Holding myself accountable .

Hey everyone, so i’ll get right to it. About a year ago, my partner and I took a break in our relationship. The dynamics of the relationship were getting too overbearing and we needed to separate to figure ourselves out and eventually come back together to discuss whether or not we wanted to continue to relationship or permanently split. We made certain decisions like we’d keep contact at a minimum, and that during this time, we were both single. The break(up) in total lasted around 4 months. About almost 3 months into the break, I kissed someone else on two occasions (the same person). Some time after that occurred, I stopped hanging out with the other person and it had been 4 months since the break initiated and my partner and I sat down to talk and decided to continue our relationship. After the first occasion initially happened, I only told parts, but not the whole truth to my partner because i felt extremely guilty—even though we were still not together at this time that I confessed. (the part that i told was the first occasion, but not the second). In my mind, I didn’t feel it was necessary to tell my partner the truth about everything that happened because we weren’t together, which i guess could be seen as pretty selfish. Now, a year later it is still eating me alive. I feel dishonest. I feel dirty. and I regret every minute of what happened. Some could feel that I don’t need to tell my partner every single thing because I don’t owe it to them, because we were not together during that time so no cheating occurred. On the other hand, some people may think I do owe it to them. I’m kind of stuck in the middle. Some have told me that I did nothing wrong, but other side of me is saying that i did everything wrong. I know that I should’ve have just either told the entire truth or not said anything at all. And I really just don’t know what to even think anymore.

and I guess what makes it harder is that my partner now keeps saying that during the break, we were still together, which is wholeheartedly not the truth. We BOTH agreed that during this time we were both single on multiple occasions—that was a mutual decision and they know that. So now that my partner has somehow switched what our initial agreement was during the break, now it makes me feel like I cheated. Also, my partner has said to me that if you go on a break with someone with the intention to get back together and you go have sex, it’s seen to them as cheating. But, I didn’t have sex and the point was that we didn’t know if we’re gonna come back together or not. I’m not trying to justify anything, but I feel like I wanted to add this statement because it adds on to my guilt—even though i didn’t have sex with that person, i’m sure my partner would hold kissing someone to the same standard. It just seems like now that the break has ended, my partner has added on a whole bunch of different things or “rules” now concerning the break, that wasn’t applied in our deep conversation before the break occurred.

I do want to make it clear that when i confessed the half-truth to my partner, that was DURING the break..not during the decision conversation to get back together or after we decided to get back together.

I guess i’m not really hear to ask a question, just here to vent and hold myself accountable.