I (22M) watched my girlfriend (22F) dance and take shots with a groomsman at a wedding. What do you think I should do?
I've been dating my girlfriend for almost three years now. We started dating in college and now we both have full-time jobs. We do NOT on-line together but we live! near each other and spend tons of time together.
Last weekend we went to her cousin's 200-person, backyard wedding where my girlfriend was in the bridal party. She didn't know any of the groomsmen prior to the wedding but naturally got to know them as the night went on. As day turned into night, the dancing and partying started. All the way up to the end of the night, I stayed basically sober since I was trying to represent myself well in front of her extended family. She got very very drunk because of the event – which makes sense because it was exciting. Towards the end of the night, she started dancing with this one particular groomsman, we'll call him A, for 30+ minutes. Very handsy on the dance floor, twirling her around, etc. I just watched this from a distance. They went to the bar a couple of times and took shots together. I think it's important to give context here as well. I was very involved in celebrating earlier that night – I was dancing, requesting songs, etc. It wasn't like I was sitting on the sidelines the whole night.
Later she joins me sitting at a table with her family. As she was drunkenly sitting next to me, she introduces me to a middle-aged woman guest she met that night, ''Hey [guest name], this is my boyfriend.” and the guest replied, “Oh, I thought that was your boyfriend” while pointing at A at the bar. The whole situation was very embarrassing.
Two days later, on the following Monday, after she recovered and everything calmed down, I confronted her about it. Asking her questions like 'What do you think led you to do that?', 'Do you have any issues with me we can talk about or I can help clear up?', etc. Basically – let's talk, spill your feelings and I'll spill mine (i'm upset about this…). She doesn't remember doing any of that, she cried a lot about it and doesn't want to break up, and her apologies seemed very sincere. Like very very sincere. She seemed really upset about the whole thing. I told her that I'd lost a lot of trust but I forgive you. Tbh guys, I really have no local friends where I on-line. I spend so much time with her that it would make a huge impact on my day-to-day if I made any drastic decisions. Kind of scared of any decision I make. I just want objective opinions about the whole thing and want to see what the average person says about it. Thanks in advance.
EDIT; Thank you for the feedback, everyone. Let me address a couple of questions/comments.
The 'handsy' comment. Wrote that late at night and probably could've been a bit clearer. There was never any groping involved but more of, 'A' had his hand around her, 'A' was holding her shoulders and leaning among one another at the bar. It was not one-sided either. My girlfriend was doing the same/reciprocating it back to him. Flirty touchy if you consider touch as your love language.
'Why didn't I step in?'/'Why did you sit back and watch?': I really wanted to step in and I should've but I didn't want to be a jerk. She was nervous about this wedding for weeks and I wanted her to have a good time. Also, I didn't want to be an overcontrolling boyfriend in front of her entire extended family. All these thoughts were overcoming me at once. I probably could've nonchalantly stepped in. My bad. Online and learn.
Some people in the comments think I am overreacting but that's the whole reason why I am writing this post. I have never run into this situation before. I simply want to understand how an average person would go about this. If the consensus is that 'I need to suck it up' then I'll do just that. I appreciate the honesty that you've given me thus far. Thank you again.
