u/jtheg80

I (M45) met my girlfriend K (F32) around 8 years ago. She was a singer in a band I used to play guitar and sing with. I had already left the band when she joined, but we started talking through Instagram.

From the beginning, I felt there was mutual attraction and flirting. I tried to keep contact with her, but for almost 3 years things were very inconsistent. She would agree to meet, but in reality we would only see each other once every couple of months. During that period we both had other relationships as well, so I never pressured her or expected commitment from her.

Eventually, after almost 3 years of this push-pull dynamic, we finally got together officially. For the next 4 years, our relationship felt very strong. We had similar humor, shared music interests, deep emotional connection, chemistry, and we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. She often told me I was her “other half,” and after years of uncertainty, I finally felt emotionally safe with someone.

At some point, she left her old band because the environment there was toxic. Through musician friends of mine, I helped her join one of the most famous live bands in Greece. She became one of the singers there, and professionally things started going much better for her.

But this also slowly changed our lifestyle. Because of rehearsals, performances, late-night work, weekends away, and events, we almost completely lost our weekends together. For the last couple of years, we barely had time for vacations or quality time as a couple.

Then, about a year ago, I bought a small apartment as an investment and started renovating it. The renovation turned into a difficult and stressful process: problematic neighbors, unreliable workers, and constant issues. I became very anxious and mentally exhausted. That atmosphere definitely affected our relationship and our home life.

Around that same period, our sex life also became less frequent. Looking back now, I can see that this deeply affected her emotionally, although at the time I underestimated how important it was to her.

About 6 months ago, I started noticing that she was gradually changing. She became colder, less affectionate, emotionally distant, less interested in intimacy, and generally detached from me. At first, I thought she was simply exhausted from balancing a daytime job and singing professionally at night.

I repeatedly asked her if something was wrong, but she mostly avoided deeper conversations. The only serious thing she said was: “How long has it been since we had sex? Is this how things are going to be from now on?”

I told her that I understood her frustration and that I had been under extreme stress lately, but that things would improve soon once the apartment situation settled down. I also told her that communication was important, and that if something was missing emotionally or sexually, we should openly discuss it instead of letting distance grow between us.

Unfortunately, instead of communicating, she kept emotionally withdrawing more and more.

A few months later, she asked for “some space” and temporarily moved back to her parents’ house. Even then, during weekdays she still came to my apartment sometimes, so I thought maybe we were simply going through a difficult phase and trying to reset things slowly.

But emotionally, she already seemed gone.

Recently, while she was on tour in the US with the band, I discovered messages on Instagram that revealed she had been having an ongoing sexual relationship for months with one of the musicians in the band.

When I confronted her, at first she denied it, but eventually admitted everything after pressure. What hurt me the most is that during all these months, while I was desperately trying to fix the relationship, understand what was wrong, improve myself, and reconnect with her emotionally, she was already emotionally and sexually involved with someone else.

I asked her if there was any possibility for us to seriously try again and rebuild things after all this. She told me very clearly that she does not want to continue the relationship and “cannot” try again.

What confuses me is that she insists she is not leaving me for him. According to her, the relationship with him “is not something serious,” and the real reason she wants to leave is because her feelings for me changed over time and she no longer feels the same emotional connection she once did.

Part of me understands that relationships can deteriorate under stress, emotional neglect, lack of intimacy, and distance. I know I was not emotionally present enough during the last year because I was consumed by anxiety and problems.

But another part of me struggles deeply with the fact that instead of honestly communicating or leaving cleanly, she chose to slowly detach while keeping me emotionally invested, hopeful, and trying to save the relationship — all while secretly building another connection behind my back.

Right now I honestly don’t know what to believe anymore: Was she emotionally gone long before I discovered the affair? Did the affair become an escape from an already dying relationship? Or did the affair itself gradually destroy whatever feelings she still had for me?

I know nobody here can read her mind. I’m just trying to understand how situations like this usually evolve psychologically, because right now I feel like the person I knew completely disappeared.

At the moment, I am not functioning well emotionally. I think about her constantly and I struggle to let go of hope that things might still change. A part of me keeps imagining that once she is back from touring and returns to everyday life without me, she might reconsider or feel differently about what she has done and what we had. Even though I also intellectually understand that this may just be my mind trying to avoid accepting the finality of the situation, I cannot fully shut that hope down yet. I am stuck between acceptance and emotional attachment, and it is affecting my sleep, focus, and overall mental stability.