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Before making any decision, have an open discussion about trust and how to rebuild it in your relationship, says rediffGURU Ravi Mittal, while counselling a young man who suspects his partner has cheated on him.
Is it okay for your partner to break a promise?
Can trust, once broken, be fixed?
Does it amount to cheating if your committed partner sleeps with someone else under the influence of drugs or alcohol?
rediffGURU Ravi Mittal, the CEO and founder of the online dating firm, QuackQuack, is an expert on dating and relationships and can answer your questions.
Anonymous: My girlfriend and I (both 25) often drink socially.
We have an understanding that neither of us will drink with anyone else or at any social event unless we are together.
We mutually agreed that we would only drink together; either privately or at social events that we both attend.
This unwritten rule extends to gatherings with our respective families, friends and colleagues (including office parties) as we may not always be together at such events.
I recently discovered that my girlfriend broke our agreement.
She attended an office party at a nightclub with her colleagues where she got excessively drunk (under their insistence) and danced wildly with them.
I saw a video of her drinking and dancing with her colleagues, including some male colleagues, on one of her coworker’s Instagram stories.
When I confronted her, she started crying, saying that her colleagues pressured her to drink beyond her usual limits and that she was not fully in control.
She vaguely remembers dancing with some of them but has no recollection of what happened later that night.
Apparently, she ended up crashing at a colleague's apartment along with others and woke up late the next morning to find her colleagues -- both male and female -- had passed out on the bed and couch.
She doesn't remember what happened during the night.
I feel deeply disturbed by her actions and by the uncertainty of what else might have happened that night.
I wanted to break up with her immediately but she kept crying and pleading for my forgiveness. Now, I find it very difficult to trust her again.
Does her behaviour count as cheating?
Would I be justified in breaking up with her over this incident? Or am I overthinking and being unreasonable?
Please give me some advice on how to proceed with this.
Dear Anonymous, I understand it is very difficult to deal with situations that do not offer clarity or closure.
First of all, you are doing great. You did not rush to any conclusion or decision. Kudos to that.
Give her some time to remember.
I know it was wrong of her to break a mutual arrangement and, worse, she put herself in a risky situation.
Whether this counts as cheating or not depends on your personal boundaries; there really isn't just one definition for it.
The real issue here is whether you will be able to move on from this event and trust her, without it causing repeated conflicts in your relationship.
If that is also concerning you, then breaking up is justified.
However, if you think you care for her still and believe that she regrets the choices she made, you can think about giving the relationship another chance. After all, there is no proof that she has done anything other than break a promise (which is not trivial either).
Before making any decision though, have an open discussion about trust and how to rebuild it in your relationship.
I hope these tips will help you.
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