Struggling to decide whether to stay after being lied to repeatedly
Just to preface, this story will be very long. I appreciate any of you that read through all of this. Looking for space to share everything I’ve been through. Please be kind in the comments.
I (29F) and my bf (43) have been involved for a year and a half now. Our relationship started when we were with other people (I know, great start). We met at the gym. He confessed feelings for me and I had confessed feelings for him. Later on that month, I broke up with my now ex. He left his wife shortly after, moved out, they are now divorced. He didn’t leave her for me. He left her because it was un happy but unfortunately he cheated on her with me. Not something I am proud of. I have full regret. No physical cheating was done before he moved out but it was still very much wrong. It was an emotional affair. It was a disgusting thing to do. I don’t wanna get too deep into that, but I just want to say that that was a mistake. I made a mistake and have done the work to understand how i got to where i did and what lead me to involve myself with him. That mistake is not a reflection of who I am.
Moving on, a few months into us being involved, he told me that he was dealing with gried of his previous marriage and wife. he needed to heal. I completely understood, even though it hurt. I would say this lasted around 2 to 3 months where we were on this break. We were still communicating and we were still having sex. We were not together, but we were not fully out of the picture. He didn’t owe me loyalty. I didn’t owe him it. Things got very unhealthy. There was a lot of back-and-forth. He would say he can’t do this and needed to heal so that he could come back and be a better partner, and I would say I need space because I felt that he made me into a casual partner and that’s not what I wanted. I tolerated that behavior as I was lonely at the time. Was grieving my ex and also the recent passing of my grandma. I told him I needed space as I was unhappy he respected it. few days later, he reaches out to me saying that he’s starting to feel better. He had been in therapy at the time, still is. He got on anxiety medication and antidepressants and felt his capacity was going up. I give him a chance. I got excited, it was everything I wanted to hear. To be loved and wanted.
Fast forward 4 months, we are official things have gone very well. We talk about birth control. I go to get IUD, I had complications and ended up at the ER to get it removed. They checked for STDs. I came out positive for chlamydia. I had gotten tested a few months before that during summertime. It came out negative. So I knew that he had to have slept with someone because he only person I slept with. I confronted him. He tells me he slept with someone during summertime. He told me it happened once he felt guilty and that was that. I had a hard time with the story. Had a hard time believing in it because I had seen that she liked his photos even after that my period that he said they were sleeping together. But would say when he ended it with her she was nice about it and that he if ever wanted to try in the future again she would be interested. Anyways, I tried to move past it. My mental health started to go down over the months. I was ruminating a lot, something felt off. I expressed this to him and he suggested couples therapy.
We go to couples therapy and it was an intense first session. He was definitely on the hot seat and felt some kind of way the next day. He admitted that he slept with her more than once he slept with her a few times over a time span of a few weeks. I was pissed, I felt betrayed because I stayed thinking that it happened when we didn’t owe each other loyalty. Even though he gave me an STI and I was disgusted by that I tried to move on. I break up with him after he tells me. Things became very unhealthy and tumultuous. We are yelling at one another, I was sobbing, I just couldn’t understand how he cheated on me (a cheater cheating again, how naive). I wanted know every single detail of what happened. I still couldn’t get the timeframe out of my mind, and I kept questioning and pushing he eventually admitted that he had sex with her shortly after we decided to make things official. According to him, he slept with her three times. The first time was right before I told him I needed to step away, the second time was right after we made it official and the third time was a week after that. He said he felt really guilty. I just don’t understand if he was already sleeping with her before we were official why the fuck did you reach out to me to make it official?
I found out about him sleeping with her more than once in April. And we have had conversations over and over we playing the same story. And he kept talking about how it happened during summer. And because I’ve pressed the story so hard he finally made it to cheat cheating. He said he was just looking for a distraction. The sex was left to do with her and more about what he gained from it. He said it was scandalous, and I gave him a high at the time. He said in the past, he really enjoyed that but this time around it felt really bad and it hurt him. He said he would never cheat on anyone ever again. He said he has cheated in the past with people he was going to leave, but never cheat cheated on someone he wanted to stay with. And that’s why he says he would never do it again. He never wants to experience this kind of pain again and causing that level of pain.
We go for a couple counseling on Thursday. Part of me feels like this relationship is done. I look at him and have absolutely no respect for him. I don’t want to be touched. I’m angry. I’m hurt, but then the other part has a hard time letting go. He apologized profusely. He said he couldn’t tell me the full truth because he was scared of me wanting to leave him. He said it wasn’t the right thing to do. He regrets it fully and he knows that lying made it worse. Part of me wonder if trust could be rebuilt, the other part of me feels like it would be very hard too we’ve passed this.
Thank you for reading through all of this if you made it to the end. Looking for advice please be kind.