Could I keep dating a woman after learning that she once enjoyed being a man's secret affair? I don't mean discovering she had a sex life before me. I mean knowing she pursued a close male friend who had a girlfriend, then described the secrecy itself as part of what made the sex exciting.
In the situation I'm trying to make sense of, the woman was single. Her friend wasn't. His girlfriend didn't know they were having sex, and the woman liked being the hidden part of his life. That distinction is what makes the question difficult for me. There wasn't a partner of her own she was deceiving, but someone else's relationship was part of the attraction.
I can imagine hearing about a past affair and wanting to understand the circumstances before deciding what it means. People can look back on something they did and feel differently about it. What unsettles me here is the pleasure she said she took in being the secret. It leaves me wondering less about whom she slept with than about how she understood the girlfriend's place in it.
There's also the friendship. This wasn't simply a man whose relationship status she learned too late. She pursued someone she considered a close friend while knowing he was involved. I wouldn't want to start treating every male friend a woman has as a threat. But I can see how this particular history could make an ordinary mention of a close friend harder to hear without questions. That's an uncomfortable way to imagine entering a relationship.
At the same time, he was the one who had made a commitment to his girlfriend. I can't put his decision to betray her entirely on the woman he had sex with. His responsibility doesn't erase her choice, though. Both things can be true without turning her past into proof that she would cheat on me.
That last part matters. Knowing she enjoyed a hidden affair wouldn't tell me what she would do in a relationship of her own. I would want to know whether she still finds that secrecy appealing or whether she now sees the experience differently. The account doesn't answer that, and I can't fill the gap with either the most reassuring explanation or the worst one.
I can picture staying because I believe her present view of it, while accepting that trust would have to include letting her have friendships without constant suspicion. I can also picture ending things because I couldn't do that fairly. Neither possibility gives me the answer I keep coming back to: if she described being his secret as exciting, what would I need to hear from her now to feel comfortable becoming her partner?
