I'm not sure if I can love him again, should I stay or leave?

Help us out a little by giving us an idea of your ages. There’s a lot of living between, say 18 and 48, and things don’t necessarily balance out the same.

Leave.

@Jeruba she said they’re twenty, I’d personally leave, but it really up to you and if you think he deserves a second chance. but don’t jump to a decision.

When did he cheat exactly? You said a few years ago, but you’ve only been together for almost two years. Also how and when did you find out? You mention him telling you 6 months ago, so how long was between him telling you and when he actually did it? Did he just come out and tell you or did you find out in another way?

Only you can decide to stay or go. Right now, do you think you will ever be able to move on from the cheating? Do you think you will love him and trust him again?

sorry i guess it was a little confusing. he cheated a little more than a year ago. he told me about it a couple weeks after it happened. and we broke up last summer. this april he confessed that he wanted to get back together, so from there we’ve been seeing how things go. i do trust him again, i just don’t feel the love anymore. and i’m not sure if i can love him again the way i use to. i just wanted some opinions and thoughts on what anyone else would do in this situation. stay and wait to see if the love returns, or leave and spare him further hurt i may cause by keeping him around.

If you never got the love you use to have back, would you be happy? I can completely understand something like this changing things. Since you don’t know if you will ever feel the way you use to, I think it’s best to look at what you have now and where it’s headed. If you are happy with the relationship you have, stay. If you aren’t happy with it, leave.

If you feel that you don’t love him anymore, you shouldn’t stay with him. Lots of women end up staying with men who cheat on them because they do love them, in spite of the cheating. And some women have to put up with men who cheat on them over and over again, but they just hang in there (the Clintons come to mind, Pres. Kennedy, and his father who Rose Kennedy stayed with, Pres. Roosevelt…) Other women do leave their men, but maybe it’s just the excuse that they need. You have to be honest with yourself and with him—if you don’t love him anymore, move on. He will be better off in the long run, and so will you.

You and your boyfriend are both very young. His being faithful to you is obviously important to you. If he can prove that he can remain faithful then stick it out. If you love him that much. If he can’t manage that, then ditch him. Relationships depend on both people having similar expectations and values. Love, sadly, is not enough. The both of you need to be “on the same page” on this one. I just think that if he cheats on you once that it is maybe something the two of you can work out. But, maybe not, that is up to you. But if he cheats on you more than once, that’s a different story. That’s starting to look like a pattern and if that is not acceptable to you then you need to move on. It’s not going to get any better.

You have got to value the fact that he told you. That shows that he has a lot of respect for you and for the relationship you have. If he had really cheated he would have kept it quiet. He didn’t fall in love with anyone else. It sounds like he really loves you. I can understand how your feelings have changed. He says he will wait for you. Why not ask him to wait and not see him for a few weeks or maybe a month. You can then see how you both feel after that time

@flutherother “If he had really cheated he would have kept it quiet?” He really did cheat on her, he just told her about it.

That’s a hard choice to make! My husband did the same thing. We had been married almost 2 years. I found out about it and confronted him, he denied it and then finally admitted it. It has taken almost 6 months for us to even begin to rebuild the trust that was lost. But it is getting better, I know he regrets it and I honestly don’t think he would ever do it again. You have to decide if you can ever truly forgive & trust him again, and if you can ever regain the love & feelings for him. It’s a hard journey, but if you are both committed it can be done. Wishing you the best of luck.

He put the hole in your heart the day he decided to cheat on you….Leaving him is a lesson, and he’s not worth your time… cheating is never to be taken lightly… if he cared, it wouldnt of happened… everyone knows exactly what they are doing… his desicion…so his loss… leave him.

lillycoyote Cheating means dishonesty and there is nothing more corrosive to a relationship than dishonesty. The fact that he has been honest indicates to me that he regrets what happened and wants things to work out. If there is honesty and love then even a hole in the heart can be mended. Anyway, good luck!

@flutherother Fine. You may have misspoken. Very likely true: “The fact that he has been honest indicates to me that he regrets what happened and wants things to work out.” Quite a bit different than saying “If he had really cheated he would have kept it quiet.”

lillycoyote I don’t see a difference in my two statements.

Leave, leave, leave. Life is too short, even at age twenty, to spend time with someone you no longer love.

@oatmeal1642, to summarize, you were friends in high school, started dating your senior year. He cheated on you, and told you himself that he had cheated. You guys broke up, and six months later, he asked to be taken back. You still care about him as a person, but you find that your feelings have not returned to the way they were before.

Your feelings will not return to the way they were before, because you are not the same person you were before you broke up. The act of having to deal with the grief of his cheating and the break-up changed you. You had to find something inside yourself to get over it and move on with your life, and because of that, the person you are now is not exactly the same person you were a year ago. You’ve matured in a way that you didn’t expect to have to mature.

People do sometimes regain trust in the other person, and fall in love with them all over again, but in a different way than before. Are you talking to him about how you feel? Does he expect everything to go back to the way it was before? Talking about it is important.

@flutherother If you don’t see a difference in your two statements, I can’t see it for you. I guess we will just have to disagree on this one.

Maybe you need to try a complete break and see where you’re at with it? I wouldn’t think one episode of cheating at 20 necessarily indicates that much if he has repented, but if you feel you cannot love him, you cannot.

OK… Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla…

Leave.

I may regret my bluntness tomorrow but I am so sick of this shit. He cheated on you. Just dump the goddam son of a bitch!

I know, I was a little more understanding in my previous comments on this thread, but I’ve had a change of heart. Dump the SOB, that’s my advice!

It sounds to me like you are still in love with him, just that your love has changed and it will as you age. Only you can decide if you want to continue seeing him. I’m for giving him another chance, because at 19, people have not matured enough yet.

If you love him, stay. If you don’t , leave. If you’re not certain, you don’t- so leave. Best Wishes.

You’re young. You will meet someone else. You will love again. Leave.

@oatmeal1642 Which isn’t to say that it isn’t hard to do and very painful. It’s easier to advise someone to break up, than to do it oneself usually.

@flutherother I’ve never understood the notion that disclosing a one-time (and only one-time) offense lessens the pain of the offense. If he knew it was a one-time mistake, that would never happen again, he should have kept his mouth shut and done everything is his power to make her happy for the rest of the relationship. Instead, he decided to rip her heart out and destroy her concept of love, all for the sake of “being honest”. Oh, but he was sorry and wanted to be forgiven. The truth is he wanted to be forgiven; not because he loved her, but because he no longer wanted to feel guilty.

Now the truth is out the pain and the guilt are not going to go away. That isn’t why we tell the truth. Perhaps everything would have been better if he had shut up by I for one respect his honesty and if there is true love between them it can survive this and I hope it does.

@flutherother Call me a cynic, but he told her the truth because he wanted her to eventually tell him “I love you and we can get past this”. Thus, lessening his guilt. He’ll always be guilty of hurting her, but not so much that she couldn’t forgive him, if she’s willing to stay in the relationship. The guilt may not disappear, but it’s drastically reduced once forgiven.

If you’re going to cheat, the one thing you must do, if you have even a shred of feeling for your partner, is ensure that they never find out – what the head doesn’t know, the heart can’t grieve over. Him telling you is self-indulgent, self-pitying twaddle. He did a bad thing, and instead of manning up to his mistake and dealing with it by himself, he’s tried to co-opt you into lessening the pain and guilt he feels, by dumping lots of the pain on you and pretending to himself that he’s honest and working through his bad behaviour. What a scoundrel. What a cad. Leave him.

I understand where you guys are coming from, about the fact that he shouldn’t have told me. But although it hurt, I respect that he did tell me. I feel that telling the truth is the right thing, no matter what.