TL;DR : my boyfriend lied about a period of time during our breakup, he was actually dating another girl the entire time, even though he was trying to win me back during it, I am now confused and hurt but love him.
Overall, our past has been pretty messy. We began dating 3 years ago and broke up a few times in between, with the longest stretch being about 1.3 years. During this time we were in contact as friends, and he was trying to win me back almost the whole time. The reason we ended things was other girls, and every time we tried to make the relationship work, I’d find out about another one he slept with, pushing me away again.
Anyways, one of the girls hurt me more than the rest and she was always a constant issue between us, but I had thought the entire time she was more of a hookup/ casual thing and didn’t get why she even stuck around, as he made it clear atleast to me, he only seriously wanted me.
I have just found out, that he was lying and that they were actually in a relationship the entire 1.5 years he was saying he wanted me back and would do anything for me. To me, if he really loved and wanted only me as much as he said, he wouldn’t have done this because he knew it risked losing me forever.
I already struggle a lot with what he has done to me in the past, which I don’t go into detail here, and finding out him and this girl were actually “in love” and in a relationship, regardless of if he meant it to her or not, hurts, considering he was then playing us both at this time, i feel as if it taints that entire 1.5 years of memories with him, i feel lied to and manipulated. If I knew they were dating back then, I would have left completely, but he took that option from me by hiding it.
My issue now is our relationship currently has been fantastic, I do love him more than I have ever loved someone, he is everything I want in a partner and proves he loves me more than anything daily, but I get that sick to my stomach feeling every time I think about it, which is almost daily, and it is really effecting my mental health. Do people get over things like this? Can I really consider it “lying” if we weren’t together at that time? I forgive him, but are we able to forget?