We talk a lot about the pain of cheating, but not about the psychological toll of your partner telling you an enormous lie. How do you begin to heal from finding out that the person you love intentionally deceived you in a way that fundamentally altered your past, your present, and any future you thought you were building together?
This 30-year-old man has a girlfriend the same age as him, and he’s been dating her for the last nine years. Not that long ago, he found out that she lied to him about something major, and it crushed him to learn the truth.
Let’s rewind here to five years ago, when he and his girlfriend took a break, but three weeks after they separated, his girlfriend texted him to say she was pregnant.
He immediately went to her and was overwhelmed with a feeling of responsibility for the baby. Then they decided to get back together one last time to see if they could work things out.
“We went through a deeply painful experience together where we decided to [terminate]. It’s a burden I’ve carried on my conscience ever since, frequently agonizing over whether we made the right choice, as at the time it was all very rushed,” he explained.
“Flash forward to now, after a few drinks, the topic of us having a kid in the near future came up. One thing led to another, and she confessed she had slept with someone else. In reality, the pregnancy probably wasn’t even mine.”
“She has confessed she didn’t tell me this from me for five years because she knew it was the thing that got us back together. To me, this feels like the ultimate manipulation. She completely stole my agency and my ability to make a choice.”
Additionally, his girlfriend has been acutely aware of how anxious he is about his fertility. Yet, she stood idly by and let him be burdened by that fear, on top of the guilt of terminating what he thought was his baby, knowing that the baby most likely was not even his; it was the baby of the guy she slept with.
He feels like it would be deranged for him to want to still be with his girlfriend after all of this, but he’s not sure he can let go of a nine-year-long relationship in an instant.
“How do I even begin to process a betrayal that has rewritten the last 5 years of my life?” he wondered.
I think he’s still in shock, which is why he hasn’t dumped his girlfriend yet. He needs to take the time he needs to deal with his emotions, and then he can go about getting rid of his girlfriend when he’s ready, because there is no chance that his relationship can survive this.
His girlfriend is manipulative and cruel to have done this to him. She should have told him the truth five years ago when they decided to give their relationship another shot.
What advice do you have for him?
You can read the original post below.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
