i (19M) am in an exclusive relationship with my (18F) gf of 6 months (we’ve been exclusive and started talking around 9 months ago and i’ve known her for almost a year now). recently i just looked through her phone when she was asleep because i had my doubts whether this was genuine or not and unfortunately saw exactly what i knew i would see, i’ve been cheated on before and she knows this but apparently she doesn’t care, i saw her texting and seeing other guys dating back to when we were still talking (exclusively) and if i was to text a girl, she would get mad at me but now i find out that she was doing the same, right after she turned 18 she immediately got tinder and hinge and ended up going out with a guy on tinder, to a place she loves that she always tells me she’ll take me to but never has. i have no idea what happened as we were on winter break and she never told me anything about it but i just stumbled upon it today. i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t hurt by this but frankly looking at it now (just saw the messages a couple of hours ago) i just don’t care anymore and i can’t seem to look at her without feeling the need to throw up. we always got along very well and there were no signs of anything like this happening although i had my doubts and looked through her phone because of my previous experiences and her mindset somewhat played a part in it too. i found messages of her telling other guys that she loves them and that she had fun on her date which just made me lose all of my interest immediately. how should i handle this? i know quite a bit about her and i think it would be a waste of all this time if i left this hurt and she didn’t, yes while i could be the bigger person i’m not going to do that because i want her to know the feeling too. everything about our relationship was good, i took her on dates, our intimate life was great, and we were looked at as a cute couple. i can’t seem to wrap my head around this, especially her not telling me and then trying to hide it from me when i saw her again. how should i handle this if anyone has an idea besides leaving her (which i plan on) and has anyone been in these same shoes?
edit – first off i just wanna start by saying thank you guys for the responses and dms, i’m trying my best to read through all of them and i appreciate the input, i can see that some people are confused on the timeline and a few other things so lemme explain, i met her in fall 2022 and at first we talked and said we’d only be friends with benefits and no feelings would be involved, then we ended up catching feelings but we felt the same, although she had just gotten out of a relationship around when i met her, so she said she needed time before going back to dating (not sure what this meant tbh we basically were a couple without a label for this time) but i respected it and we didn’t officially start dating until spring 2023. the talking exclusively thing that i mentioned above was something that we BOTH agreed on, come to find out she’s been texting a couple of people that she’s had a past with over the course of our relationship and the summer and while i wasn’t with her, and she clearly tried to hide it.
i see a lot of people saying leave without explanation and i think that’s probably my best choice after thinking it out being more sober, because as a few of you pointed out, i don’t want to go to her level although it’s tempting. i’m also not gonna tell her anything and just wait a few days until i know i’m not gonna make stupid decisions and then end it. see y’all in the gym.
36 comments
> how should i handle this if anyone has an idea besides leaving her (which i plan on)
Stop looking for stupidity and just leave this relationship. There’s already enough drama in life without making more.
Breaking up with her calmly without explaining so much would do the damage you desire. It may not happen immediately but eventually she would realise she lost a good guy while chasing after flukes.
Be the bigger person.
Dump her ASAP, what are you waiting for?
Time to hit the road
Unfortunately, some people are just disgusting human beings.
You will (probably) find someone decent tho. See you at the gym
You are 18, and you have tons of life to live w/out adding drama or bs intentionally – move on
Breaking up with her in a mature way will piss her off way more than some dramatic thing. Don’t stoop to her level. Don’t even tell her what you know, she’ll be wondering what happened for months.
Just leave her. You’re going to look like a fool when you admit you snooped through her phone, no matter what you found.
Just say “you know why I’m done with you” and be done with her.
Creating drama to try and hurt her will only make you look bad and give her a narrative to tell herself (he was a jerk after all, no surprise I cheated on him, he deserved it). You win nothing.
Breaking up with her without the drama like a mature person will make her feel worse. You don’t feel like it but being the bigger person is the right play here.
When she asks why, you can keep it very simple: “Now that I know you well, I’ve come to realize that we aren’t a good fit and that our values don’t align. I deserve a better person and I’m confident I can do better. This isn’t working out and there’s nothing you can say at this point to change that. I wish you luck and hope that you can grow from this. Bye now.”
Don’t mention anything about finding out she cheated. She won’t feel bad about it – she doesn’t care about cheating.
Just *reject* her.
Tell her “I’ve found someone else who I’d rather be with, so I’m break up with you.”
It’s so hard to read, does your school have paragraphs?
Just ghost her
So you and her were both talking to other people early on when you were supposed to be exclusive or am I misunderstanding?
I mean, when did this actually happen? Your timeline is confusing and hard to follow. If this happened at the start of your relationship and you didn’t find anything after then, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal?
Never waste your time getting even with people that are behind you.
More or less just say “I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore.” No need for additional information.
Be the bigger person – it translates better to your wellbeing in the long run
If she cheated on you and is still doing it and you’re not willing to work things out, just break up with her and find someone else, she clearly has.
Like other people are saying – don’t do anything nasty, just dump her and don’t even provide her with an explanation.
I don’t know why people waste time making these posts. Just leave them and get on with your life.
If you don’t trust someone enough that you feel like you need to invade their privacy by going through their phone, you need to separate. Period.
Cheaters do not care. They cheat because they are insecure and they expect you to not do the same because they couldn’t handle it. You’ve heard of people being confronted for cheating and they deny and turn the tables. The absolute BEST way in my opinion from last experiences – absolutely hurt them to the core by not telling them you
Know. Tell her you are done and don’t want her anymore. People lie for themselves but those insecure people can’t handle rejection which is why they look for validation outside of the relationship in the first place. If you truly wanna win and teach this girl a lesson while also making it clear you call the shots, don’t mention the cheating at all. Literally tell her you lost feelings and aren’t interested. Be cold and different. It’s almost like a light switch flips and these people not only realize within a millisecond that they ducked up but it’s an internal obstAcle course they have to jump thru having to accept they were rejected and not enough. That’s what you do.
Just walk away. Ghost her and move on. No confrontation or drama. It’ll drive her crazy.
I’ve been in the same position, but worse, I let it happen again and again. 5 years until I left. Only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner! Leave now while you have your dignity
Two bits of advice for you:
Leave this relationship.
Learn to use paragraphs like an adult, you are 19 now.
I’m glad you’re going to leave, that’s the right move, but finding some way to hurt her on the way out is not. Don’t willingly give away your dignity and decency for a moment of fleeting satisfaction. The thing you do in addition to leaving is seek some therapy to heal. That nausea you feel when looking at her is your body’s way of telling you that you have betrayal trauma to work through, not just from this but from being cheated on before as well. Address what elements of your childhood made you willing to get into a relationship with someone whose outlook you considered to be red flags; you still chose her after seeing those warning signs, and the why behind it is for YOU to work out so you don’t keep stepping into the same patterns over and over again moving forward. You are so young, and if you can get to know yourself like this now, you’ll be so much more on track than most people at your age, and save yourself a lot of heartache. Hurting her won’t do that, it will just reinforce a negative idea of yourself moving forward, and compound your relational/attachment issues. Your best revenge is living your best life without her, and without stooping down to a lower level in the process. Dump her, work on yourself, find someone worthy of your love and BE worthy of theirs. She’ll get her karma, but that’s a her problem and none of your business. Best wishes, OP.
Hurting her won’t make you feel any better, bud. Just leave. Send her screenshots of the messages and a text that says “I don’t date cheaters” and block her.
Attempting to hurt her back will just backfire on you and you’ll either end up more hurt or looking stupid. You haven’t even known her an entire year, cut your losses and move on.
Just leave man. It isn’t worth the heartache, I would know.
secretly delete your contact info, your messages, your pictures, and everything related to you from her phone. leave her without saying a word. block her on social media. and move on! there’s gonna be a gi who wants to be strictly monogamous and will be only focused on YOU. she’ll come soon. give yourself time
Bro you are just 19 not 39 with two kids. Break up and move on
Just text her hey I found out you were going on dates after we were exclusive, this is a deal breaker for me and I’m not interested in debating it or excusing it and giving you a second chance, wish things had been different and I wish you the best, hopefully you’ll be more honest for the next guy.
Take the high road and just bounce.
Bro, y’all are talking like y’all have been married for 10 years with three kids🤣 this is a high school relationship gone bad
Y’all are both kids with many opportunities ahead of you. Call it a day and move on.
The best 2 pieces of dating advice from my dad:
1 – “The best revenge is no revenge”. Having a negative and grand response to their awful treatment will only give them satisfaction that you cared about them if you’re that upset. Break it off, cut them out of your life, and go forward. They’ll be more hurt by seeing you flourish.
2 – “If you don’t heal from your wounds, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t even cut you”. Going forward in relationships OP, don’t carry a lack of trust and paranoia onto your new partners. It will prevent you from keeping a meaningful relationship and it’s unfair to a new partner to expect them to put up with it. Please remember that your next relationships are not your soon-to-be-ex, and they deserve trust and respect unless they do something to lose it. Communicate your fears and learn how to best communicate your feelings with any new partners. It’s cliché, but knowing how to communicate feelings, expectations, etc is truly how you build a great relationship. Best of luck, op. Keep your head up.
You’re fucking 19. Dump her ass and move on and stop trying to get into committed relationships at your age. Focus on yourself. Find your purpose and worry about yourself. Don’t worry about women. That will come in time.
There is a smart way and a stupid way to handle this.
Smart way: leave. It’s over. Move on with your life.
Stupid way: literally anything else.
You want her to hurt as much as you do, so you want to do something stupid. It will not work. She will not hurt the way you hurt. You will just risk getting into trouble for doing something to hurt her.
You aren’t the first person to be cheated on. Leave and grow as a person. And the first part of becoming a better person is not doing something stupid out of revenge.
Be smart. Just leave.