This summer I'm going on a trip to Scotland with my serious girlfriend. It all sounded wonderful till I got info I didn't want to hear... I started dating my girlfriend in May of 2012. I had some serious drug/alcohol problems and in November I was "sent away" for a year with almost no contact. For the first four months my partner constantly wrote letters and sent her love and how much she missed me. After that it started to deteriorate for her. She was sent to Scotland to live with her aunt and family for the month of July. Not ever telling me how she believed we weren't together she sent me a letter before her trip expressing how much she loved me and that I'm so perfect and she couldn't wait till I was back (pretty much leading me on).

While she was in Scotland she felt we weren't together and slept with someone. She says it wasn't cheating because we weren't technically together and I guess she moved on. I came back right after her trip and saw her and she was "different" and was obviously not interested in me (noting that I had no idea she slept with someone). I relapsed on pills and went back to treatment till early November. Me subsequently not talking to her when I was in treatment, but she kept on messaging me and trying to get in contact with me. When I got back for good she constantly texted me and we hung out a few times and then well I slept with her and we got back together. She told me of everything that happenend one thing I knew of after she cut me off in August and she also told me of a one night stand in Scotland.

I didn't think anything of it and put it behind me till I learned more. She said the only drama she had with her family was when she slept with this guy and I raised a lot of fights. Now I'm going to visit Scotland and I know I sound incredibly immature but I have to deal with her friends who knew her as someone different and I know I'll run into this guy. I've ran into guys from her past a few times before and was fine. But this was behind my back when she felt one thing, didn't communicate it and I assumed another. I know I wasn't there but I wish she would've just ended it instead of having this happen. I know I sound like an immature tool, but my anxiety constantly is eating away at me about this. It's hard for me to explain this awkward situation and it probably won't be anything, but I want to hear anybody's input if you can comprehend my madness. I don't know this is incredibly long but I wanted all the details included.

Thank so much if you read this
Beau

Let me give you my take on this. You've known each other for 2 years total... the last half of that you weren't together at all because of the substance abuse issues.

That's a rather significant amount of time given how little you have been together. People change and I suspect she has as well.

She is right... you really weren't together... you might have felt you were but there are two parties here... and she was going on with life without you because of your actions.

You really don't have a lot of choices here... you learn to live with it... or you pack up and move on. Which I suspect is what you are going to have to end up doing anyway.

It's really hard with your rather extremely addicted personality to let goof what's not important, and focus on what is, but you have to try. I do not see how this girl, will solve your problem of dealing with the restless, irritable, and discontent parts of your life, but will NO DOUBT make it much harder.

I see her as a temporary feel good. A quick fix, much like the drugs you deal with. You get a taste and you want more, and off to the races you go. You cannot substitute one fix for another, because they both lead to the same place for you. Distraction and confusion. High risk with low reward. You cannot control her, just yourself, and she is a distraction you don't need, that keeps all those old feelings all stirred up.

If you want a healthy relationship some day, get healthy yourself so you can choose a healthy partner for yourself. She cannot fill that bill, and right now, neither can you. I urge you to focus on YOU, and not her, because its you trying to climb out of a pit of addiction while she is not putting you first. She just ain't there for you nor will ever entirely be, and that's a huge danger for you. Get out of the pit FIRST, and stay out for a year, and you will have a much better grasp on a good orderly direction to move your life into.

Right now you are going the wrong way on a dead end street following the false hope of a females words that don't match her actions. Sorry guy, I don't see this working out well for you. Are you in a 12 step program? That's the REAL help and direction you NEED.

'Not ever telling me how she believed we weren't together she sent me a letter before her trip expressing how much she loved me and that I'm so perfect and she couldn't wait till I was back (pretty much leading me on).'
Come ON. Totally unfair and you know it. People usually change a lot when they aren't together, and she met someone, and she liked him, and stuff happened. You make her sound so devious. She's young, and you were the one who ruined what you had together by doing drugs. So stop the blame game. Addicts ALWAYS blame anyone and everyone and everything but themselves.
Stop that. Start taking RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS. That's not as simple as it sounds, because it means actually seeing how one action leads to another, how drugs led to you going to rehab, and how that led to her wondering just how much you cared. You are very, very lucky you have her at all. I'd have dumped you.

The relationship has been short term, and long-distance for half of it. You were going through treatment for a very long time, and during that ordeal, the light at the end of the long tunnel, was probably her. You banked on her being true to her word, and banked on her being honest and faithful because of the things she said while corresponding with you.

There are probably reasons she felt obligated to be positive, supportive, and loving toward you. She didn't want to see you fail, and she didn't want to add complications in your recovery that would set you back. In other words, the relationship was very unbalanced, and from what I read in your post, her focus was on your recovery, and your focus was on your recovery.

She probably had, after such a long time, realized that her needs were not being met. You were likely becoming more of an obligation, rather than a partner and participant in her life. Regardless of the affair, that one fact alone was a long time in the making.

Can you blame her?

While you were unable to develop a relationship with her, that was equal, and loving, and constant, she was alone. She probably had the best of intentions in remaining true to you, and she probably meant it when she said she was looking forward to you coming home.

A year to wait is a very long time, when the relationship was barely out of the starting gate to begin with. And, the relationship likely included the time before you went to treatment, when you were an active drug user. During that time, you weren't there for her either.

In many ways, you sound immature in that, you feel everything revolves around you, your problems, your solution to your problems, and your expectations of your girlfriend. And now it seems your focus is on her being unfaithful, but weren't you unfaithful with your substitute? (drugs.) How could you have had a relationship at all with nothing holding it together but your need to expect things to go as you wanted with her. Her needs were not the same.

And there you were, after a relapse that you blame on her, back in treatment, making the time apart worthless, and meaningless, because you have yet to learn that no one is responsible for your actions and decisions, but you.

The blame on her 'cheating' isn't the problem here. In my opinion, there was never a relationship as long as drugs were your life, and the aftermath of life for you without drugs, resulted in a relapse, based on that being the fault, or that being caused by, her.

I don't see how this relationship can go forward, with you going backward all the time. I agree that you need counseling, or a 12 step program to help you figure out what you need to do, focus on, change, and accept, about yourself, before you feel entitled to have others change for you.