Dear Tee,

In the first week of the relationship after we officially started dating, the red flags involved her dry texting that made me very upset cause I looked forward to texting her everyday and she also initiated multiple break ups in that one week due to reasons such as still having feelings for her ex and my age and other people’s opinion about us dating (her ex’s opinion tbh) etc. But she kept coming back apologizing the next day but that was also the period when she spent time with her ex half naked in the towel, which led to another break up later on. I should have paid attention to those red flags and left but I was blinded by love.

Yea the “pretend husband” had me hooked cause no real life girl showed interest in me so the feeling of being “wanted” by someone blinded.

“BTW have you explained to her why your parents might not approve of her? Have you clarified early on what the consequences of dating you are, so that she knows what you expect of her?” Yes I told her why my parents would not approve of her and the consequence of us dating would be that I would have to choose my parents over her when it is time for marriage if my parents reject her and she would have to endure the pain of me leaving her, and she agreed to that. But later on she admitted that she was not thinking straight when she agreed and she didn’t realize the toll it would take on her.

Even though I initially fell in love with the “idea” of her, I made sure to learn everything about her, including her past, before I chose to go along with the relationship. The issue is that I was blinded by the love, which prevented me from evaluating her past properly and not realizing what type of person she really was. I don’t know if I said this already but she broke up with her first boyfriend just cause she couldn’t buy him a birthday present, even though he took care of her well. But I had ignored it because it happened when she was in high school.

“In reality, you knew very little about her: she was obviously very beautiful and sexy, she was willing to cook for you (which you find very important in a woman), and she told you that she agreed with the rules of the game (i.e. how a good girlfriend and a good future wife should behave). You thought: bingo!” That is only some of the reasons why I thought she was perfect. She took care of me like a mother would, supporting my studying, helping me deal with the dandrives in my hair (which I didn’t like her doing because I didn’t want to ruin her hands but she was willing to do it, which I thought was amazing since most girls would feel disgusted to help) and she provided me with emotional comfort after dealing with my parents and life and she keeps offering to clean my room (which is something I admired about her but I never let her clean the room because it just felt wrong for me to let her do it as it is my responsibility). She did not seem to be a gold digger or anything as she always offered to help out in paying for things that involved both of us like dates and etc. She even bought me a matching date outfit for us, that I never even got to wear cause of our break up. Now I don’t even know what to do with it because it is not an outfit that you can wear casually and I don’t think it will be respectful if I wear it for a date with another girl in the future. My love language is touch and so I found it very comfortable when hugging/cuddling her especially after she showered which made her body feel cold while my body is warm and the temperature difference also made it more comfortable. I loved the childish way she behaved because it was the good type of annoying and I loved watching her sleep peacefully, making me wish I could spend the rest of my life with her. Overall, I just felt happy and at peace with her despite the annoying arguments we had. The list goes on but they convinced me that she was the right person cause I no longer felt alone and abandoned like I usually felt and being with her got me out of the depressive phase I was going through. Obviously I was blind and naive to reality.

She already agreed that she would not wear the less revealing outfits, and barely did it too but she tends to have the habit of forgetting things too easily, and my constant forgiveness also played a factor as it indicated that it is okay to go against my wishes even if she agreed. Besides, she has a habit of considering things to be not as important as they actually are, which means she thought it was okay to have  a casual hug with men; she thought all she had to do was not partake in one of those more intimate hugs. And I didn’t mind since the casual hugs are quite rare, but she crossed the line when she went to the resort last month and did the things I told her not to do. She accepted the basic rules of a relationship, but she played along the gray line of the rules where there could take advantage of bending the rules. She still says that what she did in January is not cheating because we had broken up in that one week and that it is none of my business because we were not dating, which goes back to the title of this entire thread. She is taking advantage of the technicality and saying that she didn’t cheat and I don’t know how to argue with the technicality.

I know that every man would not be bothered by his gf/wife wearing revealing outfits, but even then they have some rules like they can only wear those things when they are around so that they can protect their gf/wife from the disgusting men that exist today or some other rule for wearing revealing outfits. I promise you that most men will feel at least 1% uncomfortable knowing that other men are feasting their eyes on the gf/wife’s body when they wear revealing outfits.

My gf might have lied to me and slept with another man, but I didn’t know all of that until a year already passed. So for most of the relationship, she never showed me her bad side. I was under the impression that she never lied and she never slept with another man. I just found out this year January that she slept with another man LAST YEAR January. This year January is when the relationship took a turn and everything started to get worse. That is when my imagination broke. But like I said, she uses the technicality that we had broken up during that one week to claim that she didn’t cheat on me.

“You say she is working, and yet you are giving her a lot of money. I wonder why is that (if you don’t mind sharing)?” She has been constantly switching jobs due to various reasons ever since her manager fired her last year January. The jobs barely pay enough for a person to survive with and her employers all take advantage of her by overworking her while providing poor salary so she ends up quitting the job and I have to pay for her expenses until she gets her next job and she also does trading so we had both agreed to bring in some money to invest in trading, but every time we did, something bad happened like she got severally sick or she had to get her tooth removed or something and we lost a lot of money in trading too. She just got a stable job now so she doesn’t need my money anymore but she still asked for me to come in half way for a trading investment, which I gave her before the break up. But now that we broke up, I want that investment money to be returned but she had to use it for her hospital visit and so she is waiting for her paycheck to pay me back. I don’t see any manipulation/gold digging though because I saw the struggle myself so I know she was not taking advantage of me in that regard. But like I said earlier, if she is actually manipulating me, then she deserves an award for her acting skills cause I am very much convinced of her struggle.

We have already established that I should leave her, and I have left her already. Now I want clarification on the main question of this entire thread: Is it still considered cheating if she only slept with the man AFTER we broke up? Even though preparations were made WITHOUT her knowledge?

Paradoxy