'I caught my long-term GF having an affair with my friend. What do I do? I'm at a loss for words.' UPDATED

"I [25m] caught my long term gf [25f] having an affair with one of my friends - What do I do? I'm at a loss for words."

I've been living with my GF for over 2 years now, and we've dated for about 6 years since we met in college. We've both been out of college for roughly 2 years now, and one of my friends who moved out of the country announced he was coming back to our country for a visit and I offered for him to stay.

GF has never met "friend" (we'll refer to him as Larry), however Larry and I had Skypes and GF was often around and got to know Larry through me. Anyways, we were all excited. Fast forward, Larry arrives, everything is well but about 2-3 weeks into his stay I became increasingly uncomfortable with the way Larry and my GF would act together.

I vented my feelings to my GF who assured me nothing was going on, and I didn't say anything to Larry. Eventually Larry's little nuances got to me (we'd have little feuds over nothing) and I asked Larry to move out and find somewhere else to stay.

Queue some bitterness between Larry and I. Now, Larry left last weekend. He's gone. A few days back I noticed my GF's Facebook had some messages from Larry, when I asked my GF about it she quickly closed the window and told me it's nothing - Just Larry trying to get an idea as to why I was bitter at him (In my mind I felt he was exceeding his boundaries as my friend, so I decided to cut him out).

GF would scold me and call me a miserable person, we even had a little fight about it when I told my GF I didn't want Larry to stay over the night before his flight. GF eventually apologized, but I was still disappointed that she didn't have my back or understand my feelings.

Anyways, I should go back to the FB messages. Today I was just shutting down our PC's after the GF had gone to bed and my curiosity got the worst of me (I know, this is bad) and opened up her FB. She was already logged in and I noticed a message from Larry that was unread, I opened it and went through their conversation history and this is where I wanted to throw up.

Basically they met up at least once behind my back when I was on a business trip, and wanted to coordinate another visit but my GF didn't feel it would work out. Larry replies back that he needs to hold her AGAIN and misses her very much, calling her things like sweetie.

I was livid. Words cannot describe how I felt reading that out. The combination of anger, despair, sadness, betrayal, and pure rage was too much for me to take. GF had also sent her a photo of a campfire from this weekend (WHEN WE WERE TOGETHER) that she took and sent to Larry saying "I miss you." Goddamnit.

I confronted the GF, had to wake her up at 1AM and ask her, at first she was sleepy and denied it all but when I told her I'd read her convo history (and that I was sorry for violating her privacy but had to know why she was keeping this from me) things became clear in her mind that I was very hurt by all of this.

I explained my feelings, I was hurt, betrayed, I housed this guy and showed him a good time for a month and even after all of this you told me I was the crazy one. Now my worst suspicions are true. My friend Larry is obviously cut from my life, can't have toxic people like that around.

But my GF is another problem, I'm seriously head over heels in love with her and don't want to lose her. On the other hand my heart is torn and I have too much self-respect to continue dating her. She completely thrashed my trust into the ground and what's worse is humiliated me by going after one of my "friends", that I let stay with me.

I feel like I've f--ed myself in a lot of ways, and that I should have seen this coming but I was naive. Anyways, we both have to work tomorrow but I'm seriously at a loss for words. GF and I have only spoken a bit, I mean it is late at night (its about 4:15AM while I type this, I've gotten zero sleep tonight, even after driving around and bawling my eyes out in an empty parking lot).

What she did tell me was that she didn't think I loved her anymore, that every time she'd try to talk to me about something serious I'd make jokes and laugh it off. I know this isn't easy to hear, and I admit to being immature but damn, I thought we were stronger than this. I guess the lesson has been learned.

Regardless, I'm at a loss for words. I feel like us breaking up is inevitable and it makes things so complicated seeing as I just bought this house about 10 months ago, and we shared a dog. She's even driving a car that I gave her. I know splitting things up won't be easy, and to be honest I don't want her to go but like I said my brain is telling me this is what we need yet my heart feels otherwise.

TL;DR: GF was having an affair with a visiting friend, hid secret visit and messages from me, I discovered via snooping and now am faced with the harsh reality of our broken relationship. Complicate things more is that I've already bought a house (its in my name) but my intention was for us to live here together and settle, now my whole plans are up in the air. My heart is broken.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

mistermorteau wrote:

You react very well to this situations. Be careful about yourself, force yourself to eat if you are not hungry. Do exercises for tire your body and sleep, or take cold shower, it helps to sleep to. Stay strong, once she moved out, go no-contact with her. Confront larry, let him know that since now he is dead for you. Be brave

OP responded:

Haha thanks. I'm honestly trying. I didn't want her to hear me cry in the other room so I had to drive around and let it all go. I felt a lot better after a nice long cry fest, and I drove home with some of the most puffy eyes I've ever had.

Even crying was weird, it's almost like I had two voices inside of me, one saying "Cry, let it all go" and the other saying "This cheating b#$ch isn't worth your tears, man up." I know that sounds messed up but I'm trying to cope. This is all so damn fresh right now.

In regards to Larry, I actually messaged him just asking what is going on between them to give him a chance to explain but I'm realizing this is an exercise in futility. sigh. There's literally nothing he can say that would result in me feeling any better, so I guess I don't even want to hear his BS. I'll send him a short message telling him just that, he's dead to me.

FroggyMcnasty wrote:

That's fine, you got a lot on your mind, and to be unable to sleep is to be expected. Right now you're kind of pacing yourself, you don't want to burnout, just keep a steady flow until you're ready to rest up.

Its fine to not know what you're going to do to, what matters is you're giving yourself a chance to process this without having to worry about work. Its going to take time, but you've given yourself a day to just process and get a head start. Have you got in touch with anyone who can help you today?

OP responded:

Yeah, I'm just staring at my dog snoozing away and wish I could just be this calm. I can tell my body wants sleep but it's my mind pacing that is keeping me up right now. I haven't contacted anyone yet. I know most of my friends have to work today, so I don't think I'll get to see anyone.

I don't want to sound brutal but I want her out ASAP. Is this reasonable? I know she has to work and I respect that, but I want to be civil but at the same time I want her to get the f--k out of my house as soon as f--king possible (my emotions are getting in the way of my typing now)..

I don't want to come off as an asshole, I'm thinking one day isn't enough notice for her to pack and move out so I might allow her to stay another night. As it stands right now I'm the one sleeping in the spare bedroom while she sleeps in the master.
Good points all around. And yeah, there's literally nothing on paper that ties her to this house or any of my property.

The problem is she's paid for maintenance on the car I "let her use". So I think it would be fair if she just paid me a nominal amount for it. So recently we did the timing belt and an exhaust fix, total cost was about $1200. I would feel like I'm stealing this amount of money from her, especially since I don't even need this car and would sell it immediately.

hyrangeablue wrote:

You should break up with her, period. PERIOD. She lied to your face and humiliated you repeatedly and only broke down when you backed her into a corner. And it sounds like she's trying to blame this on you.

Even if what she said was true, that you didn't take it seriously, it really seems like she didn't try hard enough. She obviously did not respect your relationship enough to address your own issues before "resorting" to cheating.

I'm sorry, I don't have anything worthwhile to say about the house situation as I have absolutely no knowledge about that stuff. But it's not like it would be a deciding factor in contemplating whether to stay with her or not. It's just a shitty situation, but on the bright side, you're 25 and financially stable (presumably, since you bought a house). Cut those two out of your life and don't look back.

OP responded:

Thanks, this actually was the first positive thing I've thought.

Almost three weeks later, OP shared an update.

It's been almost 20 days since this all went down. I've had a lot of time to myself and my job keeps me on the road so I've had a few business trips in the mean time to keep me distracted. I'm so far enjoying my new lifestyle that I'm trying to build for myself.

There is a lot of free time I have, and I'm enjoying having full control over my schedules and tasks that I do day to day. Being able to plan for just myself is alleviating, and I'm starting to look back and see all the flaws that were present in my past relationship that now I really see as red flags. Over all I was pretty unhappy when I was with my ex.

I'm recognizing that now. I beared with the unhappiness and kept going because I felt that this is what normal guys do in long term relationships, the sunken cost theory. Also I thought she was loyal. So case in point I didn't see any point to break things up, so from that point of view I recognize I have some personal faults that I need to fix in order to consider myself healthy again.

I met someone when I was on one of my trips and we had sex in my hotel room. It was one of the worst s#@ual experiences I've ever had. It was way too early after the breakup, and in my mind I was just thinking I'd be horny and f-- someone else and give myself a break.

The second we started to have s#$, I felt myself get hit with a tidal wave of emotion. I immediately thought of my ex, since she was the only person I'd have s#$ with before. The actions (thrusting, etc) were so enamored in my head from being with her, looking down and realizing I wasn't made me sick and very upset.

I couldn't finish, I ended up rolling over and trying to hold back my tears. Thankfully she was understanding when I told her I just got out of a relationship, and she decided to leave without any commotion. She was even nice enough to tell me she knows how it feels and that it will get better with time.

Definitely not going to call her again, I regret even putting myself in that scenario but granted I learned something about myself afterwards. My ex didn't really have any of her own friends (this should have been another red flag). She was constantly around my friends, and being honest I didn't really mind.

But now that I see how broken that is for a person to lack any "best friend" or a group of people they saw before WE got together and continued to be together. My friends have always been there for me, even the ones I knew before my ex. Granted she's now on her own, I have no idea who she's talking to about this whole scenario aside from her immediate family and I don't really care.

I've had the talk with the few mutual friends me and Larry had. Everyone is pretty much shocked but they also told me that they had a feeling something was going on but Larry would lie to them when they'd ask. Larry has since tried to reach out to some of them and try to rectify the situation but they've already heard the story from me first, so most of them have cut Larry out of their lives.

But to be honest, I'm not very close with these people and don't plan on growing to be more close to them in the future. Larry was the only crux of our relationship so if they do continue and associate with them I would definitely not be happy and wouldn't mind cutting off contact with them as well.

This actually became an issue with one of our mutual friends, we'll call him John. John's a good guy, we have similar interests and he was around a lot of the time Larry was. John was over at my house this past weekend since he just picked up his new car near a dealership near my place (he lives 1.5 hours away).

So John and I are shooting the shit and it's kind of inevitable for us to talk about what happened with me. He did bring up how he talked to Larry and how Larry is still lying to him. This kind of irked me, I told John I didn't care about Larry and that if he's going to continue to associate with Larry then I can't see us continuing to be friends.

John was obviously a little upset by this, saying he just can't process what happened and wants to give Larry a chance to explain himself. I told him that's fine, but again, it's like he's condoning these actions and if he wants to get burned in the future that's his own decision.

I just don't want Larry around me in any shape or form, and if John wants to be around me he needs to understand that. It's not like Larry broke my car and refuses to pay, the guy stabbed me in the back and I can't ever forget that, even if in time I find it in myself to forgive Larry (which right now, I can't).

Larry is dead to me. We talked only briefly after I kicked my ex out, and it was mostly us cursing at one another. Very childish, like I said I knew I wouldn't get any closure out of talking to the guy and hearing him try to explain himself. Larry and my ex are both very broken people. They blame others for their own unhappiness and feel it's justified when their behaviors cause others to become upset.

Now, as for me, well my head is a f--ing tornado about 12 hours of every day. I've been smoking pot to keep my cool and enjoy video games, but there is a lot of time when I avoid it altogether because I know I feel depressed and smoking pot will only drive me to be more sad since I'll dwell on my feelings and the past. Moving on is one of the hardest things I've had to do in my whole life.

I've heard stories from others saying how they are happy to hear that this happened to me! Why? Well they've had the same thing happen except after 30 years of marriage and 3 kids. So they felt like they were not only robbed of some of the best years of their life but now they also have a financial obligation towards the person who manipulated and hurt them the worst.

I don't feel better hearing about how "worse it could have been" but I'm happy we never had any kids or decided to marry. I definitely would have been dealing with another sideshow of a scenario. Here's another kicker, my ex's sister (only 2 years older then her) did the exact same thing at the start of this year to her own husband literally 3 days after we got back from their destination wedding.

She met another guy AT THEIR WEDDING and decided this was the guy for her, f--ed him, still went through with the wedding and afterwards everyone got back broke it off with the dude. I didn't know the full story, and at the time we'd just moved into our new home so I invited her to stay with us until she got back on her feet.

When she started seeing this new guy, I was really uneasy about it. This was also complicated because she was living here, and didn't seem to have any plans to move out. I had to coach her sister on how to get a loan for a down payment, how to talk to landlords, etc, etc. Very immature family, this should have been another huge red flag but I ignored it and had to deal with the consequences of it.

I've actually reconnected with her ex husband (Named Tim). Tim and I were friends through out our relationships with these sisters, and I was sad to see Tim go the way he did but I was on "the sisters side" by association so even if I felt things weren't right theres nothing I could have done about it. In retrospect I should have kicked both of these crazy bitches out and told them go get a life.

More about me, I'm hitting the gym, trying to eat healthy, having more 1x1 time with my dog-bro and overall just trying to take it easy. This is such a huge change in my lifestyle that it's not something I can adjust to quickly, and even though my work schedule has me flying somewhere new every week it's really tough still managing everything and ensuring I'm not stressing myself out with my own expectations.

I'm still used to having my exg-f's voice in my head, telling me to rush home and be with her. I've been having a lot of dreams where I see her, and Larry together.

They're both tormenting me. I've had dreams where I hurt Larry, I crush his skull with a hammer and run over his head with a truck. I feel bad about these dreams because even though I want revenge I don't like causing pain to other human beings. It's not like I can't hurt him, but I've hurt others in the past (sports) and I never took pleasure in that (even though my teammates did at times).

So it's just not in me, although I'd love to visit him in his home country and kid@#p him and queue some t0#ture, these are just weird things I say to keep myself from going insane. I still feel a lot of pain and guilt about what happened and I shouldn't have too. This is a process, I know.

I always go back and read the original thread I started when I'm feeling weak and want to text/call the ex. I've held strong on the NC but a few times I did message her. Once when I found a receipt from a couples massage retreat when I was out of town (on another occasion), I just wanted to let her know that I found another piece of evidence (really, there was no point to this, I was just in pain and feeling weak).

She lied through her teeth about everything, told me how she wanted me back and how she wants to k*&l herself. It felt kind of good hearing that, but still, it's a twisted feeling and I know I shouldn't be talking to her.

She is toxic, she lies and had no problems deceiving me. I just feel like such a fool for spending so many years with her, and to top it off the amount of humiliation I feel when I imagine her with Larry is just beyond this world. I used to have a lot of self-confidence but now I feel like a literal piece of shit. I feel used, worthless, ready to be discarded. Almost as if I deserved this to happen sometimes.

Other times I'll rebound from this and try to build myself up, the best times I feel is when I'm in the gym or running outside. Thinking about the two of them has fueled a few good sets for me and I hope to continue taking advantage of this hate for a bit longer.

So anyways, TL-DR: My heads still a mess. My hearts spinning. I'm trying to adjust and some days are good, other days not so good. Thanks for all the support r/relationships.

The internet had OP's back.

dothandothan wrote:

Just be careful and don't make the mistake of getting back together with her and I'd honestly avoid too much socialization. Its surprising how easy my friends have been sucked back into unhappy relationships after swearing they'd never get back together. Just take your time. Continue to live your life to the fullest and don't look back.

OP responded:

You're right and even in my original thread a lot of commenters said the same. I've had friends IRL say the same as well. Even as I type this I want to just call her and tell her how much of a b#$ch she is but I know it's all futile. NC is the way to go.

FroggyMcnasty wrote:

Hey man, I was actually about to message you last night to see how you're doing. All things considered you're doing just fine and hanging in there. I wouldn't sweat things too much, everything is going along just as it needs to, and it looks like you're handling it just well.

It sucks to feel used, and to be betrayed, the trick is the come around that it wasn't you who was discarded, you were the one that got rid of a couple of losers.

You're going to go places to great places, and they were just too chickenshit to keep up with you. And while it sucks that things ended this way, look on the bright side, you're gonna meet a girl in time who is going to be what you need. This, Remo Williams is where the adventure begins.

OP responded:

Hey man, I wanted to thank you personally for taking the time to help me through those initial 24 hours. You really kept my head cool and I can't thank you enough for being there.

keepitrillcuz wrote:

I'm glad these two people are out of your life. Sometimes you need to go through the labor pains to have the joy of a new life. The universe has a way of correcting things. 5 years from now you might be happy this happened to you (dead serious). Live well and good luck.

OP responded:

Hah I look forward to that weekend :) Thanks.