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Emily
writes, "I need advice on
how to
build back trust and
fix
a relationship. I know it takes a long time and a
lot of effort. About 6 months ago, I went away and ended
up cheating
on my boyfriend of 1 year. Before I left, things
were going so well and we were madly in love. For some
reason, I got confused and ended up liking another guy.
My boyfriend found out all of the details, and I denied
them because I was scared, but then admitted to them. He
didn't want to
break up with me and wanted to work out everything
in our relationship. He knew how much he loved me and
knew that it was worth it to try to mend everything.
Since then, I had been deep-down a little bit distracted
and still thinking about the guy from the summer. I was
confused as to how I could have forgotten about the love
of my life while I was away. Throughout all of this
though, I still called my boyfriend regularly and we
hung out every weekend and I know that I love him so
much. I ended up kind of keeping in touch with the other
guy (boyfriend did not know) which was wrong, but I
couldn't stop thinking about him. The other guy lives
very far, so I never saw him and we only exchanged
e-mails every month or so, but he was still in the back
of my head. Because of this, I was distracted from my
relationship and needed to get over my own problems.
Please don't judge me for what I did. After having a
huge weight lifted off my shoulders in another part of
my life (college
acceptance), everything kind of hit me like a ton of
bricks. I really want to fix our relationship and I
realized how much I love him and how much I missed how
things used to be. We really love each other and I don't
want a stupid
crush and a mistake to tear us apart ultimately. The
thing is that I want to be happy and open and I want him
to trust me again because I know he doesn't now. The
thing is that now that I have sorted out a lot of my own
problems, I am now ready to fully
commit myself to fixing my
relationship with my boyfriend. Since last year, my
boyfriend has started his first year of college, so that
has changed our relationship too. He is often
stressed out and tired, and sometimes he can't call
me because his roommates are there. He isn't as chatty
or laid-back as last year. The dynamics of relationship
has changed and I am guessing that a big part of it is
because I was distracted and confused and not fully open
to being close again and that he could just sense that.
Even though he didn't know that I occasionally still
talked with the other guy, he could probably get the
sense that my heart wasn't fully in it and that I was
not capable of being as close as last year. So my
question is how to work to gain back his trust?
Now that I am ready, I will do whatever I need to do.
It's also hard because this happened about 6 months ago
and we've tried to move on and things have been a bit
weird since. So I can't really explain to him that up
until now I haven't really had my heart in it.
Maybe just the fact that I am in love with him all over
again and am really not distracted with other guy's
problems any more will help to show him that I am able
to be close again. Another thing that worries me
is that now that he is in college, he has
new
friends that I don't really know and we don't see
our
mutual friends anymore (many are also in college
now). I will be also going to college next year,
so I think it is important to
maintain some mutual friends that we can hang out
with so it's not always just the two of us hanging out.
I trust myself now and am fully content with my
boyfriend. I am definitely willing to make sacrifices
now and along the road to be with him."
First of all, I am a little concerned that he is far
from you and you will also go to another college. It
simply means that with all the problems that you have
had, having a
long-distance relationship in which you may not be
able to spend a lot of time together may be a problem.
In any case, assuming that you still want to
pursue the relationship with him, these are my
thoughts. I truly admire you that you are accepting
responsibility for your actions (many people even blame
their
cheating on others). Secondly, if you are serious
about this guy, you have to
throw out thoughts of any
other guy, including stopping even monthly email
communications.
How to make him
love you again?
You are a very
honest person and good at
communicating your feelings (the way you did to me).
What I would like you to do is to do the same to your
boyfriend. Either invite him to
spend a weekend with you so that you will have all
the time in the world to talk. If not, do not do it over
the phone, but write down everything, review it, and
then email it to him. Tell him exactly what you have
told me. If I were him, after reading these thoughts, I
would totally
love you again and see that you really mean it this
time. After the email you can talk over the phone to
make sure that he understands how sorry you are and how
serious you are about making it work. There is no rocket
science to developing trust; as long as he trusts what
you say, it will be OK, and he will not trust you if you
do not mean everything that you say. |
