Cheated on ex exclusive fwb

[Fluum]

So i was exclusively sleeping with a guy for a while. The sex wasn't the greatest but i decided to stay since I had feelings. One night I got wasted and gave a close friend oral with a condom- this was 7 months ago, i planned on ending our engagementthe next night however i couldn't really leave due to my feelings. Fast forward and he never would give me oral or after he came he would have absolutely no desire to help me orgasme, hes even told me when i asked that it's a personal problem. I even confessed my feelings towards him and he rejected me, i still continued sleeping with him. Then one day i saw him at a party and he was flirting with other women, i decided to date other ppl so i ended up meeting my current partner and broke our relationship but i still feel horrible for the incident 7 months ago. Should I be honest with him and tell him?

[RockRose]

Here's the rule about whether to "come clean" with a past injustice you did another person.  Will your admission make the other person feel better?  

In this case,  it's a maybe.  He might feel better about the way he treated you,  and might feel justified in not respecting your relationship if he knew you also didn't respect your relationship.  So it's 50-50.  Your behavior would give him permission to feel like you treated him the same way he treated you,  and would likely make him feel justified in not pursuing a more affectionate and profound relationship instead of the very shallow and unfulfilling physical one.   If he knew you behaved as if there were no strings,  he'd feel it was acceptable that he also did that.

So it's your choice.

[Fluum]

I guess you're right. I decided not to say anything about it but to learn from the experience and when to walk away. I actually just found out that he was still doing sexual stuff with his ex while we were together from a reliable source like she was pegging him and  jerking him off but he didn't consider that a big deal since they weren't having sex so yeah....

[Fluum]

Also i forgot to mention we are both in the kink community so he had play partner's were they would do bdsm stuff with each other but we could not have sex with other people unless we talk to each other first, i had no play partner's just him. He tells me that they are not having sex but the stuff he does with other's is very sexual like mutual masturbation, using sex toys on other women and pegging

[AnnieBrooke]

The colorful details of the kink community don't really change the basics of the situation, though. You went for a sexual relationship somewhat in the hope he would turn into a boyfriend, though he made it clear you were only friends as far as he was concerned. Telling him how you felt about him didn't turn him into a boyfriend. He wasn't a very interested lover, not caring about your sexual satisfaction. You acted out with someone else despite having an agreement not to, which as Pax says, it's cleaner if you break things off and then act out. You now feel bad that you broke your agreement, even though his behavior was less than perfect. The nuances of the kink community don't change the basic story.

My thought is, don't go into a relationship pretending you are casual if you wish for more. Don't go into a new relationship if you're looking for love, until you find someone who wants more also. (Hint: You are probably not going to find someone looking for emotional commitment in the kink community.) Let go of the past guy, you'll never impress him into wanting to be a boyfriend, or shame him, or get back at him with the news you cheated. It just won't do any good. Don't rehash it, just learn, and move on.

[Fluum]

I appreciate this perspective on the matter:)

[RockRose]

I'm not sure I understand the motivation to come clean.  It sounds like there's some desire to hurt him, the way he hurt you by not being an attentive lover,  and by flirting with other women in your presence.

Sadly,  this is how friends with benefits usually ends.  Although both partners seem to think they won't have possessive feelings,  and hurt feelings,  one partner usually does.  I don't see how telling him you cheated on him while you were wasted would accomplish anything,  and it's doubtful he would react out of hurt and jealousy.    It seems he would feel even more justified in treating you as cavalierly as he did.  

This is as they say,  a "teachable moment".  Friends with benefits will break our hearts.

[Fluum]

No i don't have a desire to hurt him i just never cheated on someone so i don't know how to feel if that makes sense. I have found someone else who treats me better and im glad yet have no desire to hurt him actually i still consider him a friend. I guess it's more of i broke my principles and feel like **** because ive never cheated on anyone

[AnnieBrooke]

From what I've seen, the impulse to confess to cheating usually has to do with being tired of carrying the burden of guilt alone, and trying to dump the burden and make oneself feel better. (It's not about suddenly thinking the world would be a better place if we were all honest and straightforward. It's a lot more self-interested.) But the person it dumps on is the one person who has already been injured (even if he doesn't know it) by your behavior. Even if he were keeping his eye out for other people when you two were (supposedly) exclusive, now he would have to deal with the news he was cheated on, and by the fact that you told him, he'd also be to some extent being asked to help you not feel guilty any more. That's kind of adding insult to injury.

It sounds like the guy wasn't a good sex partner for you, and like you wanted more emotional engagement and didn't get it. This makes it seem like there might be added reasons for wanting to tell him now:  to get back at him for all the ways he was a bad boyfriend, to get back at him for not falling in love with you when you "had feelings" for him, or even to try to pique his interest again. None of those are good reasons to tell him.

I'm glad you've found someone else. Move on, don't look back at the unsatisfactory guy.

[AnnieBrooke]

No, honey. There would be no point in hurting his feelings with this information. That would be using him just so you can feel better, it is not kind to him. You already did one bad thing (oral sex with someone when you were someone else's fiance), don't make it two bad things (telling your former fiance that you did this). Just let it be one of those big life lessons for you, that you don't want to be a cheater ever again, and don't want to hurt another person.

[Fluum]

Oh no. I met arrangement lol damn phone autocorrected me. He was just a fwb (friend with benefits) we just promised to be exclusive

[AnnieBrooke]

Same reaction, though. It will do no good to tell the guy (with whom you broke up) anything at this point. Let sleeping dogs lie, as the saying goes. Don't dump old stuff on him just so you feel better.

[Paxiled]

If you want to be a great person, whenever a relationship isn't giving you what you want end it before meeting someone else.  Now, I know life doesn't really work this way, we all are hesitant to give up what we have before we find something else, but again, if you want to do the right thing and not the more human thing, getting cheated on really hurts so we should all not do it.  Ain't gonna happen, but there it is.  In your case, though, if you have an exclusive relationship with someone, that sounds like a lot more than friends with benefits, which is just casual sex without a romantic relationship.  Sounds like you did have a romantic relationship on your side but over time, when you realized it wasn't going to work for you, that was the time to call it off and then go find someone else.  I will just say, though, there is some truth to what he said, it is your problem if you're not having orgasms providing he is trying.  But because you apparently told him how you could and he apparently refused to do that for you, this person wasn't worth your time in the first place and isn't really worth your time now.  It was never going to work out.  All the best.

[Fluum]

He really wouldn't try after he came tho which was fast like 3 minutes tops. But i should have ended it with him before looking for something else. When i confessed my feelings he told me he didn't feel the same and said i should date other people and i did exactly that. Deep down i knew it wasn't going to work but it was hard to let go now i know