Dear Sam,

I agree with Mark… I also don’t think kissing someone else at a party is ‘cheating’ either, not in a real sense.

What is coming across to me here is that you are feeling extremely guilty over this incident, the one which led to the loss of the relationship.

Now, in life, we all make mistakes. We are human and we fail sometimes. You are very young, and this was your first boyfriend?

The only way to navigate through life is to learn by our mistakes. So, you made a mistake and now you want to punish yourself for it, because you want to somehow feel the pain that you inflicted on your first boyfriend. Meanwhile, he has forgiven you and moved on.

So you are wanting this second boyfriend to be mean to you and think that if you somehow distance yourself, or wish that he would cheat on you, it would only be what you deserve.

Do you think that, if this new bf actually does what you are wanting him to do that it will make you feel better about yourself? I can tell you now, that it won’t make much difference at all. Feeling better about ourselves actually comes from within, not from outside. I can understand why you want to push him away and make yourself suffer in that way though.

All you really need to do is forgive yourself for that mistake you made (which wasn’t really the greatest crime, now was it?) You have learned a hard lesson in life and relationships, but you shouldn’t keep beating yourself up about it. Embrace this new relationship for what it is, and not because you want to, in some way, use this new boyfriend to punish yourself. Leave all the clutter of the past boyfriend behind you and let go of all that blame you’ve built up inside yourself and which is hindering your present life.

You can’t change the past. You can’t change the future either. All we ever have is the moment we are living in right now. Let it go, stop thinking so hard, stop trying to punish yourself (and the new boyfriend – by getting him to react to a situation he has no knowledge of) and just enjoy this time with your new boyfriend.

With best wishes,

Jay