Hey, thanks for your reply. We stayed together again the past weekend and everything just worked again. I didn’t really doubt anything and what I did think about what I’d done a few times but I’d get it out my head and forget about it. I feel a lot better about it all now.

Yesterday she even met my dad. I wouldn’t agree that the long distance was the issue. I think it was more my connection with her and only spending a week together in person prevented my devotion. When I’m with her I’m happy and we don’t argue. I know I messed up and it hurt her pretty bad, but we’ve been okay.

If I’m totally honest I don’t know if it is going to work. It’s hard at times and I struggle to keep the guilt of what I’ve done out of my head, but I’m speaking with a therapist who’s helping me with it all. I know that this could be a great thing that I have with this girl, and I don’t want to lose that. I’m going to continue playing it how it has been before. I haven’t once gone looking for anything else and I was very content.

 
<p style=”text-align: left;”>I was working 7 days a week and the only people I’d really talk to were the ones I worked with, and the girl I slept with was the one who showed me more interest than others. I will learn from what I’ve done and won’t do what I done before again. I see that what we have is strong and I’m going to continue working on it.

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I won’t bring up what happened before again as far as I can help it. She doesn’t understand and likely never will understand why I did what I did, to be honest neither will I. She’s still excited for me to come to Australia and so am I. We’ll see how it goes but all I can do for now is prove to her that it was a mistake.

The main issue for me is when I look at her when she’s doing something cute or nice, and instantly feel regret for what I did. I consistently think that had I not done it, we could’ve had that nice moment without the painful thought of remembering something bad. This is a consequence of what I did though, and I’m willing to live with that.

We’ll see how we get on, but for now I’m happy and so is she.

It’s been pretty helpful reading all these posts, and I wanted to make my own as I’ve not seen a situation quite like mine yet.

December 2023, the girl I was seeing’s mum had just tried to kill herself and had moved into the girl’s flat with her other 2 young kids, so understandably she needed some space to focus on that and couldn’t see me for a couple weeks. This then turned into her wanting a break, and the last time I had seen her was the day I’d asked her to be my girlfriend (she said yes) in late November. Anyway, it was weird and long story short I was in a bad place mentally, couldn’t stop thinking about and missing her.

I go on a trip to Prague in late January, I’d booked it for the 2 of us but convinced my friends to come with instead. I was adamant I wouldn’t get with anyone there. The first night, I meet a beautiful Australian girl who I take home with me. We have a great time, she stays till the afternoon, then I meet her again the following night and she stays. I then fly home but she goes to Switzerland and I agree to meet her in London for a night as she has a connection there back to Sydney.

I then thought f it and flew to Switzerland to stay with her and we go back to London. All is great and we agree that we’ll wait for each other until I come to Sydney which I was planning in November this year. Anyway, she asks her work if she can work in London for 2 months and stay here. They say yes. I’m so happy. I’ve been working a second job on weekends to save money for when she comes and so I can go to Australia. This feels like a fairy tale.

I begin to find myself becoming attracted to a girl at work. I flirt with her and she flirts back, even inviting me to a hotel room with her on one night, which I adamantly refused, and also trying to kiss me on another night. I considered it, but backed away and left.

Around 3 weeks before she comes to England, I’m in the car with the girl from work for a lift home and I keep pretending to kiss her but then move away and stop. We go home. The next night I do it again and still don’t kiss her, but as we’re playing against each other on iMessage games I have an urge come over me and I start touching her thigh, etc. She kisses my neck and ears and this sets me off, I don’t kiss her back throughout all of this as I know it’s wrong, but I pull her on top of me and we begin to have sex. I feel awful, I push her off me and get out the car and go home. I feel like a disgusting person and can’t believe what I’ve done.

After a couple of days, I tell the Australian girl. She’s devastated, we talk about it, we stop talking so she can think. She arrives in England and still wants to see me. We meet, have a talk, things start to go well again.

She has been here 4 weeks now, it’s been perfect, like it was before except for her getting down every now and then about what I did. Last weekend I realise I hadn’t told her the full truth and felt intense guilt again and told her. She said it changes things and she’s upset. We get separate trains home, don’t talk in bed for 2 hours and she says I should get the first train back in the morning. We talk, she cries and tells me she doesn’t forgive me but she has no one else right now and so she cuddles me and we sleep. She also says that she doesn’t know what she wants and it could change, but for now she wants it to go back to normal. We wake up Monday morning and suddenly I don’t feel the same as I did before. I was obsessed with her for 5 months straight and now I feel like I don’t have any feeling towards her. I was still devastated at what I’d done. We had been getting through it. But we got on so well I had started to not think about it. Then it all came in a big hit. I opened up to her. We cuddled, watched tv, it took my mind off things but I still didn’t feel the same. I had to leave that night to go home and I really didn’t want to, but I woke up in the morning after and felt nothing again. Then in the afternoon when I was busy I felt something but not what I’d felt before, this happened yesterday morning and this morning too. I can’t eat properly.

I’m seeing her again today and I’ve started therapy. I’m disgusted at what I did with the other girl and it lingers over me all the time, but I want the amazing feeling I had before with this girl. She is everything I want. She has every quality I’m looking for. I have to convince myself that these feelings I had for her will come back. I don’t want to hurt her though. She leaves in just over a month and then we won’t see each other for 3 months until I fly to Sydney.

I left her Airbnb the Monday before this all happened and knew I was going to ask her to be my girlfriend when we go on holiday together in a weeks time. (For reference, we’ve never been officially together, but we agreed on exclusivity very early on). I just feel horrible. I’m not sure she’ll even take me back again. This is her first relationship and first time ever trusting a man and I feel like I’ve wrecked her.

I want us to have something good again. I overthink a lot and just want to go back to normal. The therapist I spoke to was one I used before when I first slept with the other girl from work. She says she thinks I’m experiencing the freeze emotion which is making me wonder if this girl is right for me as there is a threat of her leaving. I’ve been split up with twice, both times when I thought things were perfect. Maybe I’m trying to save myself from the pain.

I loved her on Saturday night and even up until Sunday afternoon, then when I knew I had to tell her what happened and worried she’d leave, all my feelings have gone.

Do you know what I can do?