Dear Queenie, I have read a large number of your answers concerning this topic, but I have been unable to find any situation similar enough to my own to feel that my question was answered. I hope that you will not find this email too long to post, because a response would mean the world to me. I do not have friends who I can confide in. My boyfriend is my best friend, and I have not talked to him about this, for reasons which will become obvious.
I have been dating my boyfriend for over a year and nine months, and I absolutely love him. He is always around to support me when it is best for me, and he keeps his distance when he knows his help would actually hurt. We love each other, and he has always “been there” for me. I haven’t.
Just as our relationship was hitting its one-year mark, we were experiencing a lack of communication. We were removed from each other in terms of distance, and he was busy with work, which often made him too tired to do anything but get home, watch some television, and go to sleep. Of course, I didn’t know this at the time. I thought he was intentionally distancing himself and intentionally letting my phone stay silent. I became increasingly lonely and distraught.
After spending over a month apart with little communication, we once again were living in relatively close proximity. However, I didn’t see nearly as much of him as I had before. In our month apart, he seemed to have drifted miles away. Now that we were close in proximity once again, he still seemed to be wrapped up in his work, other friends (some female, whom he never told me about), and new things. I felt lost, alone, and confused.
I met a guy (I shall call him “Bobby”) who had a newly-long-distance relationship with his girlfriend of two years, and was wrapped up in his relationship with her. He had what you might call a cheating personality, but at the same time, he was absolutely faithful to her, until she started implying that she was cheating on him. “Bobby” became completely attached to me, spending all of his waking hours with me, sleeping in my apartment because his neighbors were obnoxious, etc.
Within two and a half weeks of meeting “Bobby”, I was invited to a party by a girl friend from work. I invited my boyfriend, but just as with all of my previous invitations, he declined it. So I asked “Bobby”, because I didn’t want to drink with guys I didn’t trust, and I trusted “Bobby”. My girl friend, “Bobby”, and I all went to the party, and we all drank too much.
My girl friend needed looking after, as did “Bobby”, so I walked him to his apartment and told his neighbors to watch him and then took my girl friend to mine. “Bobby” got away from his neighbors and followed us to my apartment, complaining about his neighbors again, so I let him in. After my girl friend was in bed, “Bobby” and I began kissing. I do not believe I started it, but “Bobby” maintains I did. In any case, I was the person who decided to stop it. All we did was kiss. However, I will not deny that it was passionate. I was feeling lost without my boyfriend, and he was feeling just as lost without his girlfriend.
I justified my actions by telling myself that I would never do it again, and that I hadn’t even wanted to perform the action. However, I do know that I was convinced my relationship with my boyfriend was ending, and I was drunk. The next day, I confronted my boyfriend about his lack of availability, on all fronts, and he told me that he had noticed we had been growing apart, but had thought there was nothing he could do about it, I would be happier with someone else, etc. Basically, his low self-confidence seemed to have led him to do nothing. We decided to take a break for a week. I was devastated.
The decision killed me, and at the same time, “Bobby” found out that his girlfriend had slept with another guy during one of their numerous breaks. We shared a box of tissues all week, but never did anything remotely sexual. I had ended any possibility of that after the first and only mistaken night. My boyfriend and I got back together, after he especially had come to terms with how he felt about me. He didn’t know about my cheating, and he still doesn’t. I have done nothing that could be remotely considered cheating before or since my mistake with “Bobby”.
I am tortured by the thought of what I did to my boyfriend every day. I betrayed he who has been so loving and giving in all things. I do not want to tell him what I did, for fear that he will never be able to trust me again, and that that will lead to the end of our relationship. I don’t want to end something great because of my one mistake, which I have never repeated and always regretted.
However, what I do want to know is whether I should be keeping this secret from him. He has never asked me if I cheated on him. If he ever seriously asks me, my current plan is to tell the truth. I want to marry this man, and should our relationship last, which it has the good potential to do, I do not want to take such a big step, without him knowing what I have done.
At the same time, I know that it may be my cross to bear. I made the mistake. Perhaps telling my boyfriend what I did would only serve to relieve my guilt, while hurting him much more. A teaching of one East-Asian religion is to reflect on how your actions affect all others, and if an action hurts others more than it helps, it should not be enacted.
So what should I do, Queenie? Do I tell him, or do I keep my secret and accept my guilty conscience? Thank you for reading.-Lost
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Dear Lost: You say that you and “Bobby” did not have sex but did kiss passionately. In my view (which doesn’t really mean anything), you didn’t “betray” your boyfriend. However, if he had done the same thing, you probably would say he betrayed you and demand that he pay the price.
So, should you confess and get relief from your guilty conscience? My feeling is that the price you pay for doing something you later regret is to suffer the guilt in silence. Keep your secret; don’t hurt your boyfriend by telling him about this passionate petting incident. If someone else tells him about it, deny, deny, deny.
Your boyfriend shouldn’t have to pay the price, which he will if you tell, for your lack of good judgement.
Just my opinion, of course. — Queenie