My BF cheated, I need help moving on.

Apologies in advance if this ends up being too long.

I started seeing my seeing my BF back in mid-November '14. We both go to the same university in Seattle and met on ******. I wasn't looking for a relationship or, in fact I pretty much religiously used ****** at the time to find (a) hook-ups, (b) friends and (c) hook-ups. It's just who I was at the time. I didn't have many friends at that time so when we started hanging out shortly after he sent me a message through his picture-less profile, I thought I had found a really good friend — not a BF. Fast forward to February of this year, after week's of spending every day, hours a day together we finally decided to go official.

Him cheating isn't the first time we've had a problem. We've had one other, and that was him getting back on ****** about a month after we went official. I got a text from an old friend I didn't speak to much since I deleted ****** in the end of November. He had seen my BF on my snap stories frequently and simply asked if he was my BF or not. I almost didn't reply, but simply told him yes in reply. I was heartbroken when he replied telling me he thought he might be on ****** looking to cheat, and then stopped replying. I didn't know if he was fucking around with me for some reason, or serious. I made a fake the next day and found him on it (actually, to be exact, he found *me* and messaged the fake looking for nudes). I confronted him about it that night, and we resolved it then and there and were able to move past it. I like to think that this somehow managed to make our relationship stronger as we were able to be more open with each other. It wasn't until that night that I actually was comfortable being open with him about my past struggles with depression, and how my practitioner recommended I get on antidepressants again.

Everything continued on fine for a few months, until the week before finals at university where he went with four or five coworkers to one of his coworkers apartment (let's call him A), who lived with his BF (let's call him C). He and I text every second we're apart, but that day he had been taking really long to reply and been really short. He skipped all his classes that day to be with his coworkers, and dropped off the grid at 7pm just after telling me he would be at A's apartment. He told me they'd be having a little party since it was his last time seeing them until next fall, so I thought I'd let him be. I did, until close to midnight when I got really worried. I was at our late-night Starbucks doing some cramming before my final the next day and called him. He didn't pick up so I left a voicemail just saying I was worried and checking-in, and to call me if he's ok. I tried again in about 5 or 10 minutes and got an answer, but not from him. Either A or C answered (there was one other guy there, and I know his voice, it wasn't him) who picked up. He just chuckled, asked if it was me, and said yeah he's passed out. I didn't know what to think, but know my BF likes to drink with friends so him passing out this early on the occasion wasn't a huge shock. I was just hurt I hadn't heard from him in so long. A few hours later, at 4am, I woke up from my restlessness to two texts from my BF; the first reading that he was so sorry, and the second saying he just got back to his place.

The part that creeped me out about this was that the next day I received an Instagram Direct from C. It was him in the bathroom shirtless saying how cute I was with a wink face. I was really creeped knowing him and A were committed, and he knew me and my BF were too. I spoke to my BF the next time I saw him and showed him it, and he said they were still together but broken up/taking a break. I was relieved but still creeped out.

A few days later, I found myself in my BF's room with his roommate and a friend of his. I was on his bed playing with his iPad. I know this next part includes wrong-doing of mine, and I fully acknowledged that to him after this and apologized as I know this showed I might not have trusted him. I opened his iMessage app when he wasn't near me, and the first thing I did was open the messages from C. I was curious why they'd be texting if they just met a few nights ago and weren't even friends. I scroll up and bam, a message from C saying "Did you like it when I rimmed you?" My heart started racing and I instantly felt like tears. Another one saying "Remember when I stuck it in a little? was when I went overboard. It was just the fact that my love, my BF, the first BF I trusted enough to give my heart to fully and unconditionally, would do this and even reply to these messages saying he's been "especially horny this week" and questioning whether it was bad or not, saying "Is it bad I have a bf?" To top it off, he asked C if A joined in to rim him to, to which C replied yes and that my BF was all over him.

I spoke to him about it then, and ended up leaving him to be on my own for a few hours. We spoke through text and he told me he didn't mean the messages but that they were out of frustration as he thought I was talking to him too after I showed him the IG Direct and he didn't mean it to happen. He said he was much too drunk (he has a scar from the night too, from hitting his heard according to his friends) so I feel like that part is truthful. I feel like it was just him getting too drunk and his coworker/coworkers (ex?) bf both took advantage of him. At one point he even said that some of his friends mentioned that them taking advantage of him might've been rape (no, I'm not getting into that...). The part that baffles me the most, and just adds to the pain is that his ex (also an ex of mine, who I was friends with after we split and then proceeded to give up that friendship to be with my current BF and make him happy) also cheated on him, which is why they broke up. I just don't know how someone could feel that pain but then go and put that exact pain on someone else they love.

The last week we spent together was the hardest, but it lead to us being more open with each other. Not immediately though, for two or three days after I didn't know how to talk to him, sometimes even look at him. But we moved past it quickly and then our day came where we had to separate for summer. We're still fully committed, but apart from each other until late-September. The day I left to go home I sent him a long text I had been holding back. I was too scared, he was good friends with A. But I knew if we were going to be together he couldn't be talking to A or C, at all. He told me he'd do anything and agreed, and we quickly changed the subject. I just felt wrong asking him to end a friendship, but knew I'd never move past it with A or C in the picture ever again.

A month after that happened, here we are. I still think about what happened everyday, and am still so hurt. Not as much upon finding out, or in the days after. But hurt. I just fear bringing it up to him (that I'm not over it) because (a) we're so far apart, I don't know how/when to talk to him about it and (b) I've already rehashed it what I feel is too many times. But I just get scared because I feel like he still talks to A, and I see he likes A's and C's pictures on Instagram to this day. I made it clear I wouldn't be comfortable if there was anything between them. Am I just paranoid? What do I do? Am I asking too much of the one I've loved so much and trusted with my heart to stop talking to the people who crushed my heart? I always told my self I wouldn't be able to be in a relationship with someone if they cheated, but it's so hard, much harder than I thought. I feel like breaking up is the only to move on but at the same time I feel it's so unnecessary. I still love him through all this, and want to be with him. I just don't know how to overcome the pain while being with him and then fear the pain I know I'll feel if I do leave him. I don't know exactly what I'm looking for out of writing this, other than to vent and maybe some life advice. This isn't my first relationship, or my first time being broken hearted. But I can say it is the first time I've been in love with someone and I just really need help to move past this. I keep feeling like I had to have failed him somewhere for him to go and do this to me or that I'm the reason this happened and just keep blaming myself for the pain even though he's told me over again it's nothing to do with the person I am.

 

Thanks.

It's just that even though we've been together for only a few months, and seeing each other for 7 or however many months, I've never been so close to someone as I have him. When we first met he was still in the closet to his family, the night before I was leaving uni to go home for summer he called me and told me he told his entire family and told them all about myself and how happy I make him. He kept saying even months before we were going home that he wanted to come out to his family, and it was never about himself but about me. He wanted to do it because he seemed to have felt I wasn't happy with his status of being semi-out, and just knowing that he did that for me and not himself makes me feel like he is very serious about us being together, even through what's happened in the past.

Am I wasting time trying to be with him after the dating app scenario, and now him cheating? I trusted him before all that and now after that, the trust is still there but definitely not as great as it once was. He told me that because of what happened when he was drunk before, he never wants to get drunk without me. I know he's trying to remedy everything and repair the damage, but I just don't know if the damage that's been done is too much for me to move on.

 

I never even thought about the fact he didn't come clean about the app nor the cheating none of that phased me that he had hidden that from, though given I didn't give him much of a chance to talk to me about it before finding out for myself. I still feel like he never would've told me though.

I really do appreciate your advice, and I really want to keep trying to make our relationship work. It's just I know I'm at the point where I have to start being selfish and start thinking of myself before him, rather than the other way around as that's how it's always been. I'm just both lost and scared because I love him so much and spend literally all my time with him, and wouldn't want to do that with anyone else, but am so afraid of getting hurt again. And I'm scared of ending it when I feel like everything's going so smoothly now but also not ending it and being so heartbroken once again. Sorry about all the venting.

Thanks again so much for writing to me.