I (19f) suspect/know my partner (m21) is cheating. What do I do now?

I should probably start with a little context. Me and my boyfriend met on Tinder, about 8 months ago, and ever since we met it was clear as day we liked each other. We started dating after one month, and got to know each other for real. As a couple, I believe it is quite normal to discuss subjects such as past relationships, views on trust/love/loyalty and certain boundaries, so we never had any secrets or held back when it came to talking about these things. At least, so I thought. My boyfriend used to have not only Tinder, but apps such as Hinge and Bumble as well. I personally have only used Tinder, so that is the one I am familiar with. I know for a fact Tinder takes your profile out of the ‘swiping carousel’ for other people on the app if you are inactive for a longer period of time, so you only appear when you have been recently active. When we started dating, we both made sure to delete the app off our phones, but my boyfriend forgot to completely delete or at least change some settings when deleting (is what he told me). On our holiday trip to visit his dad in the States, he told me in full honesty someone had sent him a DM on Instagram, stating they came across his profile on Tinder and that’s where they got his IG handle from. Later, he even showed me a second, but different DM, also saying something along that line. I was completely weirded out, because I just thought: “How were they even able to see his profile in the first place?” I asked my boyfriend if he knows how that could happen, but he claims he has no idea, and he fully deleted his Tinder right after sitting next to me to make sure I saw.

Obviously, this made me feel uneasy, and I couldn’t shake the feeling something wasn’t right here, but my boyfriend has been nothing but a perfect and trustworthy boyfriend so far, so I kinda forced myself not to think too much of it, and just move on.

Sadly, this is not where the story ends. Not even a couple days back from our trip, his account appeared on a friend of a friends (whom I’ll call J for now) Bumble feed. My friend J made sure to send me a video screen recording showing his full profile with all the pictures, telling me she was sorry to inform me but couldn’t keep quiet (which I truly appreciate) and had to tell me. My heart sunk as I looked at the profile, and saw that all the details matched perfectly with not only my boyfriend, but also his previous other dating app bio’s. I just knew it was his profile, because I had seen it before, just on a different platform. J had also told me his profile already popped up after, give or take, 10 swipes, which means he *should’ve* been kind of active on the app. I just couldn’t believe what I saw, but thanked her for her honesty and effort anyway, and told her I would confront him when he would get back home from work that evening. I had already sent the video screen recording of the profile to my boyfriend, asking if he would care to explain why he thought it would be necessary to delete his entire Tinder profile, but it would be perfectly fine to keep his Bumble profile up. I also asked why it showed up to J’s friend’s swipe carousel anyway, since he shouldn’t have used the app for over 7 months at least. I was weirdly calm, and all my messages were polite and not attacking in any way.

When my boyfriend was done working, he responded to my texts somewhat along the line of: “For f\*cks sake. I don’t know how they were able to see my profiles, I swear I haven’t used those, except for Tinder when we deleted my account together. I would never cheat on you.” I just told him we would talk about it once he would get home.

We didn’t even get into an argument; it was just him yelling at me, being offended, when he got home. I can see why it would piss you off, as both a cheater being caught redhanded as a perfectly innocent boyfriend who does nothing but try to make you happy, so his reaction did not give away whether he was guilty or not at all for me. I just sat there, trying to explain how it is kind of hard to ignore simple facts and app algorithms (if you don’t use Bumble for over 30 days, your profile disappears from the swiping carousel for others. For Tinder, this is 7 days) and blindly trust his word. He just couldn’t explain how it happened, on both Tinder and later Bumble as well.

The things that make this situation the hardest for me are the two following notes:

\- Lately I have also received a DM request on Instagram from a stranger, claiming they saw my Tinder profile and wanted to chat. I have NOT used Tinder in those full 7 months, so I was really confused. I made sure to turn off my account visibility for others when I wanted to delete the app from my phone when we had started dating, so it would NOT appear in the swiping carousel. I am sure they saw my dating profile though, because they quoted me on some weird details I had in my Tinder bio. (“Hey, I know you from Tinder. Are you still looking for someone to go \*fun activity one\* and \*fun activity two\* with?”) This freaked me out so much I immediately downloaded the app again to delete my whole profile. This made me feel like it genuinely could’ve been out of my boyfriend’s control; the messages on IG he received and being visible on the app to others.

\- My boyfriend is basically 24/7 with me, because we live quite close to each other and my parents don’t mind me staying over at his for most of the week. He wakes up with a giant smile when he knows I am there laying next to him, he dedicates every bit and piece of time, love and effort into me/our relationship for the whole day and falls asleep again, curled up like a little baby against me in bed at night. Furthermore, sadly his dad has cheated on his mom, which led to their divorce. My boyfriend knows and *has seen* what cheating can do (and ruin). Even his last ex cheated on him as well, unfortunately. He would be the last person I’d ever expect to cheat, especially since we are so happy together (I think).

I come from a family of scientists, and ignoring facts, statistics, algorithms (whatever it is called) does NOT feel right, but at the same; I feel like I should still trust my boyfriend on his word regardless. So far he hasn’t done anything suspicious ever regarding cheating. We have “moved on”, but it still doesn’t sit right with me. Are there any of you that have been through a similar situation and could spare some advice?