Hello everyone… new to this forum. I found this website by doing a Google search on “how to forgive my girlfriend who cheated on me because I’m fat”.
Well that pretty much sums up my entire post but I will break it down a little more so you all can give me the correct advice.
My g/f and I have been together for over 8 years and living together for 6. We both came right out of old relationships and into our relationship. (truth be told, there was a slight overlap but both of us were on our way out of the old relationships so we did not cause each other to break up the old relationship) but anyways… back to me!
I am 5’ 8” and at my highest weight I was 277. My g/f is 5’3” and weighed 213 at her highest.
Over the past 3 years she has lost a total of 80lbs and I only lost about 20.
Needless to say all the hard work she put in at the gym (5 days a week, gym in work) and the lack of work I put in as caused her to be upset with me and now she has gone further and told me she is no longer attracted to me and wishes she was and wishes I had the body some of her gym co-workers have.
Now with Twilights & 50 Shades of Grey & True Bloods she has really become obsessed with how she looks and I can see her drooling over all this new hunks, which she NEVER did when she was overweight.
Moving ahead to last week, something strange was going on and I heard my g/f coming in the house at 1:30am (we went to bed at 11pm). So needless to say I freaked out and went into detective mode the next morning.
I went to our cellphone bill and saw that in the past week (and only this past week, nothing prior) there was over a 100 txt’s to this one number and I used FaceBook to search the number and found it belongs to a six pack wearing co-worker of hers. At this point I was freaking out and had to take it a step further and I got our Auto Tolls Paid bill and saw that at 12am she went through this exit 14 miles from our home and at 1:30am she went back south through the same toll (to head home).
I was able to find some deleted txt’s but it had nothing juicy except the (I’m here & I’m home thanks for inviting me over)
Now it’s on and I find the dudes email address and also found out he has a newly g/f that according to FB & Instagram he is madly in love with so I used this to my advantage and sent him an email from a made up account and claimed to be a friend of a friend of a friend of her Ex-boyfriend and it WORKED LIKE A CHARM… this guy told me EVERYTHING!!!!
Apparently, there was no sex (only) because he couldn’t get it up (thinking about his g/f) but that she did try to give him “oral”. I went on with a few more questions pretending that I was trying to understand how he could hurt his new g/f and he claimed that this “chatting” was quite new (which I can believe because the texts were all new) and that this started from some simple flirting at the gym where she would constantly comment about his abs and whatnot.
I have been living with this now for 1 week and 1 day and I have been throwing the rudest cold shoulder to my g/f but she has been very cautious almost like she knows I’m mad but has no idea I know EVERYTHING so why is he so mad kinda attitude.
Part of me says, **** no! It’s over! And then there is a huge part of me that says, how am I going to do this. We are VERY underwater in the house we bought 6 years ago and walking away from it would also be destroying both of our credits and whatnot…..
I really want to forgive her and tell myself its only cause you were fat and it wasn’t love or anything.
but WTF, that is still wrong to cheat because you lost attraction?!?!

Listen, your girlfriend did not cheat on you due to you being fat. Your girlfriend may be looking for something new and she may be overwhelmed with her new found attention from other guys. New can be exciting, especially if you've been in a relationship for a while. It does sound like she is moving on before breaking up your relationship. I'd have a serious talk with her and decide where to go with the relationship from there.

I think it is the latter. I think she is overwhelmed. I would talk to her and let her know that you know (no more cold shoulder) and figure out where YOU want to go from here. You dont have time to worry about where she wants to go...

She is moving on, probably thinking she can do better than you now that she's fit (sorry) but it appears she's grown tired of the relationship, too.

I would seriously worry about the house payments. Is the house in your name only or in both of your names? It's time you had a serious talk about what she wants to do now that she's sneaking around seeing others and how it affects your finances.

Good luck

I agree with some of the former posters. She didn't cheat because you're fatter than her. She cheated because she's a cheater. Period. She may feel like she is hotter so she can move up to a better looking person. I don't know about that, but I do know that you don't deserve it.

If it were me, I'd pick again. Actually when it was me, when my first husband was the one sleeping around while I was pregnant with our 3rd child, I kicked him to the curb.

You deserve better than betrayal.

So sorry you're having to deal with this.

I recommend watching Kelly Clarkson's video What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger about a gazillion times: http://www.vevo.com/watch/kelly-clar...u/GBE431100116

I'm a librarian, so I also have book recommendations!

The book Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends by Bruce Fisher will help whether or not your relationship ultimately ends because you'll understand what's going on better. It helps with both practical concerns and emotional ones.

I recommend The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss or one of the books by Barbara Sher or any other book that appeals and is going to help you think about ways to make your life work that don't depend on a woman. A goal makes a great distraction. Weight loss is a tricky goal, although with 3FC you may find tools you never imagined. But a better goal at this time might be one that has to do with your career or travel or an engaging hobby.

She cheated because you were fat. I hate to say his but she lost 80 pounds which mean you two are leading two diffrent lifestyles.. I think she is on a new journey in life and has confidence now. That guy should her things that made her feel amazing..If you want her back you will half to lead the same lifestyle she does and loose the weight if not just drop her and find a new girl. If the house is under water you guys could rent it out or you could live in seperate rooms. I think you should move on you will never be able to trust her again.. If you do forgive her you can never hold it against her its in the past if you are willing to forget it then forgive her if not move on..However there was no hanky panky so you may be able to but she did try I would leaver her.

Agree - she's not cheating on you because of the way you look. I can tell you right now - if my husband gained 200 lbs, I'd still love him. Love is more than physical attraction.

Do you two have kids? I know you've been together a long time so that makes it especially hard. You've got to sit down and talk to her. It's not fair to either one of you to continue this way.

The house is another story. If you're underwater already the best idea may be to sell it. (even if you decide to stay together)

First of all, I am so sorry that you're going through this. It seems that there is more than 1 thing that contributed to her cheating, which I think is a combination of: 1. now that she is looking good she realizes that she has more options, since she didn't get as much attention before, 2. y'all got together right after another relationship and she didn't get a chance to play the field, 3. you have grown apart because she spends a lot of time working out and you aren't there with her, 4. she is trying to figure out who the "new" her is, 5. now she has better self esteem she isn't scared to approach men (whereas in the past she may have been attracted but not acted on it)....

None of these reasons make what she is doing okay. Truly, once a cheater always a cheater. Think about it, she went to bed with you and snuck off to possibly sleep with someone else. This wasn't an accident (not that there is a such thing), she planned this and did it willingly. You need to be worried for your well-being, both mentally and physically since who knows what she is bringing home to you.

As for being able to forgive and forget. Forgiveness is possible but forgetting is impossible. Personally, when I went through something similar to this (he openly said he cheated because I was fat but he was too, so...) I caught little things like you did with multiple girls until he took a flight to Rhode Island to "visit his dad in the hospital" when in reality he was visiting his "girlfriend" who he was planning on moving into our house where I lived!! I did the major detective work and he tried to lie. I called the girl and got the scoop and HE WAS NOTHING BUT A SNAKE. My point is that it was over for me at that point, it should have been over when I found the first bits of evidence... because living like that isn't fair to you. You have to do what you think is best, and maybe that will include being roommates for a while OR 1 person stays in the house and gets a roommate to share bills (business arrangement type thing) or you sell the house. The other thing that I learned thru all of that with my ex is NEVER MAKE A LARGE PURCHASE if you aren't married (I was left dealing with him not paying car payment on his car which was in my name).

*hugs* I hope things work out for you.

Thank you so much for all your responses!!

We finally talked last night. She admitted everything and left nothing out.
I guess there was a few things I left out (which in no way excuses her) but it is all part of her "reason why".

First off, I am a season ticket holder to my local NFL team, local NBA team and most recently added the local College football team and my g/f is not a sports fan at all. So there is a time where I'm gone all day on Sundays (10 x's every fall) gone a few Saturdays (6-7 times a year in the fall) and the from Nov - March there is 30-40 nights where I'm at a basketball game.
She said she doesn't like all the time I'm away because she doesn't have any of her own friends and it days that she feels lonely bored and unhappy.

Apparently this has been really bothering her the past couple of years.

Also, lately we have been arguing alot and it's over stupid things but because she is such a tough cookie and was raised by a very verbally and slightly physically abusive Mom she would easily lash out at me and lately I have been lashing back and usually I will use the F word or B word but we always let things blow over and never seem to go to bed with grudges.

So apparently she says she went into this really "Selfish mode" where she took all the things about me that bothered her...
1. Sports
2. Weight
3. Cursing at her
and basically rebelled against me and starting flirting with a co-worker.
He ended up giving her his number about 3-4 weeks ago and thought kinda scared her so she stopped chatting.
I guess then we had some kind of argument or something happen that made her just mentally block me (us) out of her head and she had a another selfish moment and had a 2-3 days of txt'n this co-worker before a (one time, no emotions, No Strings Attached) affair occurred.
She claims that she has no clue what she was thinking and didn't think about how bad she was hurting me.

It was almost like a reward for her for all her hard work (because the guy is a stud) and a moment of exciting rebelness for her.

She hugged me and "tried" to cuddle with me more last night then she has in the past 2-3 years (and man did it feel good, even as sad & mad as I am)

I really want to forgive her and I almost understand (well not understand) but comprehend her excuses but it just sucks to know she left my bed to go into another man's bed.

We will be talking more tonight and I will definitely update you all.

You been a really great help in this situation since I have NO ONE ELSE I CAN TALK TO ABOUT THIS EMBARRASEMENT.

She just sent me this email a few hours ago.

**************

Baby,

I am SO, SO, SOOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY that I hurt you!! * *

There is no WHY that will ever help make sense of this or make you feel better about what I did. * I wish there was. *I did not set out to hurt you nor did I ever want to hurt you!! *I was completely selfish in my actions =(
If I could take this all back I would!! *

I DO LOVE YOU!! *

I do not expect your forgiveness but I really hope that we can work through this and that it will make our relationship stronger.

I want to be with you!! *I want to share my life with you!! *I want to travel the world and go on adventures with you!! * I want us to find what we had when we first started our relationship. * I want you to be my everything again. * I've always wanted that. * I think I have put up so many walls with you over the past couple of years over things that bothered me that I've stopped talking to you about my feelings. *I take everything and bottle it up and then lash out in anger over stupid things. *I don't want that type of relationship with you. *I want us to better together.

Baby, I LOVE YOU and I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry that I hurt you. * *

************

It sounds like there are a lot of issues that you and she have never talked about. This is going to continue to be a problem for you, because going from non-communication to open comunication isn't going to be easy, especially since you both chose to "act out" before finally saying what's on your minds (she by seeing and talking to another man, and you by going into "detective spy" mode and talking to perfect strangers before taking to her).

I'm not judging either of you, just pointing out that neither of you had the impulse (or acted on it) to talk to one another as your first reaction.

This might have had something to do with why and how your previous relationships ended. Neither of you left the previous relationships because it wasn't working, you left when you had something better to go to.

For some people this isn't just an accident of fate, it's how they conduct their lives and relationships. No matter who they're with, they're always open to (if not looking for) better opportunities.

If this is who your girlfriend is, she's going to tell you what you want to hear, until she feels confident that she has somewhere better to go.

Please, please seek counseling together, and if your girlfriend won't go with you, go alone.

Something to think about: Would she have told you about the affair if you hadn't asked?

That e-mail sounds like she is just trying to tell you want you want to hear.
Kaplods gave you some great insights.

I definitely want to seek a marriage counselor and I know she will go with me.