The Vine: March 16, 2001
Hey Sars.
My boyfriend and I broke up after over a year last November. I did the breaking, because I thought I could have with anyone what I had with him. It didn’t work out with this “anyone.”
The boyfriend, “Fred,” then moved to be near me. We started to get back together early in February. I went, on the weekend before Valentine’s Day, to visit my friend “Joe.” Joe and I have been friends since back in the day and have had this weird sexual-but-not-sexual relationship. Regardless, we got drunk and slept together. When I told Fred, he wouldn’t forgive me. He wouldn’t believe me when I told him that I felt like he wasn’t ever going to have a relationship with me ever again (this was based on things he had told me).
Fred and I are still together, but I don’t know what to do. He is still angry about this. Joe’s younger sister is my good friend and I want to hang out with her — but not with Joe.
Is there anything I can do to help Fred get over this? Will he ever get over this?
Lonely and scared
Dear Lonely,
You wouldn’t have thrown a leg over Joe if you thought you could repair things with Fred. You didn’t mean to hurt him, but what’s done is done. These are the facts. It’s up to Fred to decide whether he wants to put it in the past and move forward, or to continue brooding on it, and if it’s brooding he wants, it’s time for you to decide whether you want to wait around for him to snap out of it.
I had a front row seat to a relationship in which the man and the woman lived in different countries for six months. They had an agreement in which they could see/mack on/get with others; the man assumed that they wouldn’t really do it, but the woman went ahead and did it, and although they got back together when they both lived in the States again, the man never got over it. The relationship went on for another three years, and the man got more and more jealous, and the love got poisoned by reproach and resentment. They broke up, eventually, but they still don’t speak.
I don’t blame Fred for feeling angry and icked out about your sleeping with Joe, but either he can get past it or he can’t, and if he can’t, he’ll hold it over you for the rest of your natural life. You don’t deserve that. Tell him you understand that he’s hurt, but you’ve done enough apologizing for your mistake, and if he can’t accept it and move on, you’ll move on for him.
Tags: boys (and girls)
