CAROLYN HAX

(Nick Galifianakis for The Washington Post)

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By Carolyn Hax

Friday, June 12, 2009

Dear Carolyn:

I'm an idiot. I cheated on my girlfriend of five years. When she found out, I went through hell trying to regain her trust, and I ended up proposing to her before I really felt ready. We are getting married this summer, but I still have thoughts about the other woman (a co-worker). I feel like I am walking on eggshells with my girlfriend and that one more wrong move will end our relationship, which cannot happen. Tell me I'm an idiot, then please tell me what to do.

Spinning My Wheels

You're an idiot.

I don't get to do that very often.

But while knowing, admitting and begging others to underscore that you're an idiot is a good start, it's not enough to fix this. For that you need to address the mistakes that earned you this distinction.

It wasn't just the cheating, or the proposing under pressure, and it isn't just that you're still thinking about the other woman.

The biggest idiot move, I think, was jumping from the cheating stage to the winning-your-girlfriend-back stage -- bypassing entirely (as far as I can tell) the introspection stage, where one figures out why one cheated in the first place.

Three general conditions lead to cheating: (1) committing to the wrong person; (2) having no business committing to anyone; (3) both.

That means that unless your cheating led to . . . well, that's not quite right. Unless your getting busted for cheating led to a life-altering epiphany about her/yourself/both, then you're either still with the wrong woman or still not ready to commit. Or both.

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