Dear Prudence,
A few years ago, I met and fell in love with a man I thought
was my soul mate. Last September, we finally decided to make our
relationship official and, at first, everything was wonderful. However,
my boyfriend had trust issues from being cheated on. He constantly
expected to know where I was and who I was with, and got very upset when
I forgot to say where I was going. Things really blew up when I was out
at the mall with friends and invited an old co-worker (who worked in
the building and had once been interested in me) to come say hi. When
explaining this to my boyfriend, I said that the friend “showed up”
rather than that I invited him. I apologized profusely for the error
when asked about it, but my boyfriend saw this incident as a huge breach
of trust that he couldn’t get past, and two months later ended our
relationship because of it. I did everything I could think of to show
that I was still deserving of trust, and it wasn’t enough. As much as
the logical side of me knows he overreacted and that I didn’t do
anything improper with my old co-worker, I can’t get past the feelings
of guilt and the thought that I ruined the best thing that’s ever
happened to me. I still hurt him and broke his trust, which I never
wanted to do. How do I move past losing the person I thought was the
love of my life and feeling like a failure?
—Guilty Over His Trust Issues