask would make me question whether or not she realizes how much of a breach of trust her cheating was.

Beware.
posted by aleahey at 7:52 AM on March 31 [7 favorites]

Yeah, it's tough to be that guy. Two months isn't a very long time, so it's understandable that you'd feel this way about that particular guy in this particular situation. Of course we all want to be idealistic and say trust her, even after she cheated recently with this guy. Right? Of course. Let her go and if she comes back, it was meant to be, blah blah, etc.

People aren't perfect, though, as she's demonstrated. You're not perfect, either, so of course you're going to feel this way. Remove that known temptation, give your relationship a better chance to develop and solidify your trust in her again. I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to feel this way, after such a short time, about a guy who actively pursued her and slept with her so recently. I think socializing with the guy together would be a big step at this point.
posted by empyrean at 7:54 AM on March 31

Though the wisdom of being exclusive after such a short time is debatable, face the facts dude: she cheated on you just out of the gate. This is going to corrode your trust in her over time, maybe deservedly. Whether or not her contrition, etc. are going to fix this you'll have to figure out over time. But I'm not optimistic about it.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 7:55 AM on March 31

Fast forward two months or so. Things are going swimmingly.

This is just the time between the ship wreck victim hits the water and the hypothermia sets in. Enjoy it while it lasts.

chose to rationalize the cheating as her shopping around and having pulled the trigger on "exclusivity" too soon

Or she's immature and didn't (doesn't) know what she wants. Or maybe you're just sexing her up better than the other guy (for now.)

I don't want to tell her who she can or cannot spend time with

Spoken like a true cuckold.

I actually really appreciated and respected her willingness to NOT go

I bet there is still a chance she might up and go. She could walk in tomorrow and say, "You know what, I've thought about it and I really want to go, and I feel like you should let me because I've explained (rationalized away) the cheating and made amends..." What are you going to do then, friend? You're going to let her go and possibly bump uglies with this guy (or who knows who else) and you're going to go crazy the whole time and when she comes back you're going to have some big pow-wow about it and she's going to cry and say, "No, no, no! Nothing happened, I promise!" And maybe she's telling the truth, and maybe she's not. You have no way of knowing.

And this is the way it is going to be EVERY TIME this chick is off on her own with other guys. You're going to feel this same way. You're going to try to leverage her guilt over her to control her.

knowing how crazy it would drive me

Relationships based on leverage, control, and guilt DON'T WORK, if they last at all they become incredibly dysfunctional. You don't trust this woman, as you shouldn't. She's bitten you once, put you at risk for STDs, and made a fool out of you. And yes, she feels bad. And yes, she is trying to make it better. The fact remains though: you don't trust her as evidenced by your insistence that she not have contact with this guy she FUCKED of her on volition when she was committed to you.

I'm not saying this relationship can't move forward and be healthy. I'm just saying both of you are demonstrating characteristics which make that highly unlikely.
posted by wfrgms at 7:55 AM on March 31 [7 favorites]

Or what wfrgms said.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 7:58 AM on March 31

She promptly and sincerely offers to simply not go: "You're too valuable to me for me to do that to you and it's only fair."

Seems like you both approached this as adults. As long as you're not indiscriminately saying she can't hang out with any guy friends--just this particular one in this circumstance--you're in the clear.

I'd take it one step further. The fact that she even needs to ask would make me question whether or not she realizes how much of a breach of trust her cheating was.

I would take asking as indication that she does know and wants to make sure that she doesn't do anything else that could damage the trust you are rebuilding.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:04 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

You gave her a chance to see other people, she said she wanted only you. You gave her a chance to be honest, she lied. Either you trust her or you don't. If you don't, whether its this guy or some other guy the doubt is likely to always be there. If you do trust her, then there isn't a problem. What does your heart, your gut tell you? Not your head. Stop thinking this through. Do you trust her?
posted by jeffe at 8:04 AM on March 31 [2 favorites]

I say let her go. Ten days should be plenty of time to extricate her from your life.
posted by explosion at 8:05 AM on March 31 [5 favorites]

Here's one part I have a problem with: "...if she wanted to date around, that was not a problem."

I'm not convinced she did cheat on you. Yes, the two of you agreed to "be exclusive", but you knew yourself that she wasn't ready for that. And she apparently "cheated" in the first *three weeks* of your "exclusive" dating, and you're still holding this against her? Come on. There's got to be some sort of lemon law that applies here. You were exclusive in name only, and you're holding her to too high a standard, one you should have been honest with yourself and known was impossible.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 8:22 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

You don't trust this girl. If you did, it wouldn't be a problem for you to let her go.

That's not a criticism. I wouldn't trust her either. Lying to yourself about your level of trust for her won't do either of you any long term favours, though.
posted by Solomon at 8:30 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

I see a lot of what I would consider personal baggage in the responses people are giving you. Only you can determine if staying with her is worth the work involved and the risks. Any person you are with has the power to hurt you in the future. Enjoy the time you have with her and when and if that joy departs reassess the situation.

I don't think it is unreasonable to make requests of her that have the effect of putting your mind at ease. If she cares about you the way she needs to for it to work she won't begrudge you such things. It sounds like that's the case for the time being. That being said, maybe you could find something the two of you could do together in town? Something along the same lines as the retreat she was planning to attend. Compromise is pretty bad ass.
posted by Gainesvillain at 8:33 AM on March 31

"You were exclusive in name only, and you're holding her to too high a standard, one you should have been honest with yourself and known was impossible."

Huh??!! How in the world is expecting someone to be faithful when they've said they want to date you exclusively "too high a standard" and "impossible"?


As far as the original question goes, I'll agree with the majority here. Asking your girlfriend not to go out of town with a guy that she cheated on you with just two months ago is entirely reasonable. If she hadn't agreed to the request, then you'd have some tough decisions to make regarding whether you could trust her enough to continue the relationship. Since she agreed, just relax and enjoy your time together.
posted by tdismukes at 8:45 AM on March 31

You're being completely sensible about all of this, and I would feel exactly the same way.

That said, you should allow her to go on the retreat. She knows the deal, and if you're describing the situation honestly, I'll bet she uses this retreat as a way to DEMONSTRATE her faithfulness.

If she cheats again soon, you can dump her and save a couple years of wasted time and energy.

WIN: WIN!
posted by General Tonic at 9:06 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

I think, given how new this whole thing is, it was reasonable for you to say that you didn't feel comfortable having her go. And it was reasonable for her to say that she didn't want to go if you didn't feel comfortable.

I'm seconding the "find a way to do some volunteering, just the two of you" just so she doesn't feel frustrated about having missed out on the opportunity to help others just because of her own stupidity/poor judgment/lack of integrity.

She was an idiot to make a commitment of exclusivity when she wasn't ready for it. You were right about her not being ready for it.

But someone breaking agreements in the first three or four weeks of a new dating relationship is, though a significant breach of trust, not necessarily a sign of an inability to keep agreements in general.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:20 AM on March 31

You aren't out of line. Do you think you'll ever be able to trust her fully? Do you think the two of you could end up together long-term, or are you just putting up with your frustrations about her trust until the two of you break up for some other reason? Basically what I'm saying is that you need to decide whether this girl is so great that dating her with these trust issues muddling things up is better than finding some other girl who you can trust.
posted by fructose at 9:23 AM on March 31

Stop torturing yourself. Srsly. No-one is questioning the validity of your feelings, including your actual girlfriend.

You both did this right. Pretty much textbook. You expressed your concerns about her going away on a retreat with her former paramour using respectful "I" statements. She considered your feelings thoughtfully instead of getting reactionary and defensive. She picked her priorities and made a choice. (She will have other opportunities to help kids that do not interfere with her relationship with you.)

Maybe what's bothering you (if I'm interpreting the scenario correctly) is that you had to ask, rather than her reject this retreat out of hand? I dunno, but it's time to drop it and move on.

I really don't get the serious hating going on from some of the other commenters, but these sort of relationship AskMes do tend to attract a lot of projection.
posted by desuetude at 9:37 AM on March 31 [4 favorites]

Call me hard, but if it were me, I would have told her to take a hike and move on. If there's one thing I learned over the years, is that a good partner is someone you can trust without a second thought. But, if you really want to try to make it work, you need to seriously ask yourself if you will ever be able to trust her again. Not 80% trust or 95%, but 110%. If you can't trust the person you are with, without question, you will always run into these kinds of stumbling blocks. So yes, you are in the right for asking her to stay home, but when will these sorts of doubts and limitations end? She may be genuinely trying and may just be a wonderful girl who made a mistake, but that won't make a difference if you really can't get over it. And you know what? It's ok if you can't, because trust is a very difficult thing to restore. Whats not ok, is wasting your time and her's if you honestly can't be back to 110%.
posted by scarello at 9:43 AM on March 31

I would have dumped her. Now, please build a time machine, go back to 2001, and tell me this.

If you really think this is going to work then she doesn't go.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:49 AM on March 31 [3 favorites]

It sounds like you don't trust her enough to believe her when she says this is okay. That makes sense, it's what happened before, but it is easily solved by communication. Tell her you need to work together to make those 10 days the best possible time for you both, so that there's no more doubt that you're controlling her or pressuring her to make promises she can't keep.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:49 AM on March 31

Can I just say that making an exclusivity agreement two weeks into a dating relationship is likely to be premature for most people? Not that that gave her the right to break said agreement, which she made, of course. That was a shitty and poorly judged and integrity-lacking thing for her to do.

But two weeks is really early to make that kind of agreement. And I say this as someone who was engaged to my husband six weeks after we met. So I'm not Ms. Take-It-Slow.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:02 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

The pussy-purity patrol (aka DTMFAs) is out in force on this one. I'll chime in with a different perspective. While you are free to express your concerns and she is free to decide as she so chooses, your manipulation of her prior indiscretions into leverage for perpetuating on-going delusions of control are counter-productive to a healthy relationship. I'd suggest something more along the lines of "you think I'm gonna suck my own cock for a week and a half?!?" because at least you can lay that one on her with a hint of humor. The guilt-trip for her sluttiness is no more mature. And the bottom line, despite what others have said, is that this is about you. She fucked someone else. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to hold continue to hold unrealistic expectations or are you going to commit to the relationship you have in all it's unpleasant reality?
posted by McGuillicuddy at 10:07 AM on March 31 [3 favorites]

Are you going to hold continue to hold unrealistic expectations

It is not unreasonable to expect somoeone to honour their commitments. What an odd world you must live in.

The OP's reaction is very reasonable - if this incident were far in the past with no repeats, OP, you'd be being silly. This recent? Your reaction is quite reasonable.
posted by rodgerd at 10:26 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

I *hate* being that guy

You don't have to be Mr Sensitive modern touchy feely guy all the time. A situation happened where she violated your trust. She then came out and decided to try and restore your trust in her faithfulness to you. She communicated something to you that she wanted to do. You communicated your reservation and your worry. You asked her not to go and she didn't. Congrats. You two communicated with each other and both made a decision and a compromise. Your trust in her isn't fully 100% restored but that's reasonable. What you're dealing with isn't necessarily something where "talking about it" all the time will solve it. Time and action will help. Her actions seem to indicate what she's willing to do to continue the restoration of your trust. That's good.

The trick, however, is not to mistake your Mr Sensitive, wonderful guy behavior as just a mask for a passive aggressive manipulating attitude. Are you going to hold her indiscretion over her head for as long as you two are together? Is your trust never going to be fully restored? Are you never going to trust her again? I can't answer that but hopefully you can. And it's perfectly reasonable to not want her to be around that guy and want to drop an air conditioning unit on his head. But just because you feel that way doesn't mean you have to actually do it. Continue to communicate your uncomfortableness, feel free to say "I don't like this" when you don't like something, but be watchful if your uncomfortableness ever becomes resentment because that will poison your relationship and is a sign that something is wrong and needs to be fixed or ended.
posted by Stynxno at 10:33 AM on March 31

If I'm right about the timeline here, you're saying that five weeks into a dating relationship you were already throwing around phrases like 'killed our trust' and 'zero-tolerance policy'. It seems really fast to get in that deep, particularly with her coming right out of another relationship, in a time when she might not know much about she wants but might well have fears about being alone and not in a relationship.

I would say that this thing happening so early in the relationship sets a poor tone for everything that follows. The more you wonder about it and demonstrate lack of trust, the more chance she can become resentful. From her perspective, it's not like there's anything she can do to lose the trust you already don't have in her. If the relationship is defined on the basis that she is a cheater, why not go ahead and cheat?

I would suggest (though don't pretend to be en expert here) that maybe you view this retreat as an opportunity for both of you guys to reassess what you want and how you're going to define your relationship and (again, for both of you) what your motivations are. If you both want to continue, you need to kind of reset things (if that's possible) and start with a kind of clean slate. When cheating happens later in a relationship, there's already a foundation there upon which to decide whether and how it can continue; that doesn't exist early in a relationship, so the whole experience itself becomes part of that foundation.

It's possible she was genuinely confused and emotionally messed up when this happened and that it is not part of her overall makeup. But you also had an opportunity to maybe delay things with her coming out of another relationship--or at least to not get serious so quickly. As difficult as it certainly is, in some sense you should perhaps view it in more practical terms: if she goes to the retreat and something happens with this guy, it is better to learn this now and not months or years down the line when you're not as fiercely trying to put band-aids on the situation (or when she is growing resentful of what she might see as controlling behavior on your part). And if she is going to regain your trust she needs opportunities to do so.

Good luck on it. It's a tough thing to deal with, but might be better to view it in larger definitive terms than in situational terms, which are just going to recur for as long as the larger issues aren't dealt with.
posted by troybob at 11:36 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]

This seems totally, 100% completely fair to me. You're not telling her who her friends can be, you're reasonably uncomfortable with her spending ten days with someone with whom she fucked around on you.

(And it's a really good sign that she's willing to just not go.)
posted by paultopia at 12:05 PM on March 31

This whole mess doesn't seem like a good way to start a relationship. How long have you been going out for? A month? Two? I'd move on and find someone who you feel more comfortable with.
posted by chunking express at 12:35 PM on March 31

I'm with chunking express. This amount of drama a year or two into a relationship might be worth taking the time and energy to fix it - you've just started seeing this girl and already she's cheated on you and now you're in a position where you're not sure if you can trust her yet... but really, you never had time to build up trust in the first place.

She's just come out of a relationship and wasn't ready to be "exclusive." Whether or not she's ready now, you rushed into this and you know that.

My gut feeling is that the only way to build up trust would be to go ahead and trust her. Put her on the line. Let her go on the retreat and see what happens. If you really CAN trust her, nothing will happen. If you can't... well, you've gotten that out of the way and you can both move on.

And if you don't think you can trust her enough to just let her do it, you can't trust her enough to be in a relationship with her. Period.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:13 PM on March 31

3rding Chunking Express. I get the feeling you're both pretty young. Without trust, there is no real relationship.
posted by 2oh1 at 6:42 PM on March 31

She knows she lost your trust. If she didn't want to earn it back, she would have tried to convince you that the retreat was for a good cause and she'd never touch this guy, etc etc. The fact that she immediately and easily agreed with you shows that she's aware of how the situation must look and feel for you. Maybe she even wouldn't mind the excuse not to go, since hanging around with this other guy could get awkward if he's all mopey about the fact that she chose you over him.

This is how she's trying to earn your trust back, and you actually have to let her do stuff to prove it, because saying sorry isn't really enough to get rid of that gut feeling of unease.
At some point in the future, you'll have to stop feeling so raw about it though, or she'll (rightly) say that you're not willing to move on. But at the two-months stage, it's still too fresh, so just be really nice to her to show you appreciate what she's doing to make things right.
posted by harriet vane at 6:12 AM on April 1