Is this normal?
 

Recently my girlfriend of two years cheated on me. I won't bore you with a long-winded, sad story because really there is none. It was her fault as much as mine. I'm over the fact that she cheated on me but the thing that's messing me up is this.

I want to hear EVERY single gory detail of the incident (What they did, how they did it, how many times they did it and so on and so forth). It's not like I want to know to get off on it or something, but it's running through my head over and over and over again. I don't have any hostile feelings towards her but damn it, I wanna' know the details. I guess my thinking is that if she just gives me the details that I won't sit here making up images of what I think happened. I could ask her but then she might think me crazy or something.

So my question is if this is a normal reaction or just plain freaky?

I'd say that's entirely normal. I cheated on a girlfriend (sad to say, not proud of it, and I will never ever do it again) and she was the exact same way when the situation came out. She wanted to hear everything.

There was a violation of trust, and she was being secretive behind your back... You want to fill in the gaps so you're on the same page with her again. Assuming you want to continue the relationship.

I'm no expert, but you may be trying to find a way to measure the level of hurt she did to you. But in the end, you're trading off the hurt you feel by not knowing with the hurt you'll probably feel when you hear what actually happened. It's lose-lose

Now I have a question for you:

How is it even partially your fault? Maybe you could benefit from reading: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=97905

I don't think it's abnormal at all. I'd want to know the details too, but like with most other situations I wish to know details of and then was told. I kicked myself for asking. I know it'll eat you up, but really, why do you really need to know? Perhaps since you do, you haven't forgiven. Just a thought.

catch 22 basically, think very hard, do you really want to know? I don't know that you do. You are most likely very hurt by what happened, even if you do say that it partly your fault. Knowing EXACTLY what happened is not going to change anything, and it might make it even worse.
The human brain is trained to ask questions, even if it is something you already know for a fact, hell, you could have even seen her do it for all it matters, and would still want her to tell you about it, right?
My advice, for what's it's worth, get the basics, the bare min, and if you both want to continue on with the relationship (it will be hard to do, to say the least) Talk about why it happened, not the when, where and how.

From someone who has been low enough to cheat on someone - knowing all the gory details will only serve to hurt you more. The fact that you know they have been unfaithful is more integral than the itty bitties so to speak. Follow the advice of crackprogram!

That may be, but sometimes knowing for sure is better than letting your imagination try and fill the gaps and help you understand what's happened or what's going on.

Especially if your imagination has a track-record for going with the worst possible scenario as the most likely scenario.

Ace made some good points, very helpful for me actually.

To the OP - I feel your pain.

If you want to know every single gory detail, just make sure you're not gonna snap and go crazy, and let it remind you as to why you're gonna dump her and never take her back. My advice to you is to cut her loose and break off any and all contact with her for the rest of your life---she betrayed your trust and therefore is no good.

I agree with savvypup - I'd have to say that if you're obsessing about this and wanting to know every detail, then you're not really "over" her having cheated on you. Why do you want to know what happened? What purpose would it serve? Do you think it would make you feel less "left out" to know everything, like now she doesn't have that experience that happened completely without you?

Emphasis mine.

Sounds to me like you're not over it. If you were over it, you wouldn't be obsessing about it still. I know when she cheated on me, I wanted every detail for three reasons. When someone says 'I cheated on you' or 'I messed around with someone', it's a pretty vague indicator. What's left in the blanks can make a huge difference. I'm going to care a lot less if you drunkenly kissed a guy in a bar one night than if you spent a week with Sergio in the Italian Alps. Might not make a difference to you, but might make a difference to me. Second, I wanted to see how sorry she was. I'm thinking if she is pretty comfortable sharing all the gory details with me she isn't very sorry for whatever happened. And third, it hurts your ego a bit, I remember thinking where do I fall so short that she had to go to someone else. Sort of an indicator for myself where I'm apparently lacking. I think that last one was probably a better reason to not ask, but I wasn't of totally sound mind at the time, terrible upsetting news and what-not...

Anyway, I got all the details, it didn't drive me any more batty than when I first found out and I'm glad I did it. Much less scared of the known than the unknown and all that. You need to look at yourself figure out why you want to ask and make sure you're going to able to handle it.

I've always been to type of person who has to know the small details of any given situation. I don't know why that is, but it's how I am. I'm not trying to think about her cheating. Unfortunately there are idle times in the day when my mind just starts to wander and think about things no matter how hard I try not to. I don't care how disgusting or whatnot the details are, but I want them. I suppose it'd give me a peace of mind to simply know what happened instead of constantly making up what I think happened.

For the record, I don't hate me girlfriend at all. I know that she made a mistake in which I contributed to and won't happen again, so ill feelings aren't an issue.

reminds me of the movie closer

but yah, only ask if u can handle it

Ask, as stated above, letting your mind wander and wonder what happened is worse. It's like a car accident, you don't really need the pictures of the accident victims stuck in your head, but that picture is a prettier one than your imagination put there. It is called closure and one of the main reasons why cops and prosecutors give slightly lesser sentences to criminals that sit in court and describe everything they did to their victims.

You technically ARE asking for the details of what your girlfriend did, but what you are trying to do, even subconsciously is asking her, "What didn't she do?"

peace

--tenchi


P.S. my 2cents......She cheated on you. If you are still close, be friends. Find someone that has more respect for you to call your girlfriend/wife.

exactly what i thought of! which, in the movie, only led to cheating & more cheating...

I find it odd that you said 'it was her fault as much as mine' a normal way to say it would be 'its my fault as much as hers' meaning she cheated but you could have done things better leading up to it. Maybe I'm reading to much into it but WHY do you think you drove her into cheating? That may effect the advice you get as most people are pretty hard on cheaters here.

I could not disagree more. People make their own decisions to cheat.

You do not "make" them, or "cause" them to cheat. What you're doing when you say this is mentally shielding yourself from judging her more harshly, OR you're attempting to sooth your own guilt over doing something negative prior to the incident. That's all.

Unless you literally stripped her, sat her down on someone else's cock, and manually bounced her up and down on it, you did not have any part in making it happen.

People make their own choices in life. You cannot take responsibility for the final conscious decision of another.

If you think you said or did things that you're regretting because you believe it lead her down a path towards having feelings of infidelity, then that's something to examine- but the decision to take that action was hers.

What Analog said.

Also, personally I would want to know all the gory details, then I would dump their ass for being an untrustworthy and disrespectful person.

Amen! I'd say you're probably not totally okay with it if you're still looking for all the details. But whether you want to kick her to the curb, or keep her around, either way those images are going to eat you up, so ask her. Tell her that for you to move forward in the relationship, you need to know what happened so that you can move past it. Once you know, you can then decide whether or not you're OK with it, but I wouldn't try to decide that before. Find out what happened, decide what to do, examine yourself very, very, very hard to find out if you can live with it. As is always said, if they cheat once, they'll cheat again.

That's not necessarily a true statement, and that conversation has been had here more than once, where the prevailing sentiment of people who have cheated, is that they see what kind of pain and anguish it causes, and would not do it again...

that said.. .it's very difficult to regain the trust that was blown by the person who did the cheating...

I'm the same way. I've been cheated on, and I was the exact same way. I needed to know all the gory details just so I could deal with it and move on rather than having my imagination going nonstop.

I can't lie, it was painful knowing all the info, but at least my mind would stop churning it over and over again.

I certainly wasn't insinuating that it's ALWAYS true, but I know plenty of people who seem to make a habit of it, and it's just how the saying goes...

In my experience with women, GF and female friends, this isn't true.

What I say is: If they cheat once, she'll mentally alter the events leading up to it so she "really" didn't cheat.

My ex tried this on me. We stayed friends after, and 4 years later she tells my friend she's never cheated. When I call her on it, she states we were broken up at the time (we weren't). The entire night ensues at which I come to realize she truely convinced herself of that "fact."

She basically did this to you, she convinced you that it was only half her fault and half yours. Which is just a mental construct that you need to call her on her own BS.