TLDR; My boyfriend (28M) is amazing when we’re together, but his immaturity with his friends has ruined the trust in our relationship.
I (27F) have been with my boyfriend (28M) for two years. For the last 6 months we’ve been working on rebuilding trust after I went through his phone and found out that 6 months prior he was unfaithful.
(*This was the first time I had ever gone through his phone. He got really antsy when I grabbed his phone in the car to change music and I got suspicious. I felt terrible, but also had to follow my gut.)*
When I went through his phone, I did not think I’d find out about any other woman. I found exactly what I thought I would. The group chat with his friends was was sending videos of women from TikTok and IG. I thought it was immature and excessive, but also was not surprised. As I kept looking, I found out that he had been trying to get with a girl in their friend group during a joint bday party. He was unsuccessful, but made several attempts that night that were detailed in the group chat. . I was completely shocked and heartbroken. This was a side of him that I did not know. The first 1.5 years were fairytale perfect. He was a gentleman, super caring, selfless, and we had so much fun together. We moved really slowly at first, building a friendship and a strong emotional connection.
I confronted him the next morning. Fast forward, we decide to work on things. When I looked at the relationship as a whole, I had so many more good times, good feelings, and good experiences than bad. He never once tried to get out of taking accountability or blaming anyone else for his actions and I felt he was genuinely remorseful. Also for both of us this was our first real relationship; his only other long-term one being in high school. I figured we both had some growing to do. He had no complaint about me as a partner, so I figured it was an immature lapse in judgement.
The last 6 months have been us working on open and honest communication, having clear expectations and rebuilding trust. Its been going well, but I can admit to anyone that this situation has made me more insecure than I’ve ever been. It seems like every time I find myself back in that euphoric state when it comes to our relationship that I was in before all of this, he does something that makes me wonder if I can really trust him. The friend group chat is triggering for me. I think his friend are extremely immature and he reverts to a teenage boy in his interactions with them. My anxiety got the best of me yesterday and I decided to take another look at his group chat because he’d been acting strange. Nothing out of the ordinary; some talk about cars and his friend’s kid. Then I remembered that he was showing me something on his phone when a message came through but there was no record of the message. I checked the deleted folder and there it was. He deleted a conversation where his friend had sent a girl’s ass tiktok and they all made some comments on it.
I’m more bothered that he felt the need to delete the conversation, knowing that it would make me upset rather than just not commenting at all or setting the the boundary with his friends that its not something he wants to engage in. We’ve talked about how the behavior makes me feel and he’s allegedly been “cleaning up his act”. I feel like he’s putting being “one of the guys” before what we’ve defined as respect in our relationship.
Is this a sign of someone who is not trustworthy or simply immature? Am I being naive to think we can work on this? As this continues, I just become more insecure and lose hope that we’ll ever get back to where we were. He says he wants to go ring shopping next week so he has an idea of what he needs to be planning for but I could never move forward with these kinds of trust issues.
10 comments
Frankly id just break up with him. He’s immature if he reverts to being a child with his buddy’s.
He’s definitely no where near mature enough to marry.
Just sounds like constant doubt for you now. He’s just not trustworthy. Save yourself years of trouble.
Move on. A wise person once said to me that 2 to 3 years is make or break. Either they are well suited to you and you know by then OR the cracks start to show and you realise they just aren’t compatible with you. So you move on.
Your choice.
If I’m being honest, I think you’re seeing who he actually is in these conversations with his friends. From personal experience, people that get away with being unfaithful most of the time don’t change their ways. As you can see, he’s still the same person. He’s just deleting the conversations now because he knows you’ll check.
I do believe in second chances for certain things; but not cheating. It’s not something I’d be open to forgiving because that trust is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to regain after its been shattered. There’s always going to be something in the back of your mind. The hurt from being cheated on never really goes away either.
Yes, I think it’s a bit naive to think this is fixable. He actively tried to cheat on you and only stopped because he got turned down (this is the only time that you know of, but could there be others? Could there be others in the future?). He is very immature and engages in cringey objectifying convos with his friends about hot influencers. When you tell him you’re not comfortable with him doing that, he keeps doing it and just hides it from you. His shitty behaviour is making you insecure and ruining your confidence. Is that something you want from your partner? This is not a guy to be with.
Definitely don’t go ring shopping. He is trying to trap you into this thing before you can realize how shitty your relationship is.
There are lots of guys who you will have great times with and connect with just as well as your bf, who won’t try to cheat on you and won’t destroy your self-confidence.
That’s a lot of words. There’s no trust, there’s no relationship. Don’t bend over backwards trying to fix that.
If you’re this triggered by something so minor (yes commenting on a tiktok video sent by a friend is almost nothing) you really should be rethinking this entire relationship. With so little trust here you shouldn’t be ring shopping. In fact you should have ended this when his attempts to cheat came to light.
He is both untrustworthy AND immature. If your friend or family member had a bf like him what would you say?
Ultimately it’s up to you but you should go into this knowing that he will cheat again. Do you really want to marry someone like that? He’s going to beg you to stay. He’s going to make empty promises. He knows how to manipulate you and he is doing a good job at it right now. It will be difficult to leave because you love him, but you need to in order to love yourself. Good luck ❤️
It’s obvious he does not prioritize the working on trust or in all honesty your relationship.
Is this the kind of relationship you want? Always on alert to see if he is cheating again?
I’m sorry my dear, you are wasting your time here. If you are seeking a solid foundation for a lifelong adult relationship this is not the guy. He is immature and dishonest. It doesn’t matter how beautifully wrapped lies are, they still rot the foundation at some point.
I’d cut my losses and move on.
Where do you go ?? Out the door and leave this clown.
Unfortunately, like a lot of cheaters, his idea of rebuilding trust is to just work harder to hide his behavior.