Advice: How to Handle a Cheat

Forgive and Forget

My boyfriend (25) and I (24) have been dating for two years. We also dated on and off through high school. About eight months ago I found his picture on dating websites. I told him about it and he deleted it and apologized. Recently I found a massage pillow and sunglasses in our apartment. I questioned him and he told me he had a massage therapist give him a massage because his back hurt. I asked him why he didn't tell me and where the therapist was from and he said he didn't want to make me angry and he had found her on the Internet. I asked if he thought what he did was wrong and he said yes, not telling me was wrong -- otherwise no. I ended up leaving for a month until he said he was ready to talk about our relationship. He told me he was sorry and that it wouldn't happen again. I don't trust him completely yet and he doesn't understand why. Should I have ever gone back if I can't forgive and forget right away, or should we try to work things out little by little?

What makes infidelity humiliating and estranging is keeping secrets from a partner -- but what makes it really hurt is the partner's interest in emotional or sexual satisfaction elsewhere. Your boyfriend is clueless that he inflicted emotional pain on you. Repairing the damage takes work, and it requires him not merely telling you he's sorry but working to demonstrate it.

Forgiving is not a one-sided task. It is only possible when your partner understands that he did something wrong -- he violated the rules you thought you were both living by, and that is a certifiable trauma. He violated an implicit commitment to you, which not only hurt you but destroyed your trust in him. Unless he has empathy for the pain his acts caused you, there is no point in even trying to rebuild the relationship, because there is no foundation of caring. Even then, it's not easy. If you both wish to continue a relationship, it is his job to demonstrate both his commitment to the relationship and his trustworthiness to you in a way both of you agree upon in advance. Perhaps he allows you to check his web-browser history each day or his cell phone log.

What you have done is allowed him to resume the relationship as if everything were the same as before while you've taken on the unilateral burden of forgiving and forgetting. That's impossible -- a recipe for resentment and depression. It's your job to hold your boyfriend to a higher standard -- and if he doesn't meet it, then it's time to look for someone who does.

My Married Boyfriend Is My Destiny

I am 25 and my boyfriend of four years is a married man with two teenaged children. We once cohabited for a year when his wife was abroad and the kids had to go and stay with their grandparents.

Now he is back to his wife and a day doesn't pass without him telling me he loves me -- and trust me, it's me he loves. But because he is what he is, he can't leave. I am not bothered by this very unattractive woman who is two times my size, one and half times my age and agemates with her husband. But my worry is; will I ever have this love of my life for myself?

Please don't tell me to leave him because I won't, and don't tell me I am a loser because I am not. He stays a million kilometers away, on another continent, but comes for two months every year to see me. We are even considering having a baby. I know he loves me very much and I only have eyes for him. I am extremely attractive and men are all over me, but I know this man is my destiny.

Letting your sense of superiority rest on feeling smaller and younger than your boyfriend's wife is not a good long-term strategy if for no other reason than that at some point you will be 45 yourself. It's understandable that you have such faith in destiny, because that relieves you of any responsibility for searching for a good mate and actually testing how attractive you are inside and out. A woman of intelligence and foresight, not to mention ethics, might want to put her attractiveness to work finding destiny and fidelity in the same package so that at, say, age 45 she doesn't have to kiss her husband goodbye for two months so he can fly off to a girlfriend in another country.

Whether or not you choose to continue the relationship, I urge you and your beau not to inflict your self-absorption on a child. Without denigrating the many women and men who are doing a heroic job raising children by themselves, I would like to point out that child-raising is a very demanding task (the rewards are great but you don't get to see them for a couple of decades), it's best for everyone when two parents are committed to the enterprise, and it helps to remember that every child really prefers having a mommy and a daddy around. Your boyfriend has already demonstrated that his own children take a back seat to his having a good time.