Hi, I am a well educated decently employed unmarried guy living away from my family for the last 4.5 years. I have moved to my current location 7 months back and am facing pressure from my family to get married. I will have to be descriptive here else my problem would not be clear, so please bear with me. I have had 2 girlfriends before coming here and I have been physical with both of them. And I am quite relaxed about these things and to me a pre-marital relationship is absolutely normal. After I broke up with my 2nd girlfriend (we had plans to get married but things did not shape out as expected), I fell in love with this girl in my office and she also had feelings for me. Right now she is my girlfriend and as expected ours is a mature relationship with sex as a part of it. I feel that I love this girl more than anyone else I have met before. And we both have thought of getting married on multiple occasions. Now coming to the problem, she has told me that she has had 3 boyfriends in the past (her last relationship ended only after she met me). All three of these guys were married and she got into these relationships fully aware of this fact in each of the cases. I am absolutely fine if the woman I marry has had “serious” relationships in the past. But here the problem is that I am not able to trust my girlfriend’s respect for the institution of marriage (which I hold in the highest regard, so much so that I believe an extra marital affair should warrant capital punishment). Though I have tried to convince myself that she will be devoted to me if we get married, I am unable to make myself forgive her for what she did in the past. Her being truthful and honest to me isn’t helping either for had it happened once, in a moment of passion, it could have been a mistake but thrice (for considerable periods of time) can’t be. I have told this to her, and we have realised I can’t marry her. But we are somehow not able to get over each other and in spite of trying to part many times in the last 2 months, we are still together. Please tell me what should I do?

This is not fair on your part. On one hand premarital relationship is absolutely normal for you and on other hand you are not able to trust her because of her relationships. You should not forget that her partners were married and not she. For her they were premarital affairs and not extramarital. I think it is not pre or extra marital is actually bothering you, it is your male psyche (male can do it but how can female do it?) and probably insecurity that she can cheat you later is scaring you. Discuss your ideas about marriage with her. If she shows honesty in accepting it then you do not have any morally valid point to step back.