Wingless

Story time kids.

My girlfriend, *Raine* and I, have been going out nearly 3 years now. In fact, our 3 year anniversary is this coming Tuesday. We've been going out since she graduated high school in 2003. Ever since then, our relationship has evolved from a high school romance to a full-on serious relationship. She's very attractive, and has just become more and more attractive throughout the years. We started having sex about six months into our relationship, and despite the fact that she's away at school, we try to see each other at least every two weeks or so (and we have sex now about once every few months; depressing, but not a driving force behind our relationship.) If I had to judge, our personalities match about 75%, with similar interests in lots of silly and serious things. Having the same interests, viewpoints and all, we've never had an arguement, not even a small one.

Despite the "perfectness" of our relationship, I have cheated on her three times now. The first two girls I just kissed and made out with; I only told Raine of the first girl. I never told her of the second girl because of how much she was hurt the first time. Those two girls came in within the first year, or so, of our relationship. Afterwords, I more-or-less pledged to myself not to hurt her again.

Within the past few months, though, I've started to slowly grow "tired" and "bored" of our relationship. Raine and I don't do that much together. 90% of the time we go over each other's houses, lay down in bed together, and watch TV. In addition of feeling "bored" I also feel like our relationship has just kind of stagnated; we're not going anywhere. We've never really talked about our future together, if we'll ever get married or if we'll ever move in together, things like that. We're just sort of... together. All of this thinking has come to the top over the past week or so, reflecting back on our three year relationship...

But enters in Elena. We used to talk a little back when I was in high school; she's a senior in high school now (I'm a soph. in college) and we actually started talking again about a month or two ago. We've hung out a few times, and last weekend we kissed and made out. That weekend we went to a concert and wandered around downtown Detroit, two things that Raine and I have kind of been meaning to do for quite awhile.

One more thing about Raine - she's not exactly the most social person. I have alot of friends and I go to college parties on a regular basis. She's never come with me, though, and after awhile I stopped asking because it seemed like I was just dragging her along with me instead. The times she would go out with me and my friends, I felt like I couldn't have all the same fun that I usually have without her. She's in her junior year of college, yet she doesn't really have any friends there, although I really wish she did.

So with Elena stepping into my life, and my feeling bored with our relationship, I'm going to see her this weekend (the weekend before our 3 year anniversary) and probably break up with her. I'm just wondering if it's the right thing to do in this case. Should I break up with her, or should I just kind of smile and keep with it? I can't help but feel like a complete asshole for breaking up with her. I've talked to a few friends about this all, and they all tend to agree that "I should live for myself, not for someone else". But nevertheless, I feel like a selfish asshole. So after telling her that I've been with Elena for the past week or two, should I break up with her, or should I try to patch up our relationship?

Hell, what's the best way to break all this to her too? I've talked to Raine over the phone only a few times during the past few weeks, vaguely eluding to the fact that I've been seeing Elena alot recently, so overall I think she's nearly oblivious to this too.

Thank you everybody.
Tommy P.

P.S. Constructive comments and help please - I don't want someone bashing me for my actions. Be happy that I'm actually telling her that I'm cheating on her, instead of continuing on with her oblivious to it all.

__________________
Tommy
Nibs is a funny word.
So here I am, above palm trees, so straight and tall...
You are, smaller getting smaller, but I still see... you.
Jimmy Eat World - Goodbye Sky Harbor