I hate that they just gave up

My girlfriend admitted to cheating on me over the phone. I am 24 and she is 23. We were together one year. 3 months in, she moved to a new city for her new job. She went out with friends and wanted validation. She mulled it over the weekend and then called me Monday morning to admit it, in tears.

I am beyond conflicted. I have an insane amount of disgust and anger as I felt I did so much to love her, struggled with OCD related triggers to feel confident in the relationship and ultimately am left feeling as if I was more invested and carried so much of the emotional burden. I am a human and do bad things too certainly, but cheating never crosses my mind (well, it did as a trigger, but I did lots of therapy to work through it).

Of course in our arguments that I dragged out to avoid the reality, she was saying thing like our recent arguments that made her feel insecure (I do own this, but believe we could have argue in a relationship…), lack of miscommunications upset her (I can see my part), she apparently cried at night everyday, she was afraid of conflict, she was going to break up with me, I should love myself, I didn’t listen to her, I shouldn’t need her for my self worth, everything under the sun. I feel minimized and I can see some things in her statements, but does it even matter now that they’re out of context in the relationship? Was it hard to just say that or be brave and break up? My heart throbs at her words, they feel pointed and aimed to hurt me. How can someone you loved just act like this?

I am supposed to get stuff from her this Saturday but I feel highly uncomfortable. I am afraid of seeing someone and being unable to reconcile their actions with the love I gave to someone for a year. In the meanwhile I am losing sleep, focus at work, appetite, mind and heart racing as soon as I am awake. I am also trying to keep busy and be with people and not dwell (as much as my mind and mental illness allows me to).

Life feels so unreal and like a nightmare. Who was I with? Why couldn’t she even fight or plead for forgiveness? She just rolled over. And when I said "you should be begging for forgiveness", her answer was "why would I beg?" That was so hurtful. I’m confused and feel crazy and hurt and miss her all the same. But there is nothing between us. It ended the Friday she went out with her friends. And I think she lost a part of herself that night, if she even realizes that. It didn’t feel like the same person I knew when we were on the phone. I felt afraid of her.

Thanks.

9 comments posted: Friday, May 8th, 2026