I [20f] found out my boyfriend [24M] had been cheating on me. How do I forgive him? What should I do?
I (20f) found out one month ago today that my boyfriend (24m) had been cheating on me. I had never looked through his phone but I had this weird feeling that something was wrong. He was kissing me less on the day I went to visit him, and when he did kiss me it just felt different. While he was napping I looked through his phone. I went to his instagram first to see if he had been dming any other girls. I didn’t find anything but when I went to his search I found a bunch of different girls. I am not an insecure person, I chalked it up to them being girls from his high school or something. I know I’ve looked up guys I’ve graduated with. I put his phone back and decided I shouldn’t be looking through his phone. I let it get to me and I looked through his phone again. I opened snap chat and realized he had been snapping at least 7 other girls. All the saved photos were naked pictures they had each sent back and forth. I looked at the dates and realized he had started snapping all of the girls starting on Tuesday (I found out that Sunday). I was sick to my stomach.
Skip to now, we are back together but I am really struggling with it. He has made many promises and changes. He stopped smoking weed, he got a therapist, he sends me a ss anytime he snaps someone who isn’t me, and he has started praying, attending church, and using writing and the gym as an output.
As the weeks have gone on I have felt a plethora of feelings. From anger, to sadness, helplessness, jealousy, numbness, resentment, I have felt it all. I want to forgive him because of everything we had before I found out. I am worried that this resentment will keep growing and I will hurt him. I’m not a hateful person and I don’t want to become one.