Expert: Don - 5/3/2007

Question
Hello my name is eddie and i have been together with my girlfriend melissa for over a year (may 6), anyways..back in late january to early february she started acting realy strange. You see, we were always realy close..we would always be together, in person or on the phone - heck, sometimes we would talk for so long that we'd fall asleep on the phone! Neither me or her have ever been so close to anyone in our lives. Anyways, back to what I was saying..

She started acting strange, she never picked up her phone. She ditched me several times. She would tell me things like, shes going to work or school and then I would have to find out otherwise..Neither me or her had a myspace, but I found a "secret myspace" and on that myspace I found a guy who commented her with a bunch of "<3's" and "i miss you's" I private messaged the guy and he basicly told me that he knew that I was her boyfriend, but she came to him two weeks before I messaged him telling him that she wants to get tgether with him, even though me and her were engaged to be married. He confessed that they had sex, only once though..I confronted her about it and she denied the crap out of it, until..2 days later, she admited it and started bawling in tears. She agreed to stop talking/seeing that guy - and 3 months later...she still hasnt talked or seen him, she now calls me/takes a 2 hour bus to my house/tells me where she is at. And hasnt lied to me at all..

My problem is trust, i have a realy REALY hard time trusting her. I mean, i love her...i realy do. She means the world to me, she brought out a happiness in me that I never had. But she also brought out a dark depressing side last february as well...

Whenever she goes out with her friends (which is very rare ever since I caught her cheating) I feel realy uncomfortable and nervous. I realy dont trust her...and i am trying my hardest to trust her, but its too much. I gave her the world..and she just shot everything down. I wish there was a way out of this. I do talk to her about it but there isnt much she can do but tell me "babe I have been honest with you these past 3 months, i havent lied or cheated on you...i swear" and i usually cheer up..for about 5 seconds. I dont want to break up with her..just want to make that clear. Any help will be greatly appreciated..Thanks for your time.

-eddie

Answer
Eddie you made a difficult choice when you chose to forgive your girlfriend and continue to stay in a relationship with her. But it seems like you didn't understand what forgiving her meant, forgiving a person that cheated means that accepted that they were wrong and are willing to work past it. But the fact that you still don't trust her shows that you still haven't truly forgiven her.

Now I know trust is not something that can easily be won back after it has been broken, but it seems to be that your girlfriend is at least making an effort to regain that trust, but it doesn't seem like you are making that same effort to let her know some of that trust has been restored. She's going out of her way to make you feel comfortable but it doesn't seem to work.

I wish I could tell you how to turn on a switch inside of you that would make you just start to trust again but I can't that's something you have to find in yourself. But you need to ask yourself the question of how much you love this woman and how badly do you want her to be apart of your life. If you love her enough then the trust will be there and you'll be able to finally get past this. If you don't love her enough, then you should honestly think about letting her go because the lack of trust is going to cause the relationship to fail anyway.

If you don't learn to trust her one of two things is going to happen, either she'll get fed up with your lack of trust and decide she doesn't want to be with you anymore because you can't trust her, or number two you just need to break up with her because you're going to go crazy with this distrust. You can't have a healthy relationship with a person if you spend all of your time, being nervous about what they are out there doing.

It's time to make a choice Eddie, either learn to trust her or let her go because if you don't learn to trust her it's going turn out bad anyway.

I hoped this helped and good luck