Should I give a second shot at my relationship with girlfriend?

[Wiseman2]

1 hour ago, urbanleather said:

. I just was so stressed with dealing with it at the time I couldn't take it anymore. 

You don't seem to be over this event yet. You're stressing yourself out with intense jealousy.

Unfortunately you can't stroll into someone's life and tell them who they can or can't talk to.

You permanently polluted the waters with that. What you can do is date, observe and decide who's right for you.

She's not right for you. It's that simple. In the meantime work on your insecurities, controlling tendencies and choose local compatible women.

[Batya33]

I don't think in a relationship whether something is "cheating" (however the couple defines it if they're not married -if married technically it requires intercourse I guess) but it matters a lot whether someone is acting consistently with being in a committed relationship. If the couple agrees not to date others, then playing with fire, lying about an ex sleeping over - who cares if it's having sex outside the relationship -it shows the person is not keeping up his or her part of the promises made to each other as part of a committed relationship.  

I would be fine if my husband had dinner with certain of his ex girlfriends and for certain reasons.  I would not be fine at all if he didn't tell me in advance unless it was a group thing and she showed up (mutual professional contacts).  Others would not be.  So for some women even asking to have that dinner would be a break in loyalty and trust and for others they would love the thrill of hearing about the dinner after so they'd say yes. (I would say yes if it was a business dinner and important to his career).  Depends on the couple not some technical definition of sexual contact and cheating.

[Tinydance]

Just now, Batya33 said:

I don't think in a relationship whether something is "cheating" (however the couple defines it if they're not married -if married technically it requires intercourse I guess) but it matters a lot whether someone is acting consistently with being in a committed relationship. If the couple agrees not to date others, then playing with fire, lying about an ex sleeping over - who cares if it's having sex outside the relationship -it shows the person is not keeping up his or her part of the promises made to each other as part of a committed relationship.  

I would be fine if my husband had dinner with certain of his ex girlfriends and for certain reasons.  I would not be fine at all if he didn't tell me in advance unless it was a group thing and she showed up (mutual professional contacts).  Others would not be.  So for some women even asking to have that dinner would be a break in loyalty and trust and for others they would love the thrill of hearing about the dinner after so they'd say yes. (I would say yes if it was a business dinner and important to his career).  Depends on the couple not some technical definition of sexual contact and cheating.

Well the thing is, I think some people view being friends with ex's or even people of the opposite gender differently. There are some people who feel jealous even that their partner has opposite gender friends. Some people are OK with their partner being friends with their ex but they might have some rules about how that happens.

For example, I'm friends with a couple of my ex's but one of them I never really see or talk to. The other one I'm good friends with but we mostly hang out in a group and my partner knows him too and gets along well with him. My partner is also friends with his ex but she's shortly getting married to another guy. We are going to their engagement party together. My partner hasn't hung out with his ex alone as far as I know and his ex said to me she sees him as a brother now and actually said she really wants us to be happy together. They broke up about four years ago.

I think issues start to arise when two people in a relationship are actually not on the same page about being friends with ex's. This clearly seems to be the problem here. OP's girlfriend doesn't see anything wrong with being friends with her ex but it bothers OP immensely. This requires one or both of them to compromise. E.g. OP could let her be friends with her ex but set some rules and boundaries around it. Or the girlfriend has to cut contact with her ex. If neither of them is willing to come to any compromise then unfortunately they're not right for each other.

[Batya33]

Just now, Tinydance said:

Well the thing is, I think some people view being friends with ex's or even people of the opposite gender differently. There are some people who feel jealous even that their partner has opposite gender friends. Some people are OK with their partner being friends with their ex but they might have some rules about how that happens.

For example, I'm friends with a couple of my ex's but one of them I never really see or talk to. The other one I'm good friends with but we mostly hang out in a group and my partner knows him too and gets along well with him. My partner is also friends with his ex but she's shortly getting married to another guy. We are going to their engagement party together. My partner hasn't hung out with his ex alone as far as I know and his ex said to me she sees him as a brother now and actually said she really wants us to be happy together. They broke up about four years ago.

I think issues start to arise when two people in a relationship are actually not on the same page about being friends with ex's. This clearly seems to be the problem here. OP's girlfriend doesn't see anything wrong with being friends with her ex but it bothers OP immensely. This requires one or both of them to compromise. E.g. OP could let her be friends with her ex but set some rules and boundaries around it. Or the girlfriend has to cut contact with her ex. If neither of them is willing to come to any compromise then unfortunately they're not right for each other.

Yes, we agree.  I wrote it depends on the couple. I don't agree that it's ok if there was no sexual contact and therefore no "cheating" if cheating outside of a marital relationship (where it's adultery) means it has to have sexual contact.  I would be even more upset if my partner lied to me about being alone with his ex girlfriend in private and then tried to justify it with "well we didn't have sex". 

It's like my son who took 4 pieces of candy in his pocket with him to school (when at most he knows one is the limit) and then confessed to eating them all "because otherwise they would have melted!!!" - if he'd lied to me about how many he took, then tried to justify his lie with his lifesaving heroics in saving the chocolate from an untimely melting outside of his body, he'd have made it much worse. 

"You said I could see my ex girlfriend and I saw her and I didn't want to call an uber because we all had a couple of drinks and took an uber to her house and everyone left so I stayed over at her house and then I told you others were there because I knew you'd be mad and this way I didn't spend money or drive drunk and anyway we didn't have sex!"  Not exactly conducive to a trusting relationship.

Edited April 28 by Batya33

[catfeeder]

On 4/27/2022 at 12:40 PM, urbanleather said:

... I saw it's hard for her to keep negative people out of her life even after I tell her that I think she should stop talking to certain people based on how they treat her. At the same time though, it might be because she has no family here, so anyone she gets close with, I guess it's hard for her to let go because she knows at least she has people to talk to or help her.

So she does the same kind of rationalizing about those people that you are doing about her to us?

I can only speak for myself. I won't involve myself with anyone who is still involved with an ex--in any way, shape or form beyond shared children. 

And you're learning WHY.

It's messy kid stuff. Either someone owns the maturity and self sufficiency to operate on their own without inventing reasons to stay tied to old business, or not. If not, they can rationalize it all they want, I know myself well enough to know that I won't be happy--and I'm not willing to position myself to pretend to be happy about what makes me unhappy.

So the one person I'd get honest with quickly is your Self. You can defend your ex's behaviors to us like a first class lawyer, you're great at it. But WE are not the ones living your love life for you, so we don't get a vote.

Head high, and write more if it helps.