u/ExtensionDeparture20

This is going to sound like an episode of Jeremy Kyle written by someone with a head injury, so bear with me. I’m trying to add everything I can.
Me (23F) and my boyfriend (24M) have been together since October 2024. About 4 months into the relationship, he cheated on me with a girl he was training with for work. They kissed on a work night out, in the disabled toilet because apparently nowhere else existed. She also had a boyfriend. Lovely stuff all round.
I found the messages, shared them with her boyfriend. Her and my boyfriend kept texting afterwards. As far as I know they never met up again, and she moved to a different department. I chose to forgive him and, honestly, since then he's actually been an amazing boyfriend. I doubted it at first. I had been treated horribly in my past so I expected that to be the same. People have told me he's defended me on nights out, turned girls down, spoken highly of me etc. So I tried to move forward.
Fast forward to this year.
I became friends with my brother's best friend. Completely platonic. The most exciting conversations we had were about Shrek (my favourite movie, I’m obsessed) and his college work. Riveting stuff. I met his girlfriend multiple times. He met my boyfriend. Nobody was sneaking around. Our partners knew we were friends and texted regularly, Nobody was sending secret heart emojis. We were basically two people discussing absolutely nothing and somehow it felt good to have a male friend. Someone I could get opinions from a male perspective, if me and my boyfriend ever fell out. Not that I’d ever tell him that because I don’t tend to open my relationship up to others eyes.
A couple of weeks ago I failed two classes for the second time. I was devastated, I had put my all into these classes, I felt like I was a failure. I struggle with depression and, stupidly, I drank way too much because my coping mechanisms are apparently sponsored by alcohol. They always have been to be honest. (This is not an excuse, I’m just saying it how I remember).
My brother, his friend and I were drinking in the local pub after I begged them both to meet me. We ended up back at my house. My boyfriend was there and came out my room to sit with us for a while. My brother eventually left. My boyfriend went to bed.
At some point it was just me and my brother's friend, he had told me he was struggling to get a taxi as he lives nearly 30 mins away and it was a Saturday. He was trying to get me to talk because he knew I wasn't okay. I remember crying my eyes out. Then I remember falling asleep. Like I genuinely remember drifting off.
The next morning I wake up in my bed, shoes still on, last nights outfit still on, not half as attractive as it looked on me at first.
My boyfriend had gone home, unbeknownst to me.
After about 20 phone calls from me wondering if he'd been abducted, he told me he'd left because he came downstairs during the night and saw me leaning on my friend's shoulder looking up at him "like I was about to kiss him."
That's it.
No actual kiss.
No messages.
No flirting.
Just apparently a look.
My brothers friend had sent me a text at 4.45am, around 15 minutes after my brother had left, to let me know he got home okay.
But yet I immediately felt awful and removed my brother's friend from everything even though, at that point, I didn't actually know what I'd supposedly done.
When I got to my boyfriend's house later, after hours of begging him if we could talk, he was crying and telling me I'd cheated on him.
And here's where my brain breaks.
I've never cheated on anyone in my life. Not even an ex who cheated on me constantly. Weekly. Yet after hearing it over and over I started wondering if I'd somehow done something terrible without realising it.
But a part of me can't shake the feeling that the guy who actually cheated is now very comfortable putting me in the "cheater" category too.
Maybe I'm being unfair.
Maybe I'm missing something.
Maybe I accidentally developed telepathic flirting while unconscious.
I don't know.
I love him. I genuinely do. We've also just booked a very expensive holiday together which is terrible timing because relationship crises should really respect people's financial schedules.
Am I being manipulated into feeling guilty for something that didn't happen, or am I completely blind to how bad this looks?