My family talked horrible about my boyfriend at the start of our relationship. I showed pictures of him to my family and they made fun of the fact that he didn’t have a car and that I could do better than him. (He actually had a car and got it back in April).My older sister called him broke and that I had more money than him. When I told him what they said, it did hurt his feelings but none of it came out of my mouth. I can admit when we were first getting to know each other I did bring him down but it wasn’t anything to extreme. It was jokes taken the wrong way. One incident I could give was he texted me hello with my name and then I texted back “hello whatever your name is I can’t remember” and it triggered him. It was just a joke. It was mostly my family saying things. Now listen to this.. All ^^^^of this happened within two months when we were in the early stages of beginning to date which was last year, possibly around November. My family never spoke about him ever again neither did I say anything bad about him. He seemed unhappy and depressed sometimes throughout the relationship but I don’t know if this was it.
Last month we were in my car talking and I pointed that he had a small stain on his shirt. He gets angry and points at all the stains on my clothes. That’s when he mentioned how I’m constantly calling him broke, having no car, etc. For months he complained about how he was over the relationship and I told him if he wanted to leave he could but he never wanted to. I found out he had been cheating four days after the car talk and his excuse was me constantly bringing him down those times. Is it my fault?
TL;DR: my boyfriend cheated on me and blamed me for it. He told me I was constantly bringing him down but it was really my family saying negative hints about him.
28 comments
No. It’s not your fault.
It’s never someone else’s fault for cheating.
It is not your fault that he cheated. You were probably also wrong to treat him poorly, but he should have just dumped you rather than cheat.
I’m sorry I think you meant to say “ex” boyfriend, but you seem to have forgotten to type that part.
*When I told him what they said, it did hurt his feelings but none of it came out of my mouth*
So your family was talking crap about him but…”none of it came out of my mouth”?!
Of course it came out of your mouth! Your family was talking crap about him BEHIND HIS BACK (cowardly and nasty) but he only knew about it because it came out of your mouth. Rather than to tell your family to stop and defend him you allowed it.
Then, you added with your “joke” to him “what is your name…I don’t remember you” when he called you. Yuk, yuk, laughs all around but his.
I certainly can’t condone his cheating on you but I can TOTALLY understand why he did.
What is most … amazing and astounding is you coming here on Reddit asking if it was wrong, like you and your family are totally innocent and bewildered.
It’s not your fault he cheated but your family making fun of him as much as they did and what they said wasn’t okay either
> It was jokes taken the wrong way. One incident I could give was he texted me hello with my name and then I texted back “hello whatever your name is I can’t remember” and it triggered him. It was just a joke.
That’s a really nasty joke to make to someone.
More than likely, he felt he was justified because you treated him so poorly.
It’s not a solution to the problem, though. Sounds like you should part ways and think about how to do better next time.
It’s not your fault he cheated but this relationship isn’t healthy and it needs to end. And please don’t treat other people like crap, especially people you’re supposedly interested in.
He is gaslighting you, dump him.
>When I told him what they said
>
>I told him if he wanted to leave he could but he never wanted to.
**Is it my fault?**
Yeah, kind of.
Okay: no, he should not have cheated. He should have left you. Now do him a favor and set him free and don’t contact him again.
Whether he cheated or not, you were an asshole and he’s better off without you in his life.
YTA and so is he. Why would you tell him that your family talked crap about him and then proceed to belittle him? Him cheating on you is not your fault though, he could have just broken up with you if he was that upset. You guys need to be nowhere near each other, just move on from this.
Actually on his side here. You sound like an insufferable shitty girlfriend and your family overall sounds like a group of shitty people.
It’s pretty clear that you hurt his feelings and aren’t acknowledging it. If you don’t care about his feelings why would he care about yours? You 2 need to work out this dynamic through communication and empathic understanding otherwise your relationship is done.
Yeah you treated him like shit, and he cheated. Not surprising. Do better.
What a lame excuse for his cheating behavior… cheating is always a choice… dump him 🙂
You guys don’t sound compatible in the slightest. Timeline wise, you sound a little mean, especially starting out. In fact, I actually don’t think any of what you said was funny if you guys weren’t that close. I’d feel insulted if someone texted me like that lol. Regardless, it’s not your fault that he cheated. He should have just broken up with you if he wanted to do other things. Cheating isn’t ok, and I hate to break it to you, but once a cheater always a cheater. Very rarely do they ever stop.
If I were him, I would’ve gave you the boot as soon as you told me what your family said and the fact that you didn’t defend him.
I at the very least would’ve brought up how you didn’t defend him. He’s 21 so of course he’s too scared to confront you or your family so he chose to harbor resentment and cheat.
All of you are wrong in this situation. I don’t have any sympathy for you because you weren’t their for him like what a partner should do, he’s too scared to say what’s on his mind and your family are a-holes for making fun of someone that could be going through a difficult situation.
I honestly don’t have sympathy for anyone in this scenario but use this as a lesson.
He should’ve just broken up with you instead of cheat. But you and your family sound like shit people
You are in the wrong for making fun of him.
He made those choices on his own. Never think it’s your fault for someone cheating when they can just simply leave the relationship…
So…no its not your fault but it deff made him not care about you bc you to do it obviously obviously don’t care about him. he should have just broken up with you. Yes of course anyone should do that than cheat. But you sound awful. Your jokes aren’t funny. You just sound mean. Also there was no reason for you to bring up what your family said about him. If he asked what do they think of me you could of simply said “they think your…” and than whatever maybe 1 good thing they said about him. Good looking or something. But if he didn’t ask and you didnt say he did so i assume you just wanted to belittle him. You’re one of those ppl that think poking and making fun of someone is funny. It’s not. If ya want better relationships in the future maybe be better yourself to.
He shouldn’t have cheated. He should have left but you and your family are terrible.
You sound extremely, extremely immature. Saying something hurtful and excusing yourself with “i did it as a joke” doesn’t make it better. You still did it. You were not joking, you were making fun of him, with your family, and then went and told him about it, for what purpose? You saw it affected him and didn’t care.
Him cheating was his choice, he should have dumped you for treating him like that, but he’s probably as immature as you so he was probably trying to get back at you.
Perhaps be a nicer person, no one likes to be constantly criticized.
And let the guy go, so he can get a normal girlfriend.
Cheating is wrong. Period.
You have to not respect or care about someone to cheat on them. And you definitely made it very easy for him to be in that frame of mind.
A joke is only funny if everyone laughs. If someone feels bad from it, it is not called a joke it is called bullying.
Friendships and relationships are built on integrity. Integrity is how you respect someone when they are not around.
Commenting that you don’t know who he is after he stuck around after the lack of integrity probably made him feel really low.
Also he fact you didn’t finish up the story about his families comments about how you defended him made him feel very negative.
He didn’t cheat on you because of temptation, he cheated for revenge.
That’s why he said you made him cheat. But regardless, cheating is wrong.
You were a horrible girlfriend. He should have broken up with you a long time ago. There’s no justifying cheating. But take some lessons from this experience on how you could do a lot better treating a partner.
Don’t badmouth your partner. Relaying your family’s insults doesn’t let you off the hook. You had zero call to tell him what they had said. You should have stood up for him. You should be learning how to place boundaries and enforce them with your family, not lean into peer pressure like a tweeny mean girl.
I had to look twice to believe you’re a 21 year old woman.
You didn’t build up a good enough rapport to be joking like that in the beginning. Definitely should have protected him, when your family was attacking him for things he can attain over time. At 21 life isn’t figured out. He cheated, so don’t take him back it’s just not what a relationship should be going through in the beginning. The honeymoon phase didn’t even get off the ground.
Cheating is wrong and it was a petty way to get back at you, but I totally get why he did it and would have done the same if someone who was supposedly my girlfriend treated me like that and I had the opportunity.