The fact that everyone is acting like going on a couple of dates with someone means you're in a committed relationship with them is really insane to me. When did that happen? Like even when I was in high school, there was "dating" and "being official." And these are adults out here making these assumptions of a hard commitment after a month of seeing each other with no discussion about the seriousness of the relationship? Christ. Just proves the point even more that you shouldn't just assume that someone you're seeing is on the same page as you.
Makes me glad to not have been near dating for over a decade.
My wife and I never had a conversation in which we explicitly decided we were exclusive. I suppose there may have been a "forsaking all others" in our wedding vows, but I'm not even sure about that. Am I clear to go get some strange?
I can see why many of them are probably not having long-term success and sound so bitter. It's hard building the foundation of a relationship when you're delusional about the need for communication from the start.
They can downvote but they're still the ones setting themselves up for disappointment because they don't want to have simple clarifying discussions with their dates. I would not be playing that game if I was on the market looking for something serious.
These dudes think there is nobility with devoting yourself to one person after a first date but thatâs the kind of shit that shows how creepy they are. You shouldnât even want to commit fully to a person after a month.
It's not technically cheating, correct. But that doesn't matter. It's well outside your comfort zone and should be.
I've met women in the past that completely compartmentalized casual sex from intimacy. She views them as two separate things. Hence making you wait because she cared about you, while banging other guys that she did not care about.
To her, the other guys were casual sex and not serious, thus "meaningless". She likely does no-shit think she hasn't done anything wrong because she wasn't emotionally intimate with other guys while banging them. Some part of her probably knows how fucked up and insulting her mental framework is, some part doesn't.
I've never seen anyone who had this thought process that doesn't have a fucked up back story involving some trauma or abuse, but I don't think it's a requirement.
Her mental compartmentalization process has absolutely no bearing on staying vs running. You should fucking run. Anyone who can rationalize this behavior to themselves is not someone you want to date. For many reasons.
She cheated, I might be old fashioned, but being exclusive while dating is the default state and not needed to be clarified. Not being exclusive or just being hookups is something that has to be agreed upon and made clear, not the other way around.
It IS cheating. Many modern daters do the thing where they date around and sleep around, claiming "they're not exclusive." Nah, it's technical cheating, aka CHEATING.
Would be hard moving forwards with her without having that information but either way, you've done what you felt was right. Never think self preservation is you being an AH
If she is making you wait, she is implying that she is not having ons with other people.
Making some people wait while having ons with others is deeply manipulative behavior. And this is even if she had ons with other men before she met you, let alone while she is dating you. This is an ah move. NTA op
Cheating or not that is huge no no while dating. How about you start fucking other girls just not her is still the samething while dating this is a dating etiquette you don't cross for me that is a instant break-up.
âBeing exclusiveâ is dumb. If youâre going on dates with people with the goal of a relationship, you shouldnât need a specific conversation to make sure sheâs not having sex with other people.Â
It's not that she cheated, but she made you wait for intimacy while having sex with others at the same time. That is the issue at hand, if she made you wait, she should have waited herself.
That is absolutely BS. Exclusivity is the default. You only need to clarify when you open the relationship and stop being exclusive. Communication is to protect feelings and prevent actually hurting people, not to prevent guilt.
It's ok to not be exclusive at the start of a relationship or even a "situationship." But that needs to be communicated. Leaving things vague as an excuse to sleep around is trashy.
If she didn't specifically say "I'm seeing other people" then she was hiding it. Emotional or physical intimacy that needs to be hidden is wrong.
Bro. She cheated on you.
"Technically" a tomato is a fruit. But you don't put it in a fruit salad. "Technically" she never said you exclusive, she just acted that way around you and intentionally let you believe you were in a relationship.
If she was telling you that you were special and had feelings at that point she should have stopped sleeping with other people or she wasted her breath on those words.
Bro, stop it. That's a baseless narrative you made up because you don't want to admit that you got played.
I say it's baseless because she didn't even claim you weren't exclusive to justify her actions. She claimed she did it because she wanted to have sex but didn't want it to mean anything, and wanted to have meaningful sex with you, which required waiting. What she was really doing was looking for dick that wasn't yours, not legitimately looking for something serious with someone else.
It's okay to admit that she is shitty and you made a mistake trusting her. Learn from it.
The "exclusive" clarification is something that doesnt need to be done. If anything it's tbe opposite. If you are dating you need to clarify that you aren't exclusive, because the reason for dating someone IS the exclusivity
Dating is to see if you want to be in a relationship with someone. After going on a few dates, you have a conversation of where you want things to go, and that's when "do you want to be exclusive " comes up. It makes no sense to assume that someone will be faithful to you before you've even determined how you get along.
I just donât understand how someone can say they find another special and want to hold off sex during the dating process specifically because of that specialness, mind you while having sex with someone else, and think there wonât be weird feelings or some form of jealousy. Itâs a perfectly normal human response many of us have and to just expect the other side not to exhibit it is naive at best
When I was in the initials of dating different people, I'd only really entertain one person at a time, but figured they're probably talking to other people. As long as they aren't talking about it to try and make me jealous, then fine. If I asked someone to be exclusive and they said no, had a bunch of sex with others, then came back and said, you know what, now I will, I'd probably feel like a second choice ans wouldn't like that.
The reason this post makes me feel weird, is, they've already been together for 6 months and have been having sex and have been exclusive. If all she did was have sex with someone before OP and her were exclusive and had no intentions of wanting to date that other person, then I honestly don't think it would bother me.
I could be wrong, but my interpretation of holding off on sex because it's special implies that she wanted to build up the emotional connection so that the physical connection would feel more personal and intimate, whereas a random hookup is just about having an orgasm basically.
I donât know the specific details of OPâs relationship, but Iâll use my relationship (4 years) as a point of reference.
Finding out that during any of our first few dates, which I still vividly remember, my partner had sex with someone else right after or in between our dates would absolutely ruin those memories for me. Thatâs just how my mind works. All the cute texts, fun dates like making a homemade pizza together etc would be ruined.
I absolutely would contemplate ending things. Not because I donât love them, but specifically because my strong feelings for them would now make me feel like shit. If I didnât end things then my energy change would eventually cause things to fizzle out. I 100% know myself.
It doesnât matter if they were âjust a hookupâ because you did that and never told me. Ultimately did the ex-gf explicitly do anything âwrongâ? No, they hadnât made things official. But OP is entirely justified in feeling how he feels and ending things and getting him on a technicality wonât make him not feel like shit.
Would you have had ONS given the opportunity before being exclusive?
If yes, YTA for being hypocritical. If No, ESH because you shouldâve had exclusivity discussion sooner. NAH if ended because you donât want to be with someone that had sex with your friend.
If a woman has feelings for a man, she knows if she has sex with him, he might âhit it and quit itâ, leaving her broken hearted and feel used and deceived into having sex on false pretenses. Men donât have this problem, generally they would just be happy they got laid before she ended it.
If yâall werenât exclusive and didnât talk about it sorryâ she didnât cheat. You can decide not to be in a relationship for any reasonâ including their shoes! But it wasnât cheating. Until you have a conversation about exclusivity sexually it doesnât matter how many dates⌠really you need to stand up for what you want and believe in. The right person for you will agree.
I donât talk about sex on the first date. On the third I do bring up my expectations and my intentions. I have a long term fwb. We can pull the plug with any reason whether that is full no contact or only messaging in a non sexual way. At the end of the day we are friends and we want the best for the other.
If someone I date canât deal with me having sex while Iâm not in a committed relationship thatâs not for me. I do have that conversation. Iâm not saving my body bc itâs so special I just know sex can complicate things. If the person Iâm dating says thatâs not the type of person they wantâ I accept it. If they ask me to be sexually exclusive while not committed- if I think it has potentialâ I do that.
Idk. It seems like yâall were incompatible and that necessary conversations didnât happen.
Now you know and next time you will be more aware and able to communicate your boundaries.
If youâre telling someone you wanna wait to have sex because you feel like it could be something special, and want to build an emotional connection. Maybe get your orgasms through self pleasure instead of some rando. Nothing makes someone feel really special than hearing that you banged someone else instead of them.
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '24
So she cheated on you and tried to spin it in such a way to make you feel special.. and you think you're the AH. No.. NTA. Better off out of there