My (28M) fiance (26M) wanted to cheat on me with a coworker who turned out to be straight, and then had a secret birthday dinner with him and other co-workers by lying to me that he was working late. What is your take on the possibility of this relationship to continue?
The situation is really confusing and complex, I'll try to explain it simply.
Me and my fiance have been together for 8 years, since he was 18 and I was 20. We were inseparable for years and spent all of our time together and even worked together. Now we're graduating with degrees so he started a new job last year and I'm still finishing school so I've been financially dependent on him.
2 months ago my dad was diagnosed with four types of stage 4 cancer and he died a month after, so a month ago from today pretty much. I was depressed during this time and I'm sure it affected how I acted in the relationship and my partner says he was feeling depressed and unhappy. However, since we had a talk about it I've been putting on a happy face and things have been better. We just signed a two-year lease last week at a new place we were really excited for, and he just came on vacation with me and my family.
He has been staying late at work a lot lately but that's not atypical for his career, however not long ago he went out for drinks with his coworkers after work at like 10:00 p.m-1:00 a.m. while I was stranded at the new condo without any furniture or a car which I thought was extremely inconsiderate and we had an argument about it.
His birthday was on the 2nd, and he said he was working late. I believed him. For his birthday I went out and bought him a plant and I completely disassembled and reassembled his PC because it wasn't working and we couldn't figure out why, and I bought him a cake, and I waited for him at the condo all day doing all this stuff for him feeling bad for him for staying late. But, when he came home, I could just tell he hadn't been working, he wasn't sweaty or tired like he usually is, and he barely had one slice of cake which is again atypical for him because he loves sweets and if he was working for so long you should be hungry.
So I check his phone and I find out he was actually at dinner all evening from 6:00 p.m. to about midnight, out drinking with his friends or whatever and he had texted his friend something like "i have such a crush on this guy" and she said "he's giving major straight vibes". I freak out and rip the covers off of him and tell him to get out at 5:00 a.m. when I read that. I messaged him a lot saying really mean things, but at this point I kind of just think he left me out of his birthday dinner and he was being a little gross. He tells me it's actually a work crush and that he was afraid I would show up to this dinner and see this guy be friendly with him who's attractive and that I would freak out. Admittedly I can be jealous, but I'm also reasonable and understand that it's always possible that he's going to have an attractive co-worker and there's nothing I can do about that.
Through a lot of sleuthing and digging with him I basically learn and he tells me that basically a new coworker showed up who was attractive and he thought that the new co-workers into him and that he was having sexual thoughts, I asked if he wanted to have sex with him and he said yes, I asked if he thought about cheating and he said yes. He defended himself by saying that he was pretty sure I had cheated because he saw Grindr on my phone- which, yes, months ago once I used it to jerk off, but I didn't cheat. Anyway I guess he was kind of saying that the feelings came and then he was thinking you know sexual thoughts and then the fact that he thought that I had cheated made him feel less bad about it. I asked if he was trying to get close to him and the flirt with him and he said yes. Apparently he found out a week and a half after they started working together that the guy was married with kids and heterosexual, however, he then did this whole birthday dinner without me because again according to him he was worried I would freak out if I saw this guy.
I just don't know what to think. Me and my fiance grew up together it feels like, I always thought that there was something really special between us that was different than most couples and I really maybe a little too much was dependent on him for my security. I am emotionally crushed. I was so angry, I completely disassembled this computer, I put all of his belongings from the pantry on the floor in a mess, threw all of his clothes that I folded on the floor, I texted his best friends and his mom saying he was a two-faced cheater and that his character was deplorable etc.
I finally convinced him to talk with me in person today and he was distraught. We cried together a lot. I talked about all of our memories. He told me that he knows he f***** up so bad that our relationship is over and that there's no way that it's fixable. And I agree but I can't help but feel like I want to stay with him despite this. It makes no sense to me because I am very sensitive and I would even get upset about him watching porn or oogling attractive strangers so it's really hard to imagine feeling happy the way I was with him after knowing he's capable of lying to my face repeatedly and coming up with elaborate schemes (he even brought a change of clothes so he could change for the restaurant and then change back into scrubs before he came home). He says he knows he f***** up the best thing in his life and that he just wishes that he had done everything different, and I kind of believe him because we did just sign this to year lease and he's paying for me in full right now.
So I'm heartbroken and I feel like I could never be enough for him and that I could never trust him to not develop feelings for someone else, let alone not to act on them. All of the normal things people feel after this kind of breach of trust. At the same time I can't know whether he would have actually cheated if the opportunity were available to him even though it really seems like he would have. Also, I just love him so much and love the kind of relationship we had so much that it's really hard to just let go of. It feels like I'll never get to experience love like this, the kind of closeness that I'm used to and that feeling of security and stuff. We were not the type of couple that would talk about crushes or hot celebrities. And now I feel like that's all gone. But I don't think I could get that from anyone else either. I just don't know what to do. I tried so hard talking to him to justify to myself that I might be reasonable to try to work it out but the more I learned about everything, the harder and harder it became. Like I understand feeling attraction towards other people and maybe even having sexual thoughts about others, but thinking about cheating and wanting to have sex with him, I don't know if I could ever get that out of my head and feel good again.
But, like I said, I love him more than anything, I don't really have friends, I'm completely financially dependent on him and he makes far more than I will in years or ever, not that that really matters because I was happy when we were poor and my mom's basement. I'm just at a loss for what to do. I want to be able to stay with him but it feels like the only way I could even consider forgiving him is if I could somehow know that he really loves me and that I was more important than sexual urges that he had towards other people and I don't know how to get that evidence from him.
Thank you to whoever read this all.