24F struggling to rebuild trust with 23M boyfriend after repeated online betrayal and explicit messages
My boyfriend (23M) and I (24F) have been together for years and have a child together, so this situation feels really complicated emotionally.
Recently I found old Reddit/messages where he was talking sexually to random people/couples and even sending explicit pictures of me without my knowledge or consent. Some of the messages also involved wanting to meet up with people. He says nothing physical ever happened, but reading everything honestly made me feel sick and emotionally disconnected from him.
This also isn’t technically the first time I’ve caught him in things like dating sites, adult chats, inappropriate messaging, etc. We’ve had conversations before where he promised to stop and do better, so I think this reopened a lot of old hurt and trust issues for me.
At the same time, I want to be fair and honest and say I haven’t been perfect either. I’ve also done untrusting/toxic things in the relationship out of insecurity, anxiety, hurt, and constantly feeling suspicious. So I don’t want to paint this as “he’s evil and I’m innocent,” because our relationship has definitely become unhealthy in different ways over time.
Right now I just feel emotionally confused. One minute I love him and want comfort from him, and the next I feel distant and almost like I don’t know who he is anymore. We even had sex after all of this came out, which honestly made me feel even more emotionally confused because physically we’re close but mentally I still feel hurt and disconnected.
To his credit, he has been apologizing and taking accountability more than I expected. He told me he hates what he did, that he made me feel betrayed/not enough, and that he wants to actually change instead of hiding from his behavior anymore. I asked him to stay at his grandpa’s for a few days so I could process everything, and he respected that.
What confuses me is he keeps saying things like:
- “This isn’t me”
- “I don’t know what got into me”
- “I need to find myself again”
But part of me struggles with that because if this has happened multiple times, then isn’t it part of him in some way?
I’m not trying to immediately break up, but I also don’t know how I’m supposed to act normal, hug/kiss him the same, or feel emotionally safe right now after seeing all of those messages and pictures.
I guess I’m asking:
- Has anyone rebuilt trust after repeated online betrayal like this?
- Is feeling emotionally distant/confused normal after finding things like this?
- How do you know if someone is truly remorseful vs just guilty because they got caught?
- Can relationships become healthy again after both people have damaged trust in different ways?