Cheating in a “Friend with Benefits” Relationship?
Reader’s Question
Should I forgive her? Basically this girl and I started off as friends at work and then sort of became friends with benefits later. Before me, she was with a guy for 7 years but she’d been broken up with him for awhile as he didn’t treat her very nicely. She still sees him a lot but I didn’t let her know that it bothers me. We’ve been getting really serious now. She told me yesterday that around about a month ago she cheated on me with him…twice. She keeps telling me that it will never happen again and that he’s leaving the city and that I’m all she ever wants and blah blah blah.
I told her straight up, me or him. If you’re with me you can’t have him in your life and she said she couldn’t do that. I really want to forgive her but I really don’t know if I can. I can barely look her in the face anymore. I don’t know what to do.
The thing is I know she’s had a hard life with depression and stuff and if I did leave I know it would mess her up and I don’t want to hurt her but I can already feel myself sinking into depression because of all this. Things can’t be the same anymore even if I wanted them to be. She said she had to tell me because she really cares for me now and wants to get serious and doesn’t want any secrets between us.
I’m so confused and don’t know what to do. She was the only thing I felt I had going for me and now that’s ruined. Part of me wants to run away and not look back but the other part of me doesn’t want to hurt her because of one mistake she made and how happy she made me before this. Then there’s also one part of me that just wants to use this as leverage to get something out of it. Yeah…I don’t know what I should do.
Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply
Q: Your view of the relationship is going from friends to “friends with benefits” — then getting more serious. You later mention that she was the only thing you had going for you. Her version of the relationship has a different path — friends, “friends with benefits”, reuniting with an ex-boyfriend, seeing the ex at the same time, and now wanting to become more serious. You and your friend were not following the same path or timetable and while you were in the “serious” stage earlier, she was not-as-serious. While you both were in the “friends with benefits” stage, she was seeing the ex-boyfriend a lot, suggesting she was not as invested in the relationship as you might have been — at that time. This is not that unusual in romance, especially in the beginning stages of a romantic relationship.
During those early stages of your relationship, she was honest and open with you. She did not hide her contact with her ex-boyfriend and was also honest enough to tell you that she would not eliminate him from her life.
It sounds like she now is interested in a more serious relationship with you. If you are still serious and interested, now is the time to discuss and gain agreement on the need for a monogamous relationship. As a warning, if you try to use her honesty and openness as leverage to get what you want, she’ll be gone. I’d also drop the idea that she cheated on you. You can’t demand fidelity and monogamy when you define the relationship as “friends with benefits” — that’s a friendship with intimacy, one that is mutually beneficial due to circumstances. You’ll notice you don’t use terms like girlfriend, sweetheart, etc.
If the relationship with her made you happy and she’s an honest person, forgive and forget and see if it works. You’ve been on different paths to get to the serious stage but now you’re here. Talk about that, not the past, and not previous relationships.
