I met Rachel at a concert. We’re in a situationship before officially dating.
The Ex-Files: From Situationship to Soulmates
My GF said her best friend was like family, but they had a drunk one-s before we got together. When he returned from the UK, his GF caught them making out. I (29M) need to get this off my chest because I feel like I’m going crazy. Long post ahead, but I need to include all the details to paint the full picture.
I met Rachel (28F) last year at an indie rock concert through our mutual friend Mike. She was standing near the stage wearing a vintage band t-shirt, and we started talking about music. We had this instant connection, you know, the type where you feel like you’ve known someone forever. We exchanged numbers and started hanging out in the same friend group for the next six months.
We were in this weird situationship that I still can’t properly define. We weren’t officially dating, but we acted like a couple in every way. We texted constantly throughout the day, shared everything about our lives, and even said, “I love you”. We’d spend weekends together, cook dinner, watch movies, and act completely domestic.
The only reason we weren’t official was that Rachel said she had just gotten out of a long relationship and needed time to heal. Looking back, this should have been my first red flag.
During this time, I met most of her friends except for Shawn (28M). Rachel talked about him constantly. He was her best friend since high school; they went to college together, and she considered him family. She had all these stories about how Shawn helped her through her parents’ divorce in college or how she supported him when his mom got sick. They seemed to have this deep bond that I admired from the stories she told.
When we finally made things official after six months, Rachel dropped this bomb on me. She confessed that about a month before we became official, she had slept with Shawn. She said it was a drunken mistake after their friend’s birthday party.
According to her, they both immediately regretted it and agreed never to speak of it again. She claimed she told me because she wanted complete honesty in our relationship. The timing of this confession coincided with Shawn’s move to the UK for work, which Rachel said was completely unrelated to what happened between them. She assured me it was a one-time thing and that Shawn was like a brother to her.
I was hurt, but since we weren’t officially together when it happened, I tried to be understanding. Plus, Shawn was moving thousands of miles away, so I figured it wouldn’t be an issue.
Rachel and Shawn stayed in touch after he moved. They’d have these long calls every few weeks, which Rachel said were just catching up about life, their friend group back home, and his adventures in London. I noticed she’d be in a weird mood after these calls, but I chalked it up to her missing her best friend.
Everything was going great in our relationship otherwise. We moved in together after eight months of dating, adopted a cat together, and even started talking about future plans. Rachel got along great with my family, especially my sister, who’s the same age as her. We had date nights, went on weekend trips, and everything seemed perfect.
