Dear Del,
For eight years, I’ve been in love with a college sweetheart. We were never able to be together because we lived in different towns, but the love was always there and we kept in touch. Over the years, we’ve tried to maintain a good friendship but I always wanted more. We each visited the other in our respective hometowns and sex was always involved. Our friendship became strained when he admitted to having a relationship with his roommate (a female), despite having denied it for months. The lies really hurt my feelings and I cut off our friendship. Months later, he reentered my life and said he wanted to try and make a relationship work. Because I loved him, I flew down to see him and we decided that we were ready for a serious commitment. I moved in with him a month later. I thought we had come to terms with all of the issues we’d had over the years, mainly the one regarding the relationship with his roommate but one day when I was cleaning out his closet, I found cards and letters from the roommate that illustrated that their relationship was more casual than what my boyfriend had confessed it to be. After a lot of tears and promises, my boyfriend told me that he was sorry for lying about the past and that he would never lie to me again. Well, Del, the story doesn’t end there! Over the summer, my boyfriend admitted to having sex with two women. He never told me who these women were specifically even though I guessed they were two of the “friends” calling his phone and text messaging him. He swore up and down that he’d never had relations with them, so imagine my shock when he finally admitted to me, last week, that he had in fact had sex with both women, one of whom works with him! Awkward. My dilemma? I know that these relationships happened before my boyfriend and I were committed to one another but I can’t seem to get over that he outright lied to me about it when I asked him and continued to do so when he had every opportunity to be honest. I know that he loves me and I love him jus!
t as dee
ply but I have major trust issues and he violated more than one of my rules by being dishonest. Our past wasn’t perfect and he did a lot of things that weren’t kosher and the memories of all of the hurt and disappointment came rushing back when he admitted lying to me. What should I do? I want to move forward but common sense tells me once a liar, always a liar. He says he wants nothing more than to marry and be with me and that he will never lie to me again but he said that before and its hard to move forward/believe him.

Dear Millie,

This is a tough one to answer but my first thought is like yours, once a liar, always a liar.  I would certainly NOT  marry him at this time but if you really love him still after all that has gone down, I would continue to live with him and see if after one year he seems to be on the straight and narrow and you don’t find him in any more lies or other evidence of him cheating, then maybe you can trust him again.  But it also seems to me that so much dirty water has gone over the bridge and you will always wonder if he is telling the truth and that is no way to live for either of you.  Since you already have spent 8 yrs with this guy maybe it’s time to move on.  Good Luck.

Sincerely,

Del