“My Boyfriend’s Too Close with His Brother’s Girlfriend”
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“He makes me happy” may be just a lame sentence to you, but to me, it’s a world of things that he has done and continues to do for me. Am I taking up for him? Hells yeah.
Maybe the relationship is over, but it’s not over bc he didn’t want to make it work or try to change what he did.
If we break up, I will continue to defend him. That’s not immaturity. That’s loving someone no matter what. People we love will screw us over MULTIPLE times in our lives. We’re just supposed to kick them out and forget them? No.
People you love may very well screw you over, that’s true. But people who *love you* won’t. Not unless they’re an extremely damaged person. Anyway, it sounds like you’re going to stick with him regardless. At least get into couples counselling to see if you can get past this. It will also show you how hard he’s willing to work at helping you past it – if he doesn’t work at it, well, that tells you how important your happiness is to him. If he works at it really hard, that might be just the thing you need to see to get past this. But just wishing you could get past it isn’t going to do anything but make you miserable, you both need to take action. Good luck.
Also you don’t sound that happy. He’s the one who made you feel the way you feel when you “can’t stop thinking about it”. Just saying.
Mel —
Then everything is good and that’s what you wrote in to tell us. I hope that you and your scummy bf have a great life together. The odds are against you, but why not marry this asshat, have a couple of kids and give this relationship every chance to succeed. That’s a good plan. Have at it.Oh god, not only is he the sort of guy who will cheat on you but he’s the sort of guy who will cheat on you with his brother’s girlfriend as some sort of sick revenge game because they hate each other. He’s used you and her as pawns in his stupid family drama but you think he’s a suitable partner? I personally couldn’t stay with someone who just viewed women as leverage but you do you.
I think Ange has it here. He hates his brother more than he loves you. He didn’t love you enough to not hurt you. If the love was greater than the hate he wouldn’t have been able to cheat on you, even to hurt his brother. He was severely lacking in empathy for you. You have to realize that the hate runs his life. The hate is the most important thing to him. The hate comes before you. He didn’t care that you would be hurt and he didn’t care that the brother’s girlfriend would be hurt. All he cared about was hurting his brother. You are with a man ruled by hate.
People who love you really won’t screw you over. That’s how you tell whether they value you or not. You should be able to expect loyalty and honesty and integrity from your partner. They should have boundaries that they put up that protect your relationship. You are giving your loyalty to someone who hasn’t been loyal to you.
You can love someone who isn’t good for you. Probably most of us have fallen in love with someone who wasn’t good for us. If you break up it hurts and you miss them but over time it quits hurting and after some time you are glad that you left them and glad to have moved on and you know you are happier without them than you could ever be with them. I was cheated on by a boyfriend that I intended to marry. I reached the point where I was glad he cheated on me because it forced me to break up and forced me to move on which lead to me meeting my husband and having a much better, happier life than I would have had. I don’t wish anything bad on the ex and I hope he’s had a good life but I didn’t have any reason to stay with him and share his life.
You can care about someone and wish them well without staying with them.
He has to be willing to meet your needs for you to trust him. That means he has to do whatever it takes to make you feel secure and he has to let it take however long it takes without pushing you to just get over it. He has to be willing to discuss it and answer your questions for as long as you have questions. He has to answer all the why questions and how questions and how could you questions. He has to let you get into his head and understand the whole process of how he had an affair and then he has to show you how he has changed. He has to show you that he is different. If he isn’t doing all of that he isn’t meeting your basic needs. If he is upset or annoyed or unwilling to talk in the way you need that again shows that he is lacking in empathy. It isn’t your flaw or your fault.
Thanks everyone. Ron, I really don’t get your issue. You need to breathe. It’s OKAY. This is how relationships work. If you don’t get that, you probably shouldn’t be on the forum. I mean, when you love someone, it really clouds your judgment. You know this. Some people are worth the 2nd chance. I feel my bf is worth it, because you missed it: He’s doing everything I asked.
Thanks Sky. Yeah he has really put forth the effort. He doesn’t talk to her whatsoever (they were like besties). He stopped hanging with other girls that I wasn’t comfortable with. He tries to bring the joy back to the relationship. He’s trying. I’m trying. I’ve always been a person who goes back and forth, but when I see someone isn’t worth my time, I stop talking to that person. For some reason, I don’t see that with my bf. With my ex (who I also loved very much), it hit me like a ton of bricks that he was useless, so I left him.
Ron,
I’m a person who likes to see how things look from both ends. While I understand what you are saying, you are completely choosing to ignore his side of the situation. The part about him trying. Yes I think about it all the time, but only when he’s gone. The thinking about it part is normal after being cheated on. Wondering if you should stay with someone and work it out or break up with them part is normal. You’re being irrational though.I think some of your pushback is related to your idealistic view of love. A lot of people do move on from those who screw us over. It doesn’t make the love they had for that person any less important than a person who lets themselves get screwed over repeatedly. Sure, everyone makes mistakes and hurts their partner at some point, but “screwing them over”? I don’t know what your definition is of that, but to me, that’s a huge mistake and it’s usually either purposeful or knowingly. It’s not irrational to expect that a partner can somehow refrain from screwing their partner over more than once.
But you know, if you’re cool with everything (not really sure what the purpose of this thread was then), then that’s OK. But your view of love and what has to happen in order for love to be real doesn’t take into consideration the fact that a lot of people do not unconditionally love their partners.
Well, at least you haven’t gotten married or had kids together. I understand where you are coming from, but I think this is gods way (insert the higher power of your choice if you aren’t religious) of letting you see this man’s true colors before it gets any more serious. I have been through this and believe me it is much more serious(life changing and heart wrenching) when you have kids, property etc with someone. You should cut your losses and MOA…but you won’t listen and will continue to defend him because you think he is being a “good boy”. You will have to learn your lesson on your own. I promise you one day you will wonder what you ever saw in this creep and laugh about how stupid you were.
A guy who slept with the GF of his brother is your best chance at love and everything is aok because he hates his brother. And here I thought Dumb and Dumber was just a movie.
“IF anyone can offer me some advice on how to move on from this and work things out with him, or how to break up with him, I’ll take it.”
@Mel, you asked for advice. You received advice. You took the time to respond to an eight-month old post, which I assume you discovered by typing some words in a search engine: boyfriend, cheater, brother’s girlfriend.This is not a support group. It’s an advice column. Why do you feel the need to defend your boyfriend from the answers to the questions you asked? When you wrote your response, were you actually looking for advice or are you looking for someone to tell you it is okay to stay?
I won’t waste your time repeating the advice of others. I do, however, think you should take this person’s advice:
RUN ???? The signs are there. Don’t ignore your gut like I did. And don’t let him call you jealous or controlling, the way mine did before I found out.
You know the answer.
Mel, there are little screw ups and unintentionally hurtful things that happen in relationships, yes. There’s a distinction here that you need to see, though, which is that you have what’s known as a “major betrayal” in your relationship. That you are still suffering from. In your first post you said you are miserable and that the original poster (OP) should run.
Dealing with a major betrayal and trying to get past it is a phenomenally big deal, so much so that there are entire books about it. I recommend this one:
The reason you’re still miserable is because a major betrayal like this is a huge freaking deal, and yes, this kind of thing does regularly end relationships. People do walk away and are right to do so. We see letters here all the time from people like you who tried to make it work, their partners swore they had stopped the behavior, the contact, they stay together and then months or years later he’s at it again.
People do persevere and rebuild trust, but those people are generally married, with kids, and are committed to making it work for the sake of their marriage and kids. It is a LONG painful road, and needs to be undertaken with the help of a professional.
You don’t solve a problem like this by sticking around because you’re a great person “who likes to see both ends of a situation” (aka overly tolerant and lacking boundaries due to low self-esteem) and getting him to treat you better and promise to stop the bullshit. You just taught him that you won’t leave him and that the cost of betraying you is not that high, he just needs to be on his best behavior for a while.
The odds are overwhelming that he will cheat on you again. You haven’t addressed the underlying issues or really done the work to rebuild trust. I highly recommend reading that book just to give yourself a reality check on what it would take. You aren’t married, you don’t have kids, you’re miserable, you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop… just leave. Do you want to be getting married in a month, or 8 months pregnant, and find out he’s sexting with or sleeping with this woman again, or some other woman?
The people commenting are regular readers of this site and also have hundreds of years of combined life experience. They know how these things play out. Listen.
