Throwaway for no good reason. I’m sure this will be recognizable. If you find this, just tell me and let’s talk about it more.
I’ll just get to the point.. About a month ago, I found out my (28m) boyfriend (31m) of almost 4 years cheated on me multiple times while we were in long distance. The most recent time being about 2 years ago. There’s a lot of context and backstory to this all that’s left my head spinning and It doesn’t help that this is my first really serious committed relationship of this length… and the first time I’ve been cheated on.
If anyone cares to hear the whole story, or at least my side of it, continue to the wall of text below. Otherwise, there’s a TLDR at the bottom.
We lived in different states and met through a mutual friend while I was visiting them. I actually had zero intentions of doing anything like this, but we really did have an instant connection. He made me feel safe and comfortable. Before my week there was over, I ended up staying at his house as much as our mutual friend’s.
Of course there were some red flags… but he was very open and honest about his intentions and situation. He basically told me up front that he’s been friends with benefits with his “straight” best friend and felt that he provided a safe route for this friend to explore his sexuality. He also said that he was already bringing and end to this for a reason I can’t remember and he said that if things got serious between us, that there was no reason at all for me to ever worry (foreshadowing). We both agreed that cheating is causes nothing but pain. And both definitely agreed that we would rather the other be up front and break things up if it came to that. His honesty and upfront communication about it all convinced me that he was genuine about it all.
After I returned home we kept up very consistent and good communication. Phone calls almost nightly and texting throughout the day. I found myself quickly starting to get real feelings for him and he told me he felt the same. We both lived very close to airports that regularly had dirt cheap flights back and forth and both worked jobs where we could change our schedules or take time off often enough to visit each-other at least every few months.
Im not even sure when we started officially dating, but I know we had plenty of conversations about the things we wanted. A real loving and caring relationship. We both agreed that a monogamous relationship would be best in the beginning while we really got to know each other and especially while we were long distance while still being very open to the idea of opening things up with strong communication and mutual understanding in the future. I tend to be more anxiously attached anyways, and it goes without saying that dating in long distance definitely brought some struggles along the way for me so hearing that helped me feel more secure.
All that being said, The first year was still hard for me to truly fully trust him with his best friend. They often spent time together, sometimes alone. And I found myself getting jealous or insecure at times. I’m sure I overreacted to some thing, but undoubtedly under reacted to just as many. Over time though, I got to know this friend very well too and I convinced myself that my fears were unfounded and that I was being irrational.
Fast forward some time and my gut started to try to tell me things were wrong. A white lie here, mismatched stories there.. the occasional big bold faced lies. Hiding things and just generally not treating me with same respect I had felt before. After about a year, we went through a pretty rough period. He was struggling with a growing drinking issue (Not that bad, it was more the health / mental health effects from the amount and frequency) and also started a new job in a new town traveling between work, staying with different family members, and traveling to his home every week. I noticed a drastic change in our communications. Everything seemed forced and I felt like nothing I heard was the “full” truth. Lots of white lies, half truths etc. mostly to avoid phone calls or explain periods without contact but sometimes for some major boundary crossing. And I felt that my attempts to understand the truth (or understand the lies if things didn’t line up) were received by him as prying and monitoring. Which in hindsight, I was struggling with it and I’m sure I was over the top with a lot of things.
It was hard for me to understand why everything seemed so muddy and “secretive”. Even every day mundane stuff. I feared the worst and brought it up multiple times, but our conversations were never good about it. he made me out to feel crazy and controlling and made me feel like I was pushing him away with my anxiety. And I believed him. We would fight in circles and get no where. “You never trust me with anything… This can’t work if you don’t trust me… etc” and I’d retort “the things you do make me not trust you… etc” and it would just get nasty from there. After months of this things got a little better. I tried as hard as I could to ignore my entire body screaming at me that something was definitely not right. And he seemed to be a little more open and honest. But looking back… there were So many small signs and things that just didn’t make sense or line up that I ignored. I’ll probably never know the full extent tbh.
We continued on these ups and downs for a while until his contract at this job was up at the end of that year. For about 6 months we had planned out his move up to me and it was finally time and everything went surprisingly smoothly. We got everything moved in and started our new life together. It was financially challenging for a while because he couldn’t start his new job for over 2 months and I’m not rich but we made it work with some help from his mom.
Then comes the new challenges. We suddenly went from speaking anywhere from daily to weekly to now living together. I should say that my love language is almost entirely physical touch. Cuddling, kissing, sweet talk… you know, the sappy shit. His love language is more acts of service and quality time. So we definitely struggle to show each other love at times. We’ve lived together for almost two years now and we have come a such a huge distance in our communication and showing love to eachother. I genuinely was really starting to feel good, happy, and comfortable before this happened. We still had fights and arguments, but doesn’t everyone?
The bombshell hit me about a month ago. I’m not sure what even made me do it, but I went through his MacBook and iMessage. Really, a part of me never let go of the fact that I for sure knew some stuff happened in the past. I just didn’t know exactly what, but I had a very strong feeling. I searched his best friends name in his iMessage and scrolled down to find a conversation with a different friend of his where he fully admitted to cheating on me in “the most involved actual sexual experience to date with him”. Reading that immediately cut me deep. I immediately confronted him and we’ve half multiple lengthy talks about it. To this day, the biggest thing we have struggled with is our sex life. We’ve talked endlessly around his major struggles with self image issues and anxiety around the bedroom. I can understand how he feels and how it affects him, but it’s still so hard for me. There is a constant “stigma” around sex. We both are horny, but his anxiety around his appearance and performance is actually crippling at times. We kinda cycle between better periods and times where he rarely initiates sex and I feel like I have to pester him into it until he feels obligated into it. Which just makes a terrible experience for both of us. This is a thing we are definitely still working on and I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t affected my self image too. It makes it so hard to feel like he’s attracted to me and wants me when I often feel the last thing he wants is to have sex with me. We’re both can be a little kinky, but most of our sex is vanilla mutual masterbation and It often seems to be pushed off to the last minute and then rushed to get through quickly. I should say we do have sex often, and it’s often good too. But the whole anxiety feelings around it make things volatile and sometimes uncomfortable.
But All of that is to say… when I read that message… the thought of him topping his friend and knowing how much they thoroughly enjoyed that and how non-vanilla that all was… that kills me and hurts so fucking bad. The thing I’ve wanted so badly for so long now was given to somebody else and not me. And knowing, now, that he knew this for 2 years… and remembering the arguments we’ve had where my feelings were used against me… all the effort I put in to get to know this friend and build a friendship with him so that I could learn to trust them. All of that was for nothing because they were doing exactly what he said would never happen. Exactly what I feared for so long and what my gut was telling me all along. And that got used against me, to convince me I was overly anxious. That was a major blow to my self esteem and probably has permanently changed me and my view on relationships. I’ve been up and down since then. Some days are mostly normal, others I can’t help but cry.… If I can get over this thing from the past, should I? I want to, but I can’t help but somtimes feel like I don’t even know who he is anymore. But then I think about how long ago this was and how different things were. It’s just all so confusing…
And On top of all of this, Our lives are pretty intertwined at this point. We both want to work things out and I have really felt a genuine effort from him to work towards that with me. If we did end up breaking up, he would be left without a home and I would be financially wrecked. So that’s another thing weighing on both of our minds even though we haven’t verbalized it…
Maybe i can end this novel on a good note? Or maybe I’m just blind and hopeful.. idk. But we have talked about this a lot. I think we both need some support currently and it’s support that we can’t offer each other because I’m hurt and he’s the one that hurt me. And he feels guilty for that. I honestly believe he has changed tremendously since this happened. We both have. And our conflict resolution and communication is light years ahead of how it was then. Like I said before, I really was feeling more comfortable and excited for our future than I ever have before. But now it’s all so hard to think through. I just don’t know how to get this image out of my head of them in ecstasy, who knows how many times, all while I’ve been trying to get that up to this very day….
TLDR
My boyfriend cheated on me 2 years ago, 2 months before moving states to move in with me. And it was with his best friend whom I’ve had anxiety and worries over since the beginning of our relationship. I didn’t find out until a month ago. I had lingering feelings of something being wrong in the past and really wanted to know the truth so I checked his laptop and found a full admittance to a different friend of his. The cheating itself doesn’t hurt as bad as the years of lying and being made to feel crazy for being suspicious. And all the time waisted building a friendship with his best friend so I could learn to trust them. As well as the image of them having the time of their lives, at least twice but who knows how many times, all while I’ve been struggling with feeling unwanted and unattractive due to our ongoing struggles and anxiety in the bedroom.
Idk what I’m really even asking for. Maybe just for someone to listen and understand me? Or Share some related stories. Or give some advice on how to keep going from here? Idk
Regardless, if anyone took the time to read this entire post, you’re a real one and I really do appreciate that. Just typing this all out has helped me to some extend I believe…
Thanks guys
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* This article was originally published here
