9 years together, 3.5 long distance, another girl, career choices. Overwhelming

[Southcott]

Hi, this is a multi-layered story and I'm facing the most difficult choice of my life.

 

I'm a 29 year old who has had an amazing but very odd relationship for 9 years and I swear every word of this is true and not a script out of some movie. Sorry for the length of this and for all the details, at the end I'm just another guy that felt that he had to shout it all to the internet. I would appreciate any comment if you get to the end of it.

 

This is what she's like: Very intelligent, educated, charming and gorgeous; at the same time quirky, clumsy and a Goody Two Shoes. I love her with all of her traits. I'm kind of quirky myself and we were both brought up by very strict parents. We're basically soul mates, specially (but not only) at an intellectual level.

 

As a result, when we started dating during University, we quickly grew extremely intimate emotionally and decided that we were meant for each other. The problem was, we went very slowly on the physical part of it: with all of the school work and her going home with her parents every weekend, we spent the first 4 years between doing homework and going out for coffee and other harmless activities.

 

This was not a platonic friendship. There were the natural romance, jealousies, etc. We kissed and touched increasingly passionate. We never had sex, because it wasn't easy to spend time alone and she decided she wasn't ready. She had to focus on school and for some reason she was irrationally afraid of getting pregnant. I was definitely desperate for sex, but I respected her. I even actually thought this was all OK as even though I'm naturally impulsive and full of cravings, I was brought up on ideas of discipline and self restraint, with sex for ideally after the marriage (nothing religious). The glue of it all was that we're a match made in heaven when it comes to conversations, interests, goals in life, etc.

 

After we got our degree, we had an amazing year in which we grew even closer emotionally and physically, we kind of lived together and while we weren't still having sex, we got closer to it. I was sexually frustrated, but every day a bit less and it was clear that I just had to wait a little more.

 

Then she dropped the news: she was offered an great job abroad that was everything she wanted, the living abroad and seeing the world included. We decided that she had to accept it and that we could have a long distance relationship just for a year and a half (during which she would be travelling a lot) and I could do a year and a half of grad school and join her afterwards. The nightmare was about to begin.

 

Living for the first time without my parents, I made some very stupid mistakes and got kicked out of grad school after a year. As it so happens, I harbored lots of frustrations for having been so limited in the past. I partied hard, became irresponsible, unhygienic, a big spender and a big time liar... I also kept loving my girl unconditionally, shifting between time zones to call her for an hour everyday and paying Skype hefty amounts of money. She was beyond furious with the situation, not so much about my behavior as, wise as she is, she already knew I needed to mature by breaking things first. No, she was furious because I was delaying us being together.

 

And there were other practical obstacles: I needed a visa to go join her but she refused to marry, the easiest way to get it. She told me I had to get it the hard way, by getting my act together and finding a job that would give me the visa. It was painful because of her rejection (I wouldn't have married me either at that point), and because I took me another full year and a half to recover from all my mistakes and bad habits and being offered a job interview near her. It was also painful because long distance is hard, and she became increasingly resentful of the situation, paranoid jealous as one can't avoid to live life, to go out with friends, etc. In her hurt mind I should had used every waking hour to work on us being together. In those 3 years I called her daily, never cheated on her other than the occasional flirty moment with a friend. We got engaged and promised we would marry after we got together. We visited each other some 7 times and had sex!!! (It was clumsy and a bit disappointing but could get that out of my chest).

 

And now the plot twist: I got a promising job interview at last and flew 16 hours full of hope. It sucked that it was a one shot opportunity and luck would had to be involved. I relaxed by talking to a girl of arresting beauty seated next to me, telling her my whole story. She asked me to call her when I came back to have coffee and tell her how my interview went. I did the job interview which went great, and spent some wonderful days with my girl. The sex was a little more satisfying but still clumsy. I was naif to think that it was destiny that I was going to be offered the job and that we would at last be together.

 

I came back and called the girl on the plane. We had really got along well. I came close to drooling when we went for coffee. She was absolutely stunning with a hypnotic personality. It was clear there and then that we had liked each other A LOT. I thought it was just an infatuation, but I couldn't help seeing her the next week and then some more times more frequently. For the first time I was really liking someone else other than my girlfriend.

 

At the same time, the wait for news from the interview went from days to weeks and then one month and then another. I was devastated to think that it would be very difficult and a long wait and probably another 16 hours flight to go to another interview. This wasn't going to work that way. Problems arose, I yelled at my girlfriend that we should have had married years ago and she was being too demanding emotionally and at every level and that I had already put too much effort in being together and she too little. She answered that she didn't want us to be together anymore. I said fine.

 

The following day I told the other girl and she almost cried with joy behind the "I'm sorry" face she tried to affect. I had mixed feelings, but I genuinely started wondering if I would be better off staying and giving her a chance. I had gotten a job thinking it was just for a while but it ended up being awesome. For the first time I imagined my future without my girlfriend and didn't look terrible.

 

Then, two weeks later, my girlfriend called me weeping saying that I was the love of her life, that she was sorry about everything and asking me if I wanted to marry her so that we could be together at last. I cried and said yes immediately... Only to find out hours later, by being honest to myself, that I was hopelessly in love with two women, and learning that same week that I was being sent abroad for three months because of my job.

 

What has happened since then would fill much more space, but it has HURT. I have been far from both girls for three months, they have both been waiting for me, saying that they love me, I have been a p*ssy and haven't made up my mind, and I'm about to get back. I can only choose one and I'm going to break the other one's heart. HARD.

 

I told the new girl about me considering marrying my girlfriend. She told me she doesn't want to lose me, that I have rocked her world like no other person before. We have kissed and have come close to have sex, but she doesn't want to have an affair with me. I don't want either. I want to make up my mind. She is older than me and is not playing games, she wants a real, meaningful relationship with me. I know it would be highly sexual and passionate (something I have lacked over the years) and it would be very easy to just not do anything, keep my great job and my life as it is now.

 

But I still love my girlfriend. I has been a very hard journey with its ups and downs. We know each other like married people. Obviously, she doesn't know about the other girl but I just told her that I'm having second thoughts about us being together because of the many problems we've had, including not great sex and too many emotional baggage from the years apart. I'd also have to be without a job for a while after getting together (long story) and my career is very important to me. I told her, and it's true, that nobody will replace what we have. We're best friends and we're like family, and for years, at least until I met the other girl, not a single day passed in which I didn't dream of spending the rest of my life with her.

 

So here I am, wanting to make a decision and hurting terribly, because I want to make it right and it's not only about choosing a partner, but choosing between different lives and continents, and breaking somebody's heart and my own as well in the process. I know this is a long story but on a very basic, human level, I know I'm not the first to have found himself with a torn heart because of some mistakes, but also because of the circumstances. Thank you for your comments.

[kbbcoop77]

It's not fair to be cheating on your girlfriend who really had nothing but yours and hers best interest in getting you on the straight and narrow. You should tell her the truth that you've met someone and let her go to find someone who won't cheat on her. Leaving her hanging is incredibly selfish. Yeah it's gonna hurt but she'll get over it and the distance will help. You are obviously dissatisfied with her and the "clumsy sex" so let her go.

[Clio]

I think that you should either commit to your girlfriend or drop both. Girl no 2 doesn't sound like a good person as she DID pursue you even though she knew that you had a girlfriend. She did help you cheat emotionally and physically and that shows that she has some serious issues of her own that you will find out the hard way if you decide to stay with her.

 

As for your girlfriend, it sounds like you repressed some serious needs of your own in order to be with her and that there was an uneven power dynamic between the two of you that hurt your relationship. Both of you are responsible for that. Only you know whether she is worth trying to fix the relationship. If you do get back together, you need to change the way you communicate and you both need to learn to compromise and respect each other. The sex is something that may improve with time if you learn to communicate your needs to each other. First time sex is rarely mind-blowing, especially since it sounds like she had lot of inhibitions about it in the first place.

 

However, you would need to change a 9 year dynamic for your relationship to work and that is VERY hard to do. You would BOTH need to drop the miss Goody Two Shoes vs the mister Don't Know What I Want act and start being and treating each other as mature trustworthy EQUALS and as part of a TEAM (you two vs the World kind of thing). If you think you are up for it and that she is the ONE, then you need to drop the other girl completely. If however you don't have anymore love left for your longtime girlfriend, then you need to break up with her permanently. Listen to your gut. Can you really REALLY see spending the rest of your life with her? If not, then you need to stop wasting her time and break up permanently.

[Southcott]

Thank you for your replies, You've already given me some fresh perspectives and it has helped a lot.

 

You should tell her the truth that you've met someone and let her go to find someone who won't cheat on her.

 

Yes, I know that there's no excuse for cheating, even if just emotionally, but this all started after I grew tired of years of working on getting us together, and before she became open about getting married. I was disappointed and needed the physical presence of someone around. Again, I'm not the best person right now but I'm ready to commit without looking back either way I choose. It's not in my nature to have an affair. Yeah, there are things that are not satisfying about my relationship, but I think those are present in any marriage or long-term rel. Maybe the distance has exacerbated them...

 

 

As for your girlfriend, it sounds like you repressed some serious needs of your own in order to be with her and that there was an uneven power dynamic between the two of you that hurt your relationship. [...]

 

However, you would need to change a 9 year dynamic for your relationship to work and that is VERY hard to do. [...]

 

Listen to your gut. Can you really REALLY see spending the rest of your life with her? If not, then you need to stop wasting her time and break up permanently.

 

This. We both know our power dynamic has always tilted in her favor, and I have just recently acknowledged that I'm resentful for it. She's very emotional and with a strong character. I'm colder but more impulsive. I have tried to accommodate her needs and wishes because deep down I feel I don't deserve her and I'm lucky to be with her. Yeah, I have been terribly repressed, and meeting the other girl has helped me notice everything I wasn't happy about.

 

We have talked about all of this, and she acknowledges that she has failed to look out for my needs, and is willing to work on it. We both know that we can live a life together if we've made it up to here in spite of the obstacles. But I question whether changing the dynamic is actually possible, and in order to find out I need to make some drastic decisions, leave work, country, this last emotional fling and step into the unknown