I 22F don’t know how to move forward from my partner’s 22F “emotional” infidelity
Me and my partner have been dating for almost 2 years now, and everything is almost perfect. I feel loved, appreciated, respected but I can’t seem to move on from an incident at the very beginning of our relationship. When we first met one of the very first things she had mentioned was a trip to another state she had planned months prior with an ex of hers. They never truly dated according to her. It was more of a fling throughout that summer, but they were friends now and she wanted to give me a heads up 2 months ahead of the trip, before me and her got serious. This was one of our very first dates so I didn’t think much of it and actually appreciated her honesty.
As we progressed I began to pick up on small details between them. He would call her sometimes late at night while she was with me and she would refuse to answer even if he called her back multiple times. If we were both looking at her cell phone (showing me a Instagram post, TikTok, etc) and she would receive a message from him, she would immediately swipe it away. She tripped over her own lies about his relationship status and also about the length of their romantic history. Through all of this I still gave her the benefit of the doubt because we had just started dating.
Fast forward to about a week before she flies out for the trip, we’re showing each other poems and small pieces of writing in our notes app and I catch a glimpse of two poems about missing someone. Not super proud of this part but later that evening I went through it (only the notes app) and sure enough they were both about him written maybe at couple days before. Mainly about how she missed him and the way he admired her and all the things they didn’t get to do together. I don’t know why or how but I didn’t disclose to her that I saw this. I simply closed her phone and went on with our relationship.
As the day that she leaves arrived I notice shes fully shaved everywhere, including her pubic area. I inquired as I began to grow weary, but she dismissed me and blamed it on anticipating wearing a halloween costume as well as a trimming error on her pubic region. Nonetheless I drove her to the airport and she flew out. While she was out there with him our messages obviously diminished not significantly but enough to notice. She also failed to mention to me that she and him were wearing matching costumes (Nacho Libre and Sister Encarnación aka the nun). I only noticed because he was dressed up in the reflection of a mirror in a picture she sent me. All in all I wasn’t oblivious but in my early infatuation of her and my fear of confrontation I withheld the things I saw from her. Instead I asked her repeatedly if she had any unresolved feelings for him, in which she always reassured me that that was not the case. Obviously this wasn’t true but I wanted her to just be honest with me and me not have to pry it out of her. This inquiry and reassurance went on for a couple of months and eventually their “friendship” went away (to my knowledge).
There was other things I seen on her phone later on, messages about music playlists they made together and quotes they shared with each other. Some apologies for their lack of relationship/friendship and also a weird vague message about not being able to communicate more/more in depth with a follow up response of “you know why”. As big of an idiot as I may be for staying and not telling her anything, i’m not completely fucking naive. I know something was going on between them but I accepted that it happened and that at some point it ended.
About 8 months after she flew out to see him we get intoxicated together and I confess to her that I went through her phone and saw the poems she wrote about him. She at first deflected, bickering with me about the going through her phone. Eventually we began actually talking about the situation and she dismissed me claiming it meant nothing and that the poems were just words and rhymes (They didn’t even rhyme by the way). I’m not an angry person so when I get that angry I just shut down. I walked away from her smoked and let it go.
We talked about it for the next two days and I expressed to her how I felt. About all the times I came to her before genuinely asking if there was anything unresolved between them, asking because i wanted to understand, to feel safe, to not have doubt gnawing at me. How every time she looked me straight in the eyes and lied. How she dismissed me and made me feel like my hurt didn’t matter and how it’s made me question everything, my own gut, the trust i had in her, and whether I ever really knew what was going on between us in those first few months. She apologized profusely although never taking any real accountability. She still claimed she never felt anything towards him, only limerence and that her heart was always with me since the start, but that she was sorry for dismissing me and disregarding my feelings. She also said she regretted going on that trip out of self respect. During this entire apology conversation, I noticed cuts on her arms which I then realized were self harm. In this moment I began to feel deep regret as I knew this was due to her feelings of guilt towards herself. I asked her and she confirmed. I accepted her apology and went on with life.
Now it has almost been a year since that confrontation and almost 2 years since I went through her phone. Every once in a while I get this pain in my chest and a wave of nausea at the thought of it. I don’t feel I know the truth, nor that I ever will. I fear that I can’t repair this issue without that knowledge. I don’t want to hold it against her because besides this, I have absolutely no complaints about her whatsoever. She is everything I’ve ever wanted. No doubt about it, I want to marry this woman, but I can’t help but remember that the foundation of our relationship wasn’t real. At least on her end. While I was falling for her she was missing someone else. Everything feels tainted and frail. I don’t know how to move forward but I also don’t want to let her go. Any advice or words of support? How do I move forward and repair this part of our relationship?