I keep cheating on my long-distance girlfriend and I feel disgusted with myself

I’m disgusted with myself. I’m in a long-distance relationship with a girl who loves me and I love her. I would never cheat on her. Well, at least never again.

I’m struggling to accept that I slept with another girl recently. I don’t even understand why I allowed it to happen.

Sometimes I just feel so alone and unloved and those stages are ones that we constantly have to push through together.

Recently, she has seemed distant and a friend invited me to her house, so I went.

This girl began crying about how she’d always loved me and how she’d been saving Christmas and birthday presents for me.

She went to kiss me and I pulled away. She went to touch me and I said I didn’t want her to. Then I agreed to give her one kiss and she felt me become aroused and that’s when things spiralled out of control.

I think I don’t feel loved sometimes and it gets the better of me. I had sex with this girl, but I stopped halfway through and sorted myself out once I ‘realised’ what I was doing. Things have been up and down for my girlfriend and me recently. She has trust issues and anxiety issues, so she’d be devastated if she ever discovered what I did. That simply isn’t an option.

But we’ve been together for so long and I think I want to marry her.

I know I’m a horrible person and I don’t know what to do.

Coleen says

It sounds like you genuinely love your girlfriend, but you struggle with the long-distance arrangement, as most people would. It’s hard to sustain.

You succumbed to a moment of weakness, which was helped along by the other girl throwing herself at you. However, I think you’re right – if your girlfriend already has trust issues and finds out about this, then that’ll be the end of you as a couple.

If you can live with the guilt, and I’m not sure you can, then don’t tell her. But the danger is that this so-called friend will tell her – can you trust her not to say anything? Personally, I wouldn’t.

This is a girl who’s always loved you and has been stashing presents away for you.

On the other hand, if you come clean, your girlfriend might understand that feeling of loneliness and craving for intimacy – given that you live so far apart – and she might be more willing to try to forgive you and to move on.

But if you do stay together, you have to tackle the long-distance arrangement, particularly if you’re serious about marriage. A long-distance marriage won’t work.

And, whichever way you play it, stay away from this friend. Newsflash: she’s no friend!