Me [23M] separated with my GF [22F] of 3 years, she wants to get back but i hooked up with someone while we were separated
My girlfriend [22F] made some new friends about a year ago, and her family was okay with this group. After that, she started lying to me about them while going on trips with them. We have been together for 3 years. I love her a lot, and she loves me too, but her family is very strict.
This new group, which consists of both men and women, became the perfect excuse for her to go out and have fun because her family does not approve of me. The reason they dislike me is because after 2 years of dating, we accidentally got pregnant due to not being careful. We had to get an abortion because we were young and not ready. We ended up telling her parents because it was very difficult for her to deal with all the pain and discomfort, and I also felt like we should confess. Since then, her parents have been much stricter about letting her go out.
This new friend group includes her cousin and his friends. There is one guy in the group who I was concerned about because he was once accused in a local rape case. I repeatedly told her that I felt he was bad company.
She lied to me three times in five months while spending time with these new friends. Once, while she was on a road trip with them after knowing them for only 1–2 months, one of her friends posted an Instagram reel that appeared on my feed. I questioned her about it, and she initially lied and denied it, but later confessed. I told her that if she wanted to lie and do things behind my back, we should separate. She promised me that she would stop lying.
Later, one of her friends told me that she had still been talking to the same guy, but only because of work since he is a photographer and my girlfriend is a makeup artist. I trusted her, and she promised that she would distance herself from them.
About 6 months ago, she was alone with that guy because he was dropping her off at a nearby city, and she lied to me about it. I only found out because her friend called and told me. I got extremely upset and ended things because I thought she had cheated on me. However, I was wrong to assume that because even her sister, who dislikes me, called me to calm me down and explain the situation.
I eventually calmed down, and we got back together after a week, but things were not the same. I was still very hurt by everything that happened. She then told me she needed time to recover because I had called her a liar, said she did not love me, and accused her of choosing new people over me. She felt a lot of guilt because she thought I believed she was okay with hurting me.
She blocked me everywhere and only reached out after two weeks. She promised she would never do anything like that again. However, about a month ago, she lied to me again. At that point, I was exhausted from constantly being hurt, so I decided to separate from her. She said things like she would always wait for me, but I stopped talking to her.
Two weeks after our separation, I went to a party. There was a girl my friend was trying to hook up with, but she ended up liking me a lot. Eventually, she and I hooked up for about a week.
Around the third week after separating from my girlfriend, I started realizing that I might have made a mistake. I felt a lot of guilt and felt like I had cheated on her, even though we were not together at the time.
Then I found out that her mother was having an operation and that she was very scared. Her friends called me and asked me to help because she was not doing well mentally after we separated, so I started talking to her again.
She told me she could not move on and wanted to get back together. I also realized that I loved her more than I thought. However, now I feel like a terrible person because I slept with someone else while she was unable to move on.
Out of love, I got back together with her yesterday, but the guilt is eating me from the inside. I feel like I cheated on her, and I worry that if she ever finds out in the future, even though she might never know because I do not want to hurt her anymore, she will feel betrayed and leave me.
I am scared that if I tell her, she will start hating me. But now that we are together again, I want to make up for my mistakes by treating her much better and making sure she gets everything she deserves.
I don’t know if I should stay with her because I truly love her, or leave because I feel like I cheated and she deserves better.
TLDR:
My girlfriend [22F] and I [23M] separated because she repeatedly lied about her friends. While we were apart, I hooked up with someone else. She wanted to get back together, and I realized I still love her, but now I feel guilty because I slept with someone while she was unable to move on. Should I stay with her and not tell her about what happened, or should I continue the separation because she deserves better than someone I feel is a cheater?