I wouldn’t really say I forgave my partner. More like I’m trying my best to tolerate the situation. But anyways let me start off with some backstory.
Backstory before relationship:
right before the relationship I was in a four month situationship with a man who I lived with. He had been cheating on me/or with me with another partner of 1 year. It was a major shock to my system because I was literally with him 5 days out of the week. I was also in an abusive relationship for 9 months 2 years ago
My current relationship: my partner messaged me on Instagram while he was in another country visiting his mom. We talked for 2 months online, 10 hours a day— it was pretty clear from the start that we both wanted something serious with each other. He finally came back to the states and he lives a couple miles away from me so we started officially dating IRL. Introduced him to my family and he introduced me to his family. After our 1 month (technically 3 months), I went through his phone because he was being suspicious. Turns out he had been lying to me the entire time.
Lied about the timeline when ex #1 ended (said it ended 6 months ago when it was really 1 month). Had been snapchatting ex #2 and had her notifications muted. When he was in the other country, he went to a city to catch up with a friend. He said it was a male friend, but I quickly found pictures of that day with him and another female. They had sent flirty text messages a year ago. I went through his Instagram and saw that he had swiped up on his old coworker with “😍😍😩” and she responded “I need to see more of you in your posts” to which he responded “of course 🤍”.
I was devastated. I packed up my stuff and I left his place. He cried, wrote me letter, literally begged on his knees, told me it was a mistake and that nothing physical ever happened. And that is the truth—- nothing physical happened. So I decided to forgive him and we got back together shortly after.
Not even a week later, I went through his phone and saw that he deleted messages between him and his boys. This is how the conversation went: “where have you been (to bf)” “sorry got caught cheating. Should have learned from you (friend who’s cheating on his gf). They make a couple jokes and then my bf says “it’s hard especially since my old milf coworker wants to hook up” basically insinuating that since he got caught cheating, he has to be careful.
I went ballistic. I cried and he again, went on his knees and begged for forgiveness. He told me he’ll cut off his friends and that he only did it because he wanted to “look cool and be cool” with his friends. We broke up and then I went to pick up the rest of my stuff and to talk to which he explained to me that he’s immature and wasn’t ready for a relationship and that he’s never been in one. He would never cheat on me physically.
I mean I kind of believe him. He’s a really good guy. He’s so compassionate with my family, so sweet to me, never raised his voice, never done anything wrong to me. Always consoled me. I love him more than anything in this world. We look picture perfect together and we’re each others best friends. He has given me password (without me asking) to all of his accounts. Has stopped hanging out with the friends who cheat. Unfollowed/blocked all irrelevant females on all social media.
So why is a part of me struggling? Is it because he betrayed me again? I am constantly, for the past month, fighting my insecurities and anxiety. I feel ugly, unloved, not lovable, and anger. I am so terrified he will cheat on me again—- I don’t even know what to believe. I can’t event tell my own friends. I know he loves me but I don’t know if he’s even loyal to me. I don’t know if I should end this relationship—- this hurts but life without him seems impossible. He’s about to leave for another state in a month for baseball. 4 months of LDR and it’s making me worried. If he cheats on me, how will I know? I would love any advice on what I should think about and what you would do if you were in my shoes. Thank you.
TL;DR: my bf emotionally cheated on me and I don’t know if I can trust him again.