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Hello, I ( 25 F) need advice from random strangers on the Internet who won’t be biased. I have been with my boyfriend (23 M) for more than a year. We have both been in past relationships. He was in a 5 year high school relationship and my longest one has been 1 year. I can honestly say we both love each other and have never experience this feeling with anyone else. We both get jealous when thinking of each other being with other people in the past. Due to this, there are trust issues.
At the beginning of our relationship, he sent his ex a message on her birthday. The jist of it was “Happy Birthday. I’m sorry I ever hurt you. You are perfect and pure the way you are. Please don’t change for anyone. Goodbye”. He says he sent it because she wouldn’t stop bothering him and didn’t want to risk her going to his parents so he thought this was the easiest way to shut her down. I was hurt because he didn’t tell me. I found out days later on my own because I went through his apple watch (wrong of me I know). If I hadn’t found that message, we wouldn’t have any issues.
I wanna make it clear, I do not equate the message to whatever I did myself. I also did not try to hold a grudge or want to get even. I was just hurt with the message and that’s it. Just proving the info so everyone knows what kinds of issues we have had.
I forgave him. My love for him outweighed the pain I felt. I would rather be with him and forgive than not forgive and break up. I will be honest I have started fights over the message and not believed his loyalty to me. Bad arguments. A lot of judgement from me. This brings me to present time.
I haven’t hung out with any friends since May 2022. I have been partly busy with work and life, I’m bad at making plans, I have anxiety when it comes to going out, and I only see my boyfriend because he is my best friend.
A friend of mine (23 F) asked me to catch up and go and get drinks. They were the one who asked me and I thought why not. We had been close friends before. Point is, we went out and had a couple of drinks. We drank the same and yeah I was tipsy, but not blackout drunk. She invited me in to meet her cats and made a move on me. I was shocked in the moment and didn’t know what to do. I have been hit on by the opposite gender so I know what to do to reject any advances. But with my own friend and the same gender, I wasn’t sure what to do. I let it happen and I felt pressured to do something more explicit with it. She was on the receiving end. I hated it. I didn’t like it and I didn’t know how to say no. I was frozen. I left immediately. They texted me to make sure I got home safe and that was it.
I felt guilty for days. I wasn’t sure how to tell my boyfriend. I told him yesterday because I thought it was better I tell him than for me to take the secret to the grave or even worse have him find out by someone (I am now getting threatening messages from this friend’s family). I don’t care about my friendship with my friend anymore. I don’t wish to fix that or see why they sent their family to me.
I don’t know what to do. I love my boyfriend. I’m 90% if this had happened with a male friend he would’ve broken up with me on the spot. But because it was with a girl, it’s different and I think it’s rooted in his cultural beliefs. My boyfriend is still responding to my messages, but just to yell at me and say to leave him alone. He is still sharing his location with me. He turned it off last night, but I woke up and it was on. He is just not answering my calls.
I feel guilty. I regret everything. I have hurt the one person in my life I have ever loved. I understand cheating is the worst thing someone can do. I hate myself. Do I give my boyfriend time? Should I stop contacting him? We always say we would never let the other person go (during arguments and when I would let him cool off he would always say ‘why did you let me leave’), but I don’t know what the right way to start is now.
TDLR: My friend kissed me and I let it happen because I felt pressured. My boyfriend is hurt because I confessed. We have had trust issues in the past and now I am a hypocrite and cheater. I like men, not woman.
7 comments
It honestly sounds like you two should break up regardless. The lack of trust in the relationship is toxic. Neither of you is really prepared to support a health relationship.
At this stage you apologized and should give him some space. If you weren’t assaulted you shouldn’t make excuses for your choices (unless you felt coerced in which case you should report it). Make an apology and let him know you’ll be there if he is ready to talk. Then make an action plan on how you are going to build yourself back up. Show him through actions that you don’t want to be the kind of person who can do these things. Seek professional help for your anxiety, cut contact with this friend (also why would her family be harrassing you about this and how did they get involved? super strange), consider going sober etc. Make these changes not to get back with him but to show him that you are committed to improving yourself.
> If I hadn’t found that message, we wouldn’t have any issues.
I wanna make it clear, I do not equate the message to whatever I did myself.
sure.
>I let it happen and I felt pressured to do something more explicit with it.
sure sure.
You arent ready for a relationship, you easily get offended from messages and hold it in, you’re easily coerced into doing things that you know is wrong, etc.
I think it’s imperative that you get yourself into therapy.
This relationship sounds like it has been unhealthy from the beginning. Snooping through his messages and bringing up buried hatchets as weapons in arguments demonstrates you are probably not ready for a relationship. It sounds like the trust is gone on his end but he’s not prepared to fully end things, which isn’t healthy either. If you stay together I suspect these issues are only going to spiral further and end up creating deep resentment and mutual mistrust. It’s only been a year, it really shouldn’t be this turbulent and difficult so early on.
Therapy will also help you process the situation with your friend. It’s not totally clear how consensual the activity was, that’s something you can process with a professional.
This is really ambiguously worded and honestly kind of confusing. I can’t tell if this was an assault situation where you were coerced, or if you just felt bad about the whole thing and your response to this was to be sexual perhaps due to past stuff or what. It’s definitely true that sometimes we have a ‘freeze’ response when something like this happens, but it’s kind of worded here like she didn’t coerce you but this was your response specifically because you didn’t know what to do since it was the same sex.
Yeah nah. U physically cheated on him. Be it a girl or not.
The fact that u got drunk like that is another red flag. Drunk enough to cheat. That’s not ok.
As ur bf I’d be ur ex bf.
U give hi. Space and let him decide what he wants to do. If it’s such where he does give it another go if advice u to no longer drunk. Like at all. And prob not go out without ur bf like at all. If ur not really willing to do those things then just break up and tell him ur sorry.
It sounds like you’ve done all that you can. What’s left is to just hope your bf is foolish enough to give you a second chance. Leave him alone until he reaches out to you.