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Maria,
Here is my story..... I met my ex girlfriend on labor day. We both were attending a celebration cook-out at the home of a mutual friend, however we did not know one another. our meeting seemed like something out of a movie, with what seemed like an overnight romance between us. everything was going as smooth as could be expected during the "honeymoon" period, which lasted 2-3 months. after this time, our sex life declined to the point of maybe once a month, even disappearing completely during the later part of our relationship.
In the beginning of of this year, i was to be sent out of town on a work assignment that would have me being in and out of town on alternating weeks for several weeks (1 week away, 1 week back, 2 weeks away, 1 week back, 1 week away). the relationship was still relatively new at this point, but i knew (as did she, at least as far as she told me) that her and i could have been together forever. Anyway, during the first week i was away, i was becoming very lonely very fast. i was the only person being sent on this work assignment, and as such, i was staying in a hotel room by myself.
 I dont know if it was this loneliness or curiosity that led me to it, but on the 3rd night away, i searched through the local craigslist personal ad's and responded to 2 of them. I did not receive any response from the persons who posted them and eventually realized that it was something i shouldn't have been doing in the first place and stopped. The next day, i was extremely busy and was not paying the attention to my girlfriend (via phonecalls/text messages, etc) that i had been over the past couple of days. she interpreted this as me being "standoff-ish" and thought that I had been doing something wrong and decided to look through my emails and there, she found the 2 sent in response to the craigslist ad's.
We argued about it for several hours over the phone, but never really found resolve. Because i was in and out of town over the next 6 weeks, we never really found a way to confront it and move on either. during this time however, whenever i was home i did everything and anything i could think of to try and make things right. Little suprise gifts & cards, flowers, had a nice valentines day and birthday.... And all of this she said didn't go un-noticed. When i was finally home for good, we got around to having a talk. We decided that we were going to take some time apart, but that we didn't want it to be over between us. I was basically living at her house, so this meant that i would be spending more time at my own house instead of hers. I moved my clothes & stuff back home, and for 2 weeks, we talked on a daily basis, but didn't see much of each other, except for some events we had planned to attend together.
All of a sudden, on the monday of week 3, she tells me that i need to start trying to move on. This confused me because we had said from the beginning that we wanted to work this out. I didn't think much of it and continued to assure her that i wanted to be with only her, but she was persistent. I finally confronted her as to a phone number that had recently started showing up on the phone bill just days prior. She confessed that she had been set up with someone by a friend, and that she feels something for this new guy that she has never felt before & by the end of the week, her and this new guy are officially in a relationship. Over the last month, her and i have had spotty communication consisting of the typical "i want you back" from me, and the "i have moved on" from her, along with all the arguing & tempered words that fall in between. I don't understand how the change happened so quickly, but i am not completely convinced its real either.
I haven't had much experience dealing with relationships (this would be only my 3rd serious relationship), so i don't know what i should do next. i know that i definitely want to work things out with her, and at least try and give it a 2nd shot... But i dont know how to do that or if its even something that CAN be done. Do you think there is a shot at reconciliation? Do you think its possible for her and this new guy to have hit it off so completely, seemingly overnight? Should i try and just scrap it and move on? I am desperate for answers... And she refuses to give them to me.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for any advice or opinion you may have to offer.
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The goal of this website is to give support to people who are facing problems in their relationship related to cheating, abuse and narcissism. I am living in Europe and English is not my native language, I wish you will excuse me if I make some grammatical errors. I have a background in neuroscience and behavioral sciences and I am currently doing brain research related to these topics in university in my home country. I decided to write in English because I wish to reach as many people as I can around the world.
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Dear Friend,
Thank you for your email and for sharing your story. I know how hard time you are currently going through. I am glad you found my website, I wish my feedback and the stories of others who have experienced similar feelings will be helpful for you. To read more about narcissism in a relationship and how to recover after ending an abusive relationship, please see section Narcissism.
 The fact that you searched craigslist in a hotel when you were away from your girlfriend might imply that your feelings towards her were not at that point as strong as they later became, especially after you faced a possibility of losing her because of what happened. I understand how your girlfriend felt when she found out about your emails to those two women. She most likely felt that regardless of what you say she can no longer trust you and that you do not care for her as much as she thought you did, otherwise why would you seek other women while you were with her. It is hard to think logically when one finds out about such things. Most likely her feelings towards you were affected to some extent because of what happened.
As an outsider it is easier to think of various possible reasons why you were seeking craigslist without it necessarily implying that you no longer loved your girlfriend. For example, if you were drunk, it explains your behavior a great deal. When people are drunk they can do things that they would never do while sober. You are not mentioning if you were seeking those women for sexual purposes only or was there deeper need to connect with another woman. If you were looking for transient sexual affair and especially if you were drunk while doing so, your situation is far from uncommon. This does not mean what you did was not wrong, of course it was not right to seek out other women while you were in a relationship. However, you are not the first and certainly not the last person to make such misjudgments while alone in a hotel and perhaps under the influence of alcohol. Also, for some reason your sex life had deteriorated with your girlfriend. Most likely that contributed to what happened.
We all make mistakes sometimes, the most important thing is how we behave after realizing we have made a mistake. You did not continue to search for women online, instead you felt sorry about what you did and realized it was wrong considering that you were in a relationship. I believe that after this experience the threshold for you to do something similar again has greatly increased.
You were wondering how your girlfriend could change her mind so easily after first appearing so committed to your relationship. Those of us who have experienced the emotional "rush" that overwhelms us in the beginning of the relationship know that when we are in the middle of this feeling, we have the need to communicate our love to our partner in all possible ways, words being the easiest tool to use. It makes us feel good when we tell our partner we want to be with him or her forever and we hear our partner reciprocate. When the emotions have calmed down one might realize that there was not so much in common between one and one's partner after all and the feelings start to go down. This is not an unusual scenario.
 Dear Friend, this does not mean that your girlfriend did not mean what she said when she spoke of being together forever etc. I am sure she cared for you deeply when she said those things, most people would not say such things without meaning them (at list to some extent). However it seems that the strength of her emotions towards you was not as strong as your feelings towards her. If she felt towards you as strongly as you felt towards her, she most likely would not have looked for another man (she said she was set up by a friend, however if she was still deeply in love with you she most likely would not have ended up being in a relationship with another man only after one week since she met him).
Based on your story it sounds like your girlfriend does not wish to resume her relationship with you at this time. It is not a good idea to keep your own life on hold while waiting for her to possibly change her mind. I know it is very hard to let go of someone who one loves very much, but sometimes we are not given an option. Many people who visit this website have been forced to give up on their love because they for some reason cannot continue the relationship with that particular person due to personality differences or alternatively their partner has left them.
Giving up on love is one of the hardest struggles in life, comparable to disease and even death of a beloved one. It is natural to feel sad, even depressed, when relationship ends. It is important to give oneself enough time to heal before moving on. I do not recommend you to rush into a new relationship as fast your ex girlfriend did (of course if you meet the right girl you should not hold back, what I mean is that I do not recommend you to "force" a relationship with a new woman unless you are sure of your feelings towards that person).
I know you feel pain right now thinking about everything that has happened, but trust me when I say this: Time will help you to get over this. Right now you need to be patient and try your best to concentrate on other matters instead of constantly thinking of your girlfriend. If you keep on thinking of your ex girlfriend on daily basis it will be harder for you to let go of her emotionally (for more information on this topic, please see page Controlling Emotions).
Stay strong. Please write to me anytime you wish.
To read more about these topics, please see section Narcissism.
Warm hug,
Maria
If you wish to submit your own story and get feedback and support for your situation or if you wish to contact me for any other reason, send me email to
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Stories - Cheating 
he actually never cheated..so...
I've known this guy Sam over 10yrs. We started dating a year in a half ago. But mind you, we've always been great and close friends. Long talks on the phone, sharing secrets and such. So once we made it official we said the basic no cheating, loyalty, honesty and so on. I give it about a month when he cheated on me. But I didn't find out til maybe 2 months later. We broke up for a couple of days but I decided to give him another chance in the hopes of him not doing it again. So of course the trust issue naturally falls in place. That's one of my biggest problem in a relationship (Cheating) it makes me sick to my stomach. So I'm. Having all these trust issues, I check his phone more than usual (especially when he's sleep) I go thru his things, whether its personal or whatever I have to look out for my feelings. But I do find little stuff here and there like conversations with Exs and things but it wasn't too deep. But let me fast forward to 5 to 6 months later maybe. I'm not too for sure (my head still to cloudy over this) but I find out it was a secret being kept from me. So one night my (supposedly) best friend was drunk and we got into a confrontation and she told me that "I think I have a good man". What that supposed to mean I'm thinking if she sometimes sleeping with his cousin. I'm thinking she may know something I don't know. So I tell him and asked him to be honest with me and just tell me the truth. He doesn't that night. But the next day, he hurt me so bad when he told me they slept together in my car. "They were drunk". But long story short, I dumped her as a friend, not only because she back stabbed me but she does this to all her friends, family, babydaddy. Its ridiculous. I thought she wouldn't do it to me because we were damn near inseperable. But anyways I kept him because #1 He's beneficial, he does, buys me, pays for everything. (Don't have a job) #2 He really is good to me. He makes me feel like I stand above all. #3 I do love him. I cry about him about his infidelities and if there more. I broke up with him consistently to see if I can be without him just to see I can't . It hurts. I constantly have bad dreams about him cheating. Its been over 6 month and I don't know if I can get over him. I tried and tried and tried. I love him I do but I feel like I just can't do this anymore. He just don't either love, care, or respect me like I do him.
Sorry I didn't seperate the paragraphs and bunched it all up but I woke up crying and very emotional today and just wanted to vent.