two weeks ago, i found a pink stiiizy pen on the floor of the passenger side of my bf’s car. i confronted him, and he lied. could not keep his story straight and told me that he got it off an “old college friend”. i checked his phone, nothing there cause im assuming he deleted anything incriminating.
needless to say, i broke things off (or tried to). he was crying and guilted me into a break. suggested things like couples therapy and also said i was abandoning him and the relationship. he admitted that it looked bad and he didn’t want to tell me he was meeting up with a friend because he was scared of my reaction. we have history from our on and off the past 2 years before we became official. commitment issues from both ends and we were both caught on dating apps before deciding to commit to each other early last year since we both truly believed we had a rare connection and wanted to choose each other.
after our break we talked and he told me that he got rid of the pen. he claims to know he fucked up and should not have put himself in a position to lie to me so i agreed to work things out with conditions that we have an open phone policy and that we start sharing locations with each other (which is insane i get it).
anyway, we are back in this gray area and i still cannot trust him fully. but at the same time i feel like i need solid proof to get out of this relationship.
this is the happiest relationship ive been in so this completely blindsided me. we spend every weekend together so not sure if there’s even infidelity. nothing suspicious other than this pen. i’ve spoken to my therapist and friends who have told me that maybe he was scared of losing me and lied. probably knows it looks bad and thought lying might make it better. this is something i can forgive but i feel like i need to know the truth which he won’t give me.
stuck between giving him the benefit of the doubt and pretend everything’s fine but also wanting to snoop for evidence. is this relationship worth fighting for? if so, would like to explore couples therapy to work through these residual feelings.
TLDR; found a pink stiiizy in my bf’s car. no proof of cheating whatsoever but uneasy. give him the benefit of the doubt, or salvage and work on things, possibly with help of a couples therapist?