I have been with my girlfriend for two years. She’s great and I love her. But I’ve been feeling guilty for a long time and I’m considering the cost of coming clean.
After our second date I slept with someone else. One night stand. My then-future-gf and I had had a good couple dates, but I didn’t know we’d end up together, so I didn’t think about it at the time. My girlfriend still doesn’t know that this happened.
The problem: We celebrate our anniversary from our very first date (at her insistence), and so far whenever it’s come around i feel guilty. It’s just an unfortunate day for us to celebrate because I wasn’t committed to her yet. I keep thinking how she’d feel if she knew I’d slept with someone else after our second date. We were definitely not exclusive after our second date, either, (it was after our third date that we became exclusive) but she seemingly believes that our relationship began on the first date. So it feels like i cheated even though I didn’t.
She’s reasonable and she knows I’ve grown up since we met, so I’m sure she’d still love me if she knew about this. In my view, telling her the truth will just ruin our first dates for her and clear my conscience. But of course I don’t want to tell her, so I’m biased. I just don’t imagine hurting her with this information will make anything better, but I know that’s often the logic of cheaters.
Is this something i should chalk up to hindsight and keep it to myself? Is it something I have to tell her for honesty’s sake? Is this completely normal and I’m being immature? I don’t know if not telling her is actually wrong, or if I’m just mad at myself for not focusing my attention on her from the start. But, fuck, how could I have known that I’d fall in love with her?
Before anyone says it, I’m aware that when I marry her this problem will resolve bc we’ll have a new anniversary, but that’s two years from now in a best case scenario. Then question is really how do I settle my guilty mind?
Thanks for your guidance.