I am in a very happy relationship, and I drank so much I slept with someone else. I need advice.

I would just let it go. Sex is not really a “spiritual” kind of thing, it’s just an instinct. The monogamy thing is kind of an instinct too, especially on the part of a male. They instinctively want to be sure that whatever offspring comes, it is theirs.

It’s just sex. It’s done. If the two of you have committed to a monogamous relationship, then don’t do it again. (There is a pretty good chance that he’s slept with others too, especially if you’re in a long distance relationship and go a few weeks at a time without seeing each other. But that’s no excuse to break your end of the deal.)

Make sure you didn’t catch something. If not, let it go.

@josie has a very excellent point. Hie yourself to a gynecologist ASAP.

@josie I didn’t even think of that, thank you.

I think the big take-away is that you shouldn’t be drinking so much that you don’t feel responsible for what you do.

Other than that, I would bear the burden of the guilt for this myself and not burden my boyfriend with it. But learn from it.

I think she feels responsible, @janbb. She is just saying she did something she wouldn’t have done if she hadn’t been drinking. I think most of us have been there to a greater or lesser extent.

I’ve always done stupid stuff after drinks, people do. I’ve just never done this and never will again. I take full responsibility for it and know it was my mistake.

Do not tell your partner. Why should he carry the burden with you? Tell a therapist. They can help you deal with your feelings and put it behind you.

Needless to say, do not put yourself in a position where that could happen again.

Getting drunk at a party at your age is not unusual but getting totally drunk is not a good place to be and you are now struggling with the after affects. Unless you were slipped a drug, allowing yourself to get totally hammered is a sign you cannot control your drinking and or are struggling emotionally. If you cannot exercise self control, in my experience you will do go through this again.

That said, one could psychoanalyze this 4 ways to Sunday as to why you let yourself go. Me….I would say you are young and not ready to settle down and you let loose and had some fun. You have many years ahead of you before you are out in the real world fending for yourself and ultimately settle down with the man of your dreams.

Yes you in your mind cheated on your BF, but you did what you did for a reason and only you can ultimately know what that reason was.

@Cruiser with respect, I certainly can control my drinking and am not struggling emotionally. I made a choice to have drinks with a group of friends, it’s freshers week, I’m not alone and I don’t regret the drinking itself.

I do however think that the rest of what you said has some truth to it. I have a lot to think about, thank you.

I think it would be the best course of action to

1) Tell your partner.

2) Get tested for STDs.

I don’t blame you for what happened. You were drunk, and obviously past the point of rational decisions. However, I don’t believe you will be able to maintain a healthy relationship while lying about something this big. I hope your partner will be understanding. If your relationship is strong, that’s likely….but it’s his decision, and he should get to make it. Some part of you probably knows this.

I’m sorry you’re in this stressful situation. Don’t feel dreadful – you’re not the first person to have done this, and far from the last.

@greenbean3 With all due respect…drinking to a point to where quote…I hardly remember it and just realised when I woke up next to him naked is IMHO is outside the definition of in control. Justify and rationalize it in your own mind however you feel best about it. Good luck at school and learn how to spell realized while you are there.

Another thing though…..if there is any possibility that someone else friend, friends of your boyfriend etc. knows of your indiscretion and could, potentially rat you out to your boyfriend you might want to tell him. Always better to hear something like this from the partner rather than from someone else, that just adds insult to injury. If not, well, it is your call but personally, I’m a big believer in total transparency in relationship. The problem with concealing information like this is that really, you are tricking your boyfriend into staying in a relationship with you based on his, now false, idea that you are a faithful girlfriend.

I’m not saying tell him, that is your choice for better or for worse, but….the fact is that in lying through omission you have already changed the dynamic of this relationship and you need to know that his being in this relationship with you now is based on false information.
This is the biggest issue with lying in relationship, you are taking anothers right to choose whether or not they wish to forgive and forget or quit the relationship.
Personally I think the mature and honest thing to do would be to disclose your screw up and give your boyfriend the chance to make his own, fully informed decision.
I also agree with @Cruiser You cannot claim you are in control of your drinking if you end up waking up naked with some dude at a party and barely remember what went down.

The odds are good that you could do this again if you don’t quit or seriously limit your drinking.

@Cruiser I’m not picking a fight, I’m just saying I made the choice to drink alcohol and I was not the most drunk by far. I know I made a huge mistake and I’m very upset about it so please don’t make me feel any worse. Also I don’t go to school I am working, and it’s quite low to make that comment.

To clear one or two things up, it’s not like I have that much to drink every weekend, I let just let go because I wanted to.

@Coloma, thanks for your response. I don’t feel right being with my partner after this, you made a very good point and I do respect relationships and boundaries.

Bygones…. get a full test done…....

We are prone to give ourselves too much leeway for bad behavior when inebriated. “But I was drunk” is a cop out. At best it is a transparent excuse for what is in fact self induced bad judgement.

If you can control your drinking, then I recommend you control it. Waking up next to some guy naked does not indicate control.
Take responsibility for your actions and your relationship. You are not a child. Recognize that there may very well be consequences, whether STDs, pregnancy, or the word getting out and your SO finding out even if you don’t tell him.
Sorry to sound harsh, but the reality is harsh. We all screw up sometimes, the thing is to own up to it and recognize that you may not be able to fix this.

If your boyfriend had been the one to do this, would you want to know about it? What if he contracted an STD and then passed it on to you? What if the one night stand ended up pregnant and decided to have the baby? What if it turns out that he has a drinking problem? What if you find out about it through a source other than him?

What would you be willing to accept? What would he? Just food for thought.

I’ve never given myself any slack for anything I did wrong while drinking. If I did wrong, I felt miserable and guilty for a long time, like @greenbean3 does. Although I can honestly say I never slept with anyone because I was drunk. Flirted more than I would, yes. But nothing beyond that.

There is only ONE time in my life where I can feel pretty justified in not being 100% responsible for my own actions. It was in the several weeks leading up to my hospitalization for pneumonia. I literally do not remember September, October, and half of November, 2012. I have only heard from others that I was not behaving as I normally do. I was short tempered, rude and mean. My daughter thought I was having dementia onset. I was most certainly not making the sound decisions I normally make, and when I woke up we were in a financial mess that took me several months for to straighten out.

First thing you need to do, is come clean to your partner.

I am telling my partner in person when I see him next. Thank you all.

@greenbean3 Do tell him, you may or may not get a second chance. Don’t do it again. Nothing more to say.

Yes, definitely do not lie to your partner about it. I’m kind of surprised that so many people told you to keep it to yourself. You have no right to keep it to yourself if you’re in a monogamous relationship – even if it was a horrible mistake that you feel bad about and it would never happen again. He might decide that he’d rather not be in a relationship with you if he knew the truth, and he has every right in the world to make a fully informed decision about where he wants to go from here, and he can’t do that if you’re not honest with him. It would be completely immoral not to tell him about it.

Chastity belt, Antabuse, wake up.

1) Make sure you didn’t get an STD.
2) Recognize that you did this because you have a problem with alcohol. Quit all drinking. If you truly regret what you did, you will do this.
3) If you are not pregnant nor caught an STD, don’t tell your bf. It will serve no purpose. To relieve your guilt, follow item 2.

@filmfann Beg to differ, the purpose in being honest is to give the uninformed party their right to exercise choice in the situation. Who the hell wants to live a lie. The truth is always best, even if painful and, it keeps the guilty party accountable. Accountability is the right thing to do.

Tell the boyfriend. Stop drinking alcohol (you have a drinking problem, and hope you realize that.) Tell the boyfriend you are stopping alcohol, that you are sorry, and hope for the best.

I haven’t read the rest of the posts but my advise is to quit drinking. If you get this out of control it’s obviously a problem. If you lose your relationship over it it will be a hard lesson learned.

Enjoy alcohol, assuming that you’re able to cut back, but don’t drink to the point of senseless inebriation. If you get so drunk that you lose yourself, along with your memories of the evening, it’s time for changes. If you’re doing things that you’d never do when sober, you’re drinking too much.

Please get tested for pregnancy and STDs. You owe that to yourself and your boyfriend.

As for whether you should tell your boyfriend, well, that’s a polarizing matter. Some people will tell you that complete honesty is essential for trust in a relationship, and that you have an obligation to tell all. Personally, I think that if this incident is isolated, and if you change your behavior and never make the same mistake again, it’s your own secret to keep. This is a decision that only you can make.

Well, I’m having to change my response. I think you should tell him. It may end your relationship. But if you don’t tell him, it will always be there, the guilt, and guilt has a way of telling on itself. If it happens in 3 years, or 10, or whatever, then you will have to admit to a lie (by omission) as well.

Just wondering if you;re still taking Venlafaxine as you said in your January question? Poor judgment if you are drinking while taking this medicine.

The transgression is something to keep to yourself until you fully understand the character of your boyfriend and his capacity to accept the news. If the relationship lasts, the time may arrive when you will know that it’s right to tell him. Meantime, be good to him and adjust to the guilt.

As Tanya Tucker once famously said: “It’s a little too late to do the right thing now”. Get on with your life.

@greenbean3 Have you had the chance to talk to your partner yet? Please let us know how it went and the outcome once you do.

@stanleybmanly Mmmm…I’d disagree. If they continue on for who knows how long and then, months, perhaps even years later, she confesses, I think that would be very destructive. Most people would be very angry that had been operating on what they considered a level playing field of trust and equality to find out at a later date that they had been deceived. I might be projecting here, but, myself as well as a few others I have known that discovered a partners indiscretions years after the fact were outraged and felt as if we had been living a big fat lie for years and had we known from the get go we might have made very different choices.

Most people do not like to be played for a fool and situations like this are like a band aid, best to just rip it off quickly and put the wound out there.

@Coloma Maybe so, but looking back on my own life, I can see the stupid things that I’ve done and not repeated. There’s a certain lack of judgement that accompanies youth, and the trouble with being young is that you lack the perspective to realize it.

@stanleybmanly Ture, but honesty is almost aways the best policy, and it’s a good way for a younger person to learn accountability the hard way. Each to his own of course.

If I had a significant other and they came to me, telling me they slept with someone because they got so drunk they couldn’t control themselves, I’d probably be done with them in a New York minute.

There is also the factor that no matter how discreet you are after the fact, a “youthful indiscretion” like that is not only your secret to keep. There may be a bunch of people who know. The guy. His friends. Anybody who saw you guys leave/go upstairs/whatever together. It’s out there. Whether or not you think honesty is the best policy or not, that information coming casually from a 3rd party would be infinitely worse.

I think your significant other at the very least deserves the opportunity to make an “informed decision”.

To be honest, I couldn’t live with myself being with my boyfriend if I cheated on him…if I lied to him my whole life. I feel like if he found out somehow that would be worse…. Just my opinion. I can’t lie about something at big…

Rip the bandaid off. Tell him….get it out there. Face your demons. We all make mistakes. But not telling him is lying to yourself for the rest of you life. The truth hurts and yes this will.

Best of luck to you. Keep us updated.

I hope she comes back and tells us what he decided to do and how it went if she told him.

^^ me too! ^^

Well it looks like her last visit was 3 days ago on the 11th and it has been a week since she said she would be telling her partner the next time she saw him.
So there has been plenty of time to tell all it seems. We may never know, C’est la vie.