Dear Coleen
I’ve been dating someone since January, although we didn’t get together officially until the beginning of March. However, I found out that on Valentine’s Day, after I’d gone to visit my family for the weekend, she hooked up with one of my friends and they got drunk together and hung out.
When I got back to uni, I saw my friend and he admitted he’d slept with my girlfriend on Valentine’s Day and I threw him out of my room.
I ignored both of them for a while and then found out how drunk they were and that my girlfriend barely remembered it.
It turned out our other friends knew about what happened, but didn’t want to get involved, which I understand. However, I felt really hurt by it.
It’s been a month since it happened and, even though my girlfriend and I are back together, I still get the same horrible feeling every time I’m in a room with her and him.
I don’t know what to do – I still want to be with her and know they were both drunk and she was (technically) single, but it still feels wrong. I would never do that to a friend. He was the first person I told that I had feelings for her, so why would he do this to me?
It’s clear they both regret it, but it doesn’t stop me being upset.
Coleen says
Ouch! For me, I think the betrayal by your mate is the worst bit about it. As you say, you and your girlfriend weren’t together officially, but he knew how much you liked her and that you’d been seeing each other a bit.
I think you should tell him how you feel and that it’s going to take time for you to be able to trust him again, if at all.
There’s no point carrying on as if nothing happened and it’s all sorted because it isn’t – he’s hurt you and it is clearly affecting your friendship.
I think it’s definitely too soon for you and your girlfriend to be hanging out with him in a group of friends.
Of course, you won’t be able to do that at the moment anyway because of the social distancing policy, so you’ll get some time away from him.
And if your girlfriend regrets what happened and is serious about you, then you should focus on spending time together and don’t socialise with this mate – even virtually!
You have to find out if the trust between you and your girlfriend, which was broken early on, can be rebuilt.
You don’t want to be in a relationship where you worry every time you do something as simple as go to visit your parents for the weekend.
