Dear Christine,
MY GIRLFRIEND at the time (now my fiancée) got drunk while we were an item and slept with someone – her girlfriend set her up. I suspected all along something was amiss and asked her point-blank. She constantly denied it, but then we went to a party and she got drunk again and didn’t remember what happened afterward.
We had a huge fight and she told me she had slept with the guy that I had had suspicions about. She said it had been tormenting her because we were going to get married.
I have told her I could get past it, but I have days when I can’t sleep thinking about it. She doesn’t want to talk about it because it is “too painful” for her to relive. I feel like I need to talk through it to move forward. I believe she really loves me and regrets what happened, but I keep asking myself why she did this. She says she was drunk and it just happened. I love her, but can I ever trust her? Our wedding day is a little over a month away. Help!
– CAN I TRUST HER AGAIN?
Dear Can I Trust Her Again?,
What makes me wonder about this situation is that though she may have been drunk, this wasn’t just someone she met at a party after she’d had too much to drink, but rather knew she was going to be introduced to by a girlfriend, so there was some planning involved.
If she had just gotten drunk and slept with some stranger, I would probably tell you that when weighing both sides of this matter, it would seem that this was something that you should put deep into the bottom of your mind. (You can never forget information like this, but you don’t have to try to remember it either.)
But since there was some planning involved, you can’t just chalk it up to the liquor. And, in fact, why did she drink so much that particular night, given that she was with this man?
To my mind, the even bigger question is, why did she feel the need back then, when she was your girlfriend after all, to agree to be set up to see some other guy? Now maybe she wasn’t sure about the relationship and afterwards decided that you were the one man in her life.
But maybe she thought something was lacking and still thinks that. If it’s the latter, then you two should clear that up before you get married. In other words, I don’t think she has the right to refuse to talk about it. She doesn’t have to tell you every detail, but she does owe you more of an explanation than it was just the liquor.
And once you hear her explanation, if you decide to go forward, then you have to promise her and yourself that you’re not going to dredge this up again. If you can’t sleep because you’re worrying about it, force yourself to think of some of the good times you had together instead.
That way, even if you still can’t sleep, you’ll be filling your head with pleasant thoughts rather than upsetting ones. But do try to find out what was going through her mind to make sure that it won’t be happening again.
– christine
