Hello guys,

I started with a long distance relationship for 5 years. I know it was long distance and felt fine maintaining the relationship and kept the honesty and communication as best as possible no matter how hard the truth would be and then we would decide to make the next step. He has visited my city and I have visited his city before. My bf asked me to marry him and come to study and eventually live together in Germany and one day have a family. A lot has happened between the years of ups and downs, like every couple has experienced. The downs mostly revolving around ego, difference love philosophies and sex… Also I became more aware of my bisexuality, and maybe one day would experience a threesome sex with my bf. In the end, trying to add someone to the relationship this way changed our relationship. I gave him lots of warnings and let him know on the way that I did not feel comfortable, but he still pushed on, thinking that it would be ok. He was excited. So was she. We never had sex with her, but the anticipation of something more developed between them.

He fell in love with the girl. and I was not interested in her that way. We didn’t have sex with her. I just wanted to be friends. Although he admitted to fall in love with her, wanted to give her a baby, and already kissed her. They became best friends. And I was not strong enough to deal with it. I knew there was something between them already. But after hearing how he felt and what had happened, it triggered the sense of pain, of betrayal, of my own insecurities. My bf has had such a dark past that I can only imagine and wish to have been the one to help him heal from the past, but I am not the only person he needed. After we met, he was more or less on the pathway to coming back to life after the feeling of self destruction and longing of love from a mother. The medicine to death is the will to life, vitality, …love. What he needed was also a source to my fears. What the other girl needed as well became my fear…

I tried to understand for a year. It has been exactly a year since it happened.. I am still with my bf. I am not friends with her anymore. He is best friends with her still. He wishes he could change that time they kissed, and would not want to cut her out of his life. He will not abandon her. He does not want to abandon me either, despite the times I would say in raw emotion to break up with him. I cringed to hearing her name, and knowing that they have talked. It lead me to drinking, crying, poor quality sleep and more anxious symptoms. He tries to spend time with me, but I still continue to have my tantrums, and to be anxious and cry. They just now only talk on the phone sometimes and send gifts.

I see this in other perspectives. My bf: dark family issues of certain support he was missing in childhood from a mother, different love philosophy (we see our relationship from person to person differently), feeling free and brave to love.., The girl who was sexually abused during her youth, gone through other harsh hardships, who always wanted to have a baby to take care of, wanting to feel safe, has her own love philosophy… In the end both needed compassion, love and attention.

Yet I have feelings of resentment, jealousy, confusion, and fear. Those are the last feelings they have left me ever since that happened.

What is unconditional love? If I cannot unconditionally love my bf, or a stranger who both were in pain, is this bad to have conditions? to have judgements on certain circumstances? Do I put him in a cage with my conditions in order to ”heal” and trust again?

What about forgiveness? Forgiveness is supposed to help me let go of the past and feel better, but yet I feel so bitter about the whole thing. I have forgiven about similar situations before, but this time I cannot move on from this part of our dark past together. Ive seen myself as the person to make someone guilty for just being him/herself sometimes. And then I go back and forth how do I feel happy and safe in the relationship? In what ways have I caged myself in this? How dare I if I ignore my feelings and thoughts, and yet don’t want to bring guilt and pain on someone else? No one is the bad guy, but everyone feels wronged.

We both want to stay together, I love him so much. I came here to study a phd, to learn about his culture, be with his friends and family, grow with him, but I do not feel good when I know he still keeps in contact with her and now I fear that his longing for other women will again lead him to cheating.

How can I respect individuality, and respect what also makes me happy and safe as well in this circumstance? Spirituality, and some other concepts from religion sounds really nice and it should bring me to peace, but I still have these negative feelings. Does this confirm that my spirituality and my sense of human dignity & rights are imbalanced? Some have told me I am too nice, so should I be more verbal about my assertive (coming off mean) side?

Is it always grey? or should this be a black and white situation so that I stop overthinking?

Thank you for listening!