I cheated on my boyfriend and I need help telling him what I
Question Posted Sunday March 7 2004, 9:12 am
Hey,
I am a 16 year old female.Thank you for taking your time to actually read my question.Now My question is that, I have a boyfriend that I am really into but a couple days ago I was around an ex-boyfriend and friends and we kissed.Now I feel as though since I really like my boyfriend that i should tell him what i did but.The problem is I don't know what to say. I really want to be with him but I'm scared that maybe if I tell him that though the kiss ment nothing he will think I still have feelings with my ex and we will break up.I have had thoughts of not telling him but then I will feel guilty and it might be a way that he find out from someone else.Oh my goodness I need help on what to say Please help me!
BewareOfCat2 answered Monday March 8 2004, 8:28 pm: Tell him exactly how you feel. Say you kissed him but it didn't mean anything and you definetly love him and are completely over our ex. Tell him that you couldn't stand the thought of being dishonest with him. [ BewareOfCat2's advice column | Ask BewareOfCat2 A Question ]
icanhelpcallonme answered Sunday March 7 2004, 3:56 pm: Hey u should tell your boyfriend id not it will eat away at u. Just tell him u was out and all of a sudden things got out of hand and u kissed him. Tell him u are really sorry and u hope he can forgive u. Lots of love. [ icanhelpcallonme's advice column | Ask icanhelpcallonme A Question ]
Jade_Greene answered Sunday March 7 2004, 12:39 pm: You might not like this advice.
I think that kiss is a symptom of a deeper, bigger problem. The fact that you feel guilty at all is proof that the kiss really *did* mean something. If it really meant nothing you'd have forgotten it by now. Until you know why the kiss happened and admit the reasons to yourself, talking it over with your boyfriend won't accomplish anything. You have to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with him.
One thing just jumped out at me here: nowhere in your letter did you mention that you love your current boyfriend. You might be feeling some pressure to be in love with him, or at least to act as though you are. Since you're an honest person, that's got to feel a little bit wrong to you. I bet you were feeling some very secret doubts even before you kissed the ex. Of course, nobody said you had to love him... yet at the same time, if you're exclusive, most people assume that there's a certain amount of love involved. If there isn't, that's a problem.
There's not much point in being in an exclusive relationship unless you can put your heart into it. Even if you truly want to do that, your heart might not be going along with it, and a person can't just fall in love on command. Don't go confusing a lack of love or a lack of commitment to the relationship as a lack of effort or a character flaw in yourself, because it's not. There could be plenty of good reasons why you aren't in love:
1) You really do have some feelings for your ex
2) You have some doubts or negative feelings toward your current boyfriend and kissed your ex as a way of testing the strength of the relationship and of putting your current boyfriend to the test
3) You don't have feelings for your ex, but you just had an impulse to kiss him and you acted on it even though you knew you'd regret it later
4) You wanted the attention, or had a secret desire to stir up some drama, possibly because of stresses in other parts of your life such as school or family
5) You are simply not ready for a relationship at the moment because you aren't in enough control of other aspects of your life to feel as though you're in the driver's seat, or to offer the kind of emotional investment needed for an exclusive relationship
None of these things are necessarily your fault, although they create a state of affairs that makes it impossible to offer the kind of commitment you think might be appropriate. What you do about these things, however, is a reflection of your basic character. You can choose to fake the commitment, or you can choose to acknowledge the fact that it isn't there. I recommend the latter; it will clear the air and enable both you and your boyfriend to do something about it.
First you have to admit to yourself that you aren't 100% committed to an exclusive relationship with your boyfriend. This is *exactly* as it should be at age 16. You haven't finished your education yet and you aren't supporting yourself, so if you're a responsible person, you would not put a relationship ahead of school, work, family, and such. What you're doing (and what your boyfriend is doing as well) is a kind of test drive of what a mature courtship process is like. It might evolve into something more-- who knows?-- but right now it's just a test drive. A test drive is a very good thing, but don't mistake it for actually owning the car.
The next thing you have to do is identify why you aren't ready for a relationship right now. Keep in mind that "not being ready" isn't your fault OR your boyfriend's fault, and it isn't an indicator of immaturity. Recent widows, divorcees, most college women, and most young professionals aren't ready for serious relationships either: maybe they're just coming out of one, or maybe there are other things in their lives that mean they don't have the emotional resources to fall in love at the time. The mature thing for a woman to do in a situation like this is to date casually and let the opportunity for a "serious" exclusive relationship pass by. Be friends, or date casually, but don't lock yourself into being a girlfriend until you're sure you have the desire, the self-knowledge, the stability, and the emotional resources to be a good, committed girlfriend (who doesn't have impulse control problems, hidden issues, or feelings for exes that are strong enough to inspire her to do destructive things like kissing other men).
Trying to keep the current relationship you have with your current boyfriend is not a mature or honest thing to do, because the only way you can keep it is to lie somehow: either lie by not telling him about the kiss, or lie about the reason behind the kiss. No matter how much you enjoy the benefits of being exclusive with him, you're not giving your share, and there's some pretending going on. You know it at some level, and chances are that's what's causing the guilt. For what it's worth, some people fake their way through relationships their whole lives, and you know what they get? Loveless marriages, affairs, and empty hearts. You deserve better than this, but the only way you can get it is to be honest with yourself, and then be honest with your boyfriend. Don't tell him about the kiss right away; tell him about the serious problem-- the one that's keeping you from being the kind of committed girlfriend he thinks you are. Talk that over with him first, and then mention the kiss later so that he realizes it's a symptom, not the root problem. If you're going to lose him completely (and you might), don't lose him over a kiss, lose him over something meaningful.
Of course, the mature thing to do is seldom the easy thing to do. It means you miss out on the social prestige of being someone's girlfriend. It means you don't have exclusive access to your boyfriend, and it means you'll have to be the one to lay the cards on the table and 'fess up to the fact that an exclusive relationship is more than you can offer just now. You would rather date casually, or even just be friends. If you want, you can talk about your reasons for not being ready right now-- whatever they might happen to be. Admit that it really is your problem, not his. If he'd like to help you get through it, you'd appreciate it, and you'd still like to go out with him, but you just can't offer him the kind of commitment and passion he deserves right now. Nor can you guarantee it will ever be there, although you're really into him and you hope that someday you can be more than friends.
This will be hard for your boyfriend to take, especially if he's in love with you, since it's a step backward from what he thinks he's got. But it's better than offering him phony love or trying to lie and play along like everything's OK. Trying to pass off the kiss you gave your ex as "nothing" is an example of lying and playing along: even if you tell your boyfriend about the kiss, you'd still be dishonest with him about your level of commitment to the relationship. At a certain level he would probably realize that, too.
I don't know how your boyfriend will respond to total honesty-- and I mean talking about the reason behind the kiss, compared to which the kiss itself is just a symptom. If you want to bring up the kiss too, go for it-- but make sure you present it as a symptom of the root problem.
After you've finished with your boyfriend, I guarantee you will not have the exclusive boyfriend/girlfriend relationship any more, at least not for now. But I also guarantee you'll have his respect. That's not to be taken lightly. You may have his friendship as well, depending on his feelings for you, and you might also have his trust. If he's truly in love with you and mature enough to commit 100% to the relationship, he may surprise you by sticking around to work this issue through. If he's been test driving, you won't hurt him very much at all since it's a learning experience for him too. [ Jade_Greene's advice column | Ask Jade_Greene A Question ]
endilwen answered Sunday March 7 2004, 10:30 am: Hey,
I can't see much of a way out of this one, except for you to tell your boyfriend what you did. I think he'd probably rather hear the truth from you than hear a nasty rumor from someone else-particularly from your ex. Good luck x [ endilwen's advice column | Ask endilwen A Question ]
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