Lesbian drama... I could really use advice!

Hello,

My girlfriend and I are going through a rather rough situation. Due to circumstances out of our control, she is halfway around the world and our relationship has been long-distance since August. We are supposed to reunite in late April, but she cannot give me a specific date to her return.
To give you more details: I was mostly straight/bi-curious until this relationship. We met in high school almost seven years ago, I'm 21, she's 23, she had been one of my best friends all this time.
In early January, I moved to my current city (Montréal) in order to reunite with her, since she studies here, but she ended up going to Africa before I came for a paperwork issue that was supposed to take a few days, but ended up lasting months.
One cannot figure out the disappointment I went through; getting online each day with the same question, "did you get your papers? Are you finally coming back?" and hear the same answer, "not yet". I had moved to this city expecting to reunite with her, and I felt lonely as hell, frustrated, and sad; I've already struggled with depression and my symptoms were back.
When we got together in August, we decided to keep it an "open relationship"; we could see other people, but we had to be honest and tell each other to prevent drama from happening.
In late January, in an attempt to distract myself from the situation, I hung out with former students from my high school (high concentration of them in Montréal). One girl, J., turned out to be a lesbian; we bonded immediately and she sympathized with my situation. She also tried to seduce me.
I spoke to my girlfriend and told her about it. I felt lonely, sad, unhappy, and felt less and less like a woman because I was away from my romantic partner. I told her I wanted to sleep with J., but I wouldn't do it if would cause her pain or unhappiness. She told me to go for it, that she was at peace with it. So I did. The liaison lasted five days in total, and I am now no longer in contact with the girl.

Also, around that time, someone from my girlfriend's very traditional family discovered our correspondence and threatened to tell her parents. It didn't happen, but it was quite a bullet we dodged.

However, ever since this happened, my girlfriend has been incredibly cold. She used to flirt, to respond to my flirting (and farther than that, even). I confronted her about it already, and she said it was normal, she was an introvert; she even denied that things changed from a day to another.
But I couldn't deal with her cold anymore; even before we became romantic partners, she was warmer, more open. I feel like I've lost her. I sometimes feel sick of this cold during our daily conversations; I used to feel extremely happy after, now each starts and ends in frustration, and sometimes resentfulness and anger when I re-read and over-analyze.

This, by the way, is the woman who used to say she loved me on her own, not as a reply to me saying it. This is also the woman who agreed to marry me in December. (We haven't made concrete plans to get married, we have first to get through her family and figure out a lot of details.)

Since the beginning of this month, I've been suffering from depression symptoms again, and I cannot see a therapist in this city (I'm a foreigner/visitor, technically). I've been having panic attacks, some related to her attitude, and recently had a horrible nightmare about it. So I confronted her, and she admitted that the cold was due to my liaison with J. She felt guilty because she was supposed to be back but was still abroad, so she couldn't ask not to sleep with the other girl. But, in her words, "if I just 'ignore' it, or try to pass over it quickly and move on with the rest, I know it will keep infecting me".
I've insisted we find a way to get over it, since technically, at the risk of sounding selfish, though I can put myself in her shoes, and were the roles inversed, I would have created even bigger drama, it's a little confusing/unfair to me that 1) I move to a new city for her, and she never actually returns to the city in question, 2) first she tells me I can sleep with the girl; I ask her to be completely honest, tell her I wouldn't mind if she asks me not to (almost expect her to, actually), 3) then she nevertheless is pissed about it and it's heavily felt.

Don't misunderstand me; she hasn't been openly cruel or nasty, in the contrary. It simply felt like we weren't in a romantic relationship anymore. I miss her flirting, the fun, the love that came pouring from her and meant enormously to me, even more because she is extremely introverted.

I cannot bear to lose her. I cannot imagine my life without her anymore. She is my love, my life, my everything.

So I turn to you. How do we get past what I did (with her presumed blessings, but still)? How do we move on? How do we regain what we had before my liaison, what I long for desperately?

Many thanks in advance for your help.

(Note: I already posted this in the alternate lifestyle/relationships forum; I guess I read a little too fast before noticing there actually was a lesbian forum!)

 

It's obvious that your relationship with J has impacted on her more that she thought it would, and that she only agreed because she would have felt selfish otherwise (despite what she told you.)

It is possible she was (subconsciously) testing you by saying you could go for it, and was secretly hoping you would let her know that your love for her meant you could not see it through, you could not relax with J for thinking about her, so nothing happened.

As this was not the case and you had five days with J, this seems to have put her right back in her shell with you, and become more introverted (cold) in your convo's.

She is hurting and so cannot tell you she loves you anymore because the hurt is an obstacle to her expressing her feelings.

Does she intend to still return to the city?

Why has the paperwork taken so long?

A physical meeting is what is needed here so you can both come together properly and talk things through face to face (and perhaps make love at some stage.) If it is all going to be cyber communication, nothing is going to improve.

I would tell her you really want to see her, and that your love for her is so strong you are prepared to have the patience to wait until she comes to terms with what has happened - and that is exactly what you need, patience.

If you do meet up, don't push things - let any passion happen naturally.

I posted a condensed version of my response to your visitor messages as your original thread disappeared?

 

Thank you so much, Inca (yes, I posted in a different forum and it got deleted). You do help me see the situation clearer. You're right, I should not have put her in a position where she has no choice but to agree or sound selfish, and now that you mention it, we spoke every single day during my five-day liaison and she did ask me a lot of details about J. and what we did, so I now see how there may be a test in there.
I guess our only solution is patience; at this point, I will do anything not to lose her.
Thank you again