Your friends are dead wrong. Don't take him back.
He didn't cheat on you once. He cheated on you numerous times. And if you take him back, he will continue to cheat on you. It's a no-brainer--just like him. You gave him 12 years of love and loyalty, and this is your repayment?
Good for him for confessing, I guess, although confessions are often more about relieving the cheater's guilty conscience than about doing the right thing. Regardless of the reason, his confession doesn't erase what he's done. He can be sorry all day long, but he's still a cheater and always will be.
It's like what my wife and I tell my daughter over and over again as we try to teach her personal responsibility: actions have consequences. If she gets angry with a Wii game and throws the controller, we'll forgive her and continue to love her as much as always, but she still won't be playing Wii for a while. If you drive drunk and kill someone, you might be sick with guilt and regret for what you've done, but you're still going to jail. Consequences. It's how we learn not to do things that suck.
Your boyfriend might be truly sorry, he might get a gold star for confessing, and you might forgive him for what he's done, but he still must live with the consequences of his actions--losing you as a girlfriend. Forever. Maybe it will teach him something so that he doesn't make the same mistake with future girlfriends.
Don't take him back. Please. This one's over. Move on.
It's hard to figure out a new way to say something that has been said over and over. Here it goes anyway, good answer, Cary. I am not the one with the question but I appreciated your answer. I hope they heed your advice.
I'm really curious about the OP's friends' advice... The fact that he "confessed" alone just doesn't seem a reason for these friends to encourage her to take him back. Maybe I'm just lucky to have the people that I do in my life but I'm so very confused. What kind of true friends would allow - let alone advise - their hurt friend to take this cheater back?
I'm curious about her friends' advice, too.
There's a difference between a guy confessing to cheating on you once, right after the fact, and a guy coming clean years later to numerous cheating events. 12 years is a long time, and the temptation to "forgive and forget" would be strong, but I think in this case you should get out. If he got away with it for all these years and he's just now confessing, he's probably looking for an excuse to get out of the relationship. :(
Maybe he's "perfect" and extremely charismatic and her friends like him a lot. Or, maybe they secretly don't want her to be happy. Either way- TERRIBLE advice from weak people.
Here's a little cheater/liar psychology 101: they do it because they, on some level, feel that the rules don't apply to them. He may have owned up to it today, but years down the road he will STILL have the same impulse driving him, saying that he is above the law. It's NEVER going to be an isolated circumstance once someone has proven themselves to be habitually untrustworthy.
As I told my last, lying, psychopathic boyfriend (don't judge me, we all make horrible choices) when I caught him in a web of lies and he confessed, then asked for amnesty because he did, after all, confess...
You don't get points for doing the right thing in a relationship. The right thing is expected.
You only get negative points for doing the wrong thing. That's just the way it works.
So, in your shoes, I would kick him to the curb. Hard. Forgive him so that YOU can grow and move on. But don't ever forget, and don't ever take him back.
Thank You so much Cary for your advice. Thanks everybody because everything you said is true.
@Jackie: You are right when you said my friends think he is "perfect". They said he's a very good guy compared to all the guys out there and that guys usually don't admit to cheating even when they are caught in the act...so i should be happy that he confessed and take him back because guys like him are rare.
I'm so happy that Cary said that "his confession doesn't erase what he has done" because that's what i keep telling him and my friends. I lost all trust in him and to me, trust is one of the key points in a relationship.
Thanks again Cary and everybody else for reassuring me that i did the right thing. I'm definitely moving on now.
GOOD FOR YOU!!!!!! WOOOO!
:-D
Be strong, lady! Moving on is hard but you will be a better woman for it. Tell yourself that every day if you have to!
IDK if you live on LI or not... but that's an odd coincidence because my best friend just last night told me a ridiculously similar story (12 years and all) of a sleezy guy and her cousin, or the girl she works with (the music was loud, hard to understand her)... and guess what?
THAT guy was at THAT bar with a new girl. THAT night.
So it might be your very own sack of garbage guy, or might not. But similar, huh?
He's garbage, baby. You're better off without him. Join the ranks of women who demand more from men- don't fool yourself into thinking that because you are not in a relationship that you must be alone.
F*CK you bad friends of yours!
This guy is a jerk, fouuuuuuget about it!
Im sorry you had to go thru this but at the end of the day its you who decides if yoy stay with him or not. He didnt only cheat once but many times which makes him a total jerk and just because he confessed doesnt mean you should take him back he took 12 yrs of ur life when u probably could of found someone better yet he was havin the time of his life with one and another. My advice would be not to take him back and i know it hurts i myself got cheated on and even it was a one time thing and he confessed i just couldnt live with that even after i tried to give him a chance.