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Posted this in a few different sub, but I'm moving it here because I feel like I'll get better advise where as most of Reddit has been very toxic about my situation. Sorry if I break any rules as this is my first post here : (TW SA)
My girlfriend (24F) and I (26M) have been dating for 5 years now, but the last six months have been really tough on our relationship. I quit my job and have been depressed/distant from her and she has been depressed and been having suicidal thoughts. Our relationship got even worse when I got a new job offer that would require me to move across the country. We have done long distance before, like 4 hour drive from each other, but being across the country would be a new challenge and I was unsure if we would overcome it in our depressed state. Around the same time she gets a personal trainer thinking exercise would help with her mental state. I didn't think much of it at the time, I even dropped her off to her training sessions, but later I would find out everything wasn't what I thought it was.
Fast forward 6 months later, I'm using my GFs computer and a text pops up from a Tom(45), fake name for safety, who I recognize is her trainer. She hasn't had a session in 4 months at the time, so I was curious and I opened it. I found a huge text thread of them going back and forth. It was mainly him screenshotting photos of her IG telling her how hot he thinks she is and saying really sexual things like "I want to eat you up." Most of the time she would ignore it, but sometimes she would message back a "thank you" or entertain the compliment.
I immediately confronted my GF and she told me everything. She said that Tom has had a crush on her since they started training. At first, she tried ignoring the flirty comments and keep it professional, then she tried to confront Tom and set boundaries, but he wouldn't stop. She eventually told him that they can only be friends and that's when she stopped doing the training. Eventually she tells me a few months after she stopped training with Tom, she went out partying with a friend, and they ended up bumping into Tom. Her friend went home with another guy and my GF was plastered drunk alone, so she decided to go back to Tom's place to sober up before coming home since he lived nearby.
When she got to his place, she tried sleeping on the couch but then Tom tried to make a move on her. Touching her in private areas and trying to kiss her. She said no a few times and after awhile he stopped and she took a nap. When she woke up she quickly said goodbye and drove home confused if what had happened was a dream or if it was real.
She called Tom the next day to try and get some clarity and he told her that she was super into everything that happened and they were having a really deep connection, but he held himself back because she was drunk. My GF keep saying that's not what she remembers but she was also really drunk and got extremely confused on what the truth was. Tom told her that she couldn't tell anyone what happened as he didn't want to get "beat up" and that it would ruin their relationship. She talked to her friend about the whole situation because she was scared to come to me, and her friend said regardless of the matter that it was cheating and that she should tell me then break up with me or hide it and act like it never happened.
All of this made her depression and suicidal thoughts worse, plus the added stress of our relationship not being in a good place and not wanting to leave me led her to decide to hide it and act like it never happened and to stop talking to Tom. (P.S. I really don't like her friend for this advice as I think it was stupid and destructive to my GF's mental health)
Fast forward another few months and I'm still on the fence about taking the job across the country, my depression has gotten worse since I have been out of work for almost 4 months now, and my GF and I are fighting almost every day about the job. (For Context: This happened before I read the text from Tom and my GF is still telling me everything that happened after I confronted her). It's looking more like if I take the job we are going to end up breaking up either immediately or the distance is going to kill our relationship.
My GF starts to feel really alone and I start to get more distant as I'm lowkey resenting her because I feel like we are only having fights because of this job and she's not considering my feelings, when in reality she's hurting from keeping everything from me. Tom ends up texting my GF asking how she's doing. At first the conversation was casual ( I know because I read through all the messages) but then Tom starts to get more flirty and my GF either ignores the messages or takes the compliments. From her responses I can tell the attention makes her feel better and I know I was too focused on finding work and was passively ignoring her.
She wanted to go out and have some fun and when I told her I wouldn't go she ended up asking Tom and he said yes.
They go out, drink, and go back to his place to sober up again. This time Tom leads her to his room and she sleeps on his bed. While she's asleep, Tom starts to perform oral sex on her. She tries to push him off, but is too drunk and weak to do so. He eventually gets up, opens her mouth, and finishes in her mouth. This sobers her up, and she rushes to the bathroom to spit it out. She cleans herself off and leaves.
In her mind, even though she loved the attention she was getting, she did not want to get physical with Tom, but she sees this as cheating and thinks now she has to break up with me even if she doesn't want to. And all of this happened two days before I just read that text from Tom.
After telling me all of this I explain to her what she described sounded more like she was taken advantage of while she was drunk twice and didn't sound like physically cheating. She broke down crying saying she wish she had told me sooner and that if she could take everything back she would. I didn't break up with her and we decided to try to work things out for now.
Now that I got that long winded story done, time for the reason I'm updating this post. My GF has been in therapy for awhile now, and after talking with her therapist, my gf is being told she should see the whole situation as grooming, manipulation, and assault, but not cheating. She was 100% assaulted, I don't blame her for anything that happened to her, and I can for sure see how she was manipulated in some ways, but I feel as though some part of this had to have been her cheating on me. Even though she wasn't actively flirting back, she was still accepting advances from another man because she felt alone and that our relationship was going to end. The compliments made her feel good, she accepted them, and sometimes would even give them back. There was even at one point where she turned off her location while hanging out with Tom so if I looked wondering where she was at I wouldn't have known what she was doing. She assured me she never saw Tom as more than a friend (he was just an older man who kept complimenting her in her eyes and would listen to her problems while I was being distant), but I don't know if that means what she was doing wasn't cheating. Looking for advice on how I should view the situation so I can best move on in a way that's healthy for both me and my GF.
TL;DR: My GF was assaulted twice, maybe groomed, and now her therapist says I shouldn't consider it cheating even though she was sneaking behind my back.
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