SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’m an old member (2006) coming back for help in my new life.

This time, I screwed up. I’ve been with the most amazing dream man for over a year now and things are mostly great.

He lives almost 2 hours away so we get together as often as possible but not every day. Since my divorce over a decade ago, I’ve become very social. I meet up with girlfriends almost every night at a bar. I know this makes him a bit uncomfortable as having been affected by infidelity many times in the past. I understand because I have too. I have been trying to scale it way back and find other ways to socialize with friends when he’s not here but I haven’t quit going to bars completely.

Last night I was out with a girlfriend and an old male friend I haven’t seen in over a year reached out. I have never been interested in him romantically but he’s been very interested in me for about 15 years. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to continue any sort of friendship knowing this. However, I wanted to catch up so I told him where I was knowing he’d likely show up. It was meant to be an innocent catch up and I mostly talked about my Dream man and shared pictures of our vacation the whole time. I had planned on telling dream man about it after I had a chance to think it over and tell him in the best way possible. Unfortunately, he found out about it on our good night call because he heard my texts going off in the middle of the night and asked about it. I then told many half truths and some lies to cover my own guilty conscience and out of selfishness. He knew I was lying but I didn’t stop. I really had nothing to hide but I knew he would probably be upset that I welcomed an old male friend and I would not have been comfortable had the situation been reversed. So I continued to lie.

This morning I thought it all over and realized that I was lying out of selfishness and I owed him the truth and he has every right to get mad or never talk to me again. I confessed the entire situation to him and admitted every lie and openly answered questions. He was obviously upset but did a great job of communicating all thoughts and feelings.

Now I’m hoping he forgives me and I’m looking for suggestions on how I can attempt to rebuild trust. I have done a lot of reading about this and know all the obvious things but please share any advice that may help. He means more than anything to me and I will do anything to fix this.

Sorry you're in this situation. Rebuilding trust takes consistent actions over time.

WC3,

Congratulations on realizing that you were not being true to your self and trying to correct your ways.
So what can you do?
Back to the basics. Apologize. Adopt radical honesty. Get into IC to see why you did this. Were you self-sabotaging? Are you fearful of something? Get to the root so you can be confident in yourself that you won’t do it again.

Good luck.