About 4 years ago, my girlfriend and I, best friends at the time, decided to get into a relationship. We always got along fantastically, were totally comfortable with each other, and our families loved each other.
However my girlfriend went through some depression (she had been depressed on and off before we met), and also had an eating disorder (which also started well before we met). I can't timeline it, but at some point after we got together, I (and everybody else) noticed that she wasn't the same bubbly, jovial person that she was when we first met. It seemed like the depression had taken root, most plausibly triggered by a lot of stress at work, and as much as I tried to encourage and support her to take action, she refused. I realized that suggesting action was counter productive, so I focused on being as supportive and loving as possible, waiting for her to be ready to take some action herself.
A few months ago, she went away on a vacation cruise for 3 weeks with her mom. The timing was unfortunate in that her grandfather, whom she was quite close to, was not in good condition, and passed away about a week into her trip.
When she got back, she was acting rather cold and distant towards me; I assumed this was because of her grandfather, so I didn't think much of it. A couple of weeks later, I woke up in the middle of the night and put my arm around her. She was asleep, but swung it away with some force. I was frustrated and hurt, said something, and she woke up. She said we should talk, and told me that she wanted some space because she wasn't sure if she was attracted to me anymore. Our intimacy had slid over the years - this was something I was conscious of, but based on everything I read, felt was reasonable to attribute to the depression.
Even though I was bewildered, I agreed to give her space for the few days until she had to go away for 2.5 weeks for a work trip, after which I would stay at our apartment to look after the cat, and then move to my parents because she would still need her space.
When she got back, we talked and I suggested we seek the guidance of a counsellor, who might be able to help us with our intimacy issues. After some thought, she agreed, saying that we are so connected, love each other, and can't imagine our lives without one another; she said she wanted to work on our relationship.
One week after we saw the counsellor, I still couldn't make sense out of things, so one night while she was sleeping (I've been having problems sleeping ever since the first request for space), I looked at her Facebook messages, and to my complete shock and dismay, I saw that she had cheated on me with some guy on her cruise, sexted with him from the day she got back, invited him to stay with him for a few nights on her work trip, and continued to sext him after we had seen the counsellor. She had always been so violently anti-cheating in her opinions (and she had had a couple of exes cheat on her), so I just could not believe what I was seeing.
I brought it up a week later when we next saw the counsellor, and she expressed remorse, apologized, and said she would stop talking to him and work on us again. Things went pretty well, until about a month later, she asked for another break. At this point, I told her that I noticed his name kept showing up at the top of her Facebook list when she was playing Facebook games or on her profile, and whether she was still talking to him. She told me she was sorry, but yes. She had stopped for about two weeks, but then he messaged her asking how she was, and she re-engaged platonically, and hadn't been sexting him again. She told me that she would probably have to visit him while on our break (he lives in a different province) to "figure out her feelings for him". Naturally I was again devastated.
A few nights after that, I looked at her phone again, and saw that they had switched to a different platform to communicate to, and had indeed been sexting each other. I didn't let her know I knew this, but we spent the last few days of 2013 together and honestly had a wonderful time. However, I moved out on Jan 1 to give her some space to think, but all I could think about was her and the other guy, and I was a wreck.
We agreed to see the counsellor again a few days ago, and we agreed that my girlfriend and I would do 14 days of no contact, after which she would have to decide whether she wanted to try to make our relationship work, or walk away. She's not supposed to be in contact with the other guy, but I have no idea if she's actually following through with it.
(cont'd)
