I told my girlfriend I cheated on her — now she won’t stop harping on about it

He thinks he made a huge mistake telling her (Picture: Getty/Metro)

They say honesty is the best policy, but this week’s reader has been left wishing he’d kept the truth to himself.

After getting ‘carried away’ on a night out with friends, he ended up in bed with a girl he barely knew. He decided to tell his fiancée what happened, but she was, unsurprisingly, less than impressed with his actions.

Weeks of grovelling later, and she’s forgiven him. Well, sort of. She often brings up his infidelity, and now he’s wondering how much more he can take.

Read the advice below, but before you go, don’t forget to read last week’s column, where a wife reveals she can’t stop having phone sex behind her husband’s back. 

The problem: 

Christmas feels like a long time ago, right? No, not in our house – you’d think it was yesterday. Because that’s when I cheated on my fiancée, and she harps on about it daily. 

Basically, I went out for drinks with a bunch of mates, and got slightly carried away. I know it’s not much of an excuse, but due to partying a bit too hard, I ended up in bed with some girl I vaguely knew. There has never been any chemistry between us, but once I’d got the old beer-goggles on, she seemed like the girl of my dreams. 

Unfortunately, I fell asleep and stayed out all night, so things were a bit tricky when I went home the next morning. My girlfriend went mad at me and in the row that followed, I admitted that I’d slept with someone else. Big mistake.  

She threw all my stuff out and told me to leave and never come back. She said she’d never touch me again after what I’d done. Fair enough, I probably deserved it, but as we’re engaged and have big plans for the future, I figured that if I waited long enough, she would calm down and forgive me. 

And that’s exactly what happened, sort of. After weeks of grovelling, apologising, flowers and gifts, she said she was willing to try again. Is she though? She never stops reminding me of how grateful I should be that she’s given me a second chance, and she makes nasty remarks every time I go out with my friends. 

Honestly, I’ve learned my lesson, I’ll never do it again. But I don’t know how long I’m prepared to live like this. 

The advice: 

You seem to think the problem is with the way your fiancée is responding to your peace gestures, but the bigger problem is that you cheated in the first place. Someone who really loved their fiancée wouldn’t be tempted into bed with another woman, ‘beer goggles’ (such an insulting expression) or not. 

The fact that you treat the whole episode in such a flippant way, suggests you haven’t really taken on board just how hurtful your behaviour was. You completely destroyed the trust in your relationship and frankly, plenty of girls wouldn’t even have taken you back.  

Time is usually a great healer, and five months isn’t really that long. But a gradual improvement should be expected, and if this doesn’t seem to be happening, I’d suggest the damage runs deeper than you realise. Maybe your fiancée doesn’t want to let go of her dreams for the future, but that might be what she needs to do. 

What led you to be unfaithful in the first place, and why were you even looking for ‘the girl of your dreams’? Something about this relationship doesn’t feel right, and I’m not sure whether flowers and gifts will be enough to save it. 

As a last resort you could see whether couples counselling will help ‘clear the log jam’, but if things don’t improve, there might come a time when breaking off the engagement is the best way forward for both of you. It’s never easy to start again, but sometimes it’s the only way. 

Laura is a counsellor and columnist.

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