u/Ok_Distribution_290

This is going to be long because this isn’t really a story about me finding one woman on my boyfriend’s phone. It’s about how I went from being someone who desperately wanted to trust her partner to someone who works out passcodes, checks phones, follows locations and takes photographs of evidence because I no longer trust the person I’m actually in a relationship with to tell me the truth.

I got some help from AI to write it too… I need as much as I can get!

I’m not proud of that. I know how unhealthy it is. But after everything that’s happened, I’ve finally realised that the biggest problem isn’t even the women anymore. It’s that this man can lie to me so convincingly that I genuinely don’t know what truth sounds like when it comes out of his mouth.
I’ll use code names for the women because there are unfortunately several of them.

Our relationship began with a certain amount of deception and uncertainty. He’s always been an incredibly private person and there have consistently been parts of his life that I’ve struggled to access. He disappears, doesn’t answer calls, doesn’t read or respond to messages and can give me very little information about where he’s been or what he’s doing. For a long time, I questioned myself more than I questioned him. I thought I was anxious, insecure or reading too much into things.
There were also always women around him.

One in particular I’ll call Instagram Girl. I actually saw him with her before I ever went through his phone. He told me he worked with her. I later understood that she helps his friends with various things and is useful to him in that sense, but I noticed her because whenever he and I were together, she would call him relentlessly.

At the time, I didn’t particularly consider her romantic competition. I noticed their relationship was odd, but I wasn’t sitting there convinced that something sexual must be happening. I even thought she might be an ally, so I added her on Instagram. She asked me who I was, I panicked and made something up, and then left it. I think she knew who I was.

Shortly afterwards, she posted something on her Instagram story and I recognised the surroundings. She was in his flat.

This was particularly significant because that night he’d led me to believe he was coming back to mine. He didn’t. He stayed with her instead and then lied to me about it.

That was the first major moment where my instincts and the reality I was being presented with completely separated from one another. I’d been told one thing, I’d discovered something else, and he’d been able to lie to me about it.

That was also what initially pushed me towards going through his phone.

I know that’s wrong. I’m not going to justify invading someone’s privacy. It isn’t healthy. But I also wasn’t sitting in a secure relationship randomly deciding to investigate my boyfriend. I’d just discovered that a woman who constantly called him was at his flat on a night he said he was coming back to me, and then he lied about it.

I knew there was something going on. I just didn’t understand how much.

When I eventually looked through his phone, I discovered Instagram Girl wasn’t an isolated situation. There was another long-standing woman I’ll call Girl B, and I realised he had actually had both women in his life for years.

From his explanation later, these relationships seemed to involve him leading women on because they were useful to him in different ways. He said they meant nothing to him romantically and that what he had with me was different.

But there were also random women.

I found him messaging different women with essentially the same pick-up line. It was almost formulaic. Different woman, same approach. Suddenly I wasn’t looking at one inappropriate friendship or misunderstanding. I was looking at a pattern of seeking attention and maintaining connections with women I knew nothing about.
I also discovered something that, looking back now, seems almost absurdly blatant.

He had changed my name in his phone to “Simon.”
His girlfriend was saved under a man’s name.
That left me with the obvious question: who exactly was I being hidden from?

Eventually I confronted him about everything I’d found: Instagram Girl, Girl B, the other women, and the repeated pick-up lines. I also admitted I’d gone through his phone.

This is when I noticed a pattern. When things are calm, getting honesty from him is difficult. But when everything is about to collapse and he thinks he’s going to lose me, he suddenly opens up.

That’s when I get vulnerability. That’s when I get explanations. That’s when he tells me things I couldn’t get from him before.

He explained his relationships with these women and said they didn’t mean anything to him. He talked about using connections, about women being useful, and about the difference between those relationships and what he felt for me.

And I forgave him.

I loved him, and his explanation made enough sense at the time that I believed we’d finally understood the problem. I thought we’d had the difficult conversation, seen the ugly truth, and could now move forward.

I also told him I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but if he continued behaving the same way, I would eventually find out.

Then he changed his phone passcode. I understand why, but it made everything worse for me because the one place I had found truth suddenly became inaccessible. Within a week, my suspicions started again. Things got better, then worse again!!

After that confrontation, things improved, but it didn’t last. I found myself back in a relationship where I was constantly asking my boyfriend to actually be my boyfriend.

Sometimes he’d come over, shower, and leave again. Sometimes we’d spend a short time together and then he’d disappear. I was alone constantly.

He’d apologise, say he needed to do better, and promise change. But we kept having the same conversation over and over again.

I need more from this relationship. I need communication. I need consistency. I need to feel like a priority. There would be apologies, then the cycle would repeat.

Then there was a wedding we went to together. I was essentially abandoned at the hotel while he disappeared. Calls went unanswered, plans changed, and I was left wondering where he was.
Eventually he came back with explanations, and I accepted them.

Looking back, I realise how much of this relationship has involved me waiting for him. Waiting for replies, waiting for calls, waiting for him to come back, waiting for him to choose me, I became an investigator. I couldn’t stop thinking about his new passcode. Eventually I figured it out and accessed his phone again.

I also turned on his location sharing at one point, which I know is unhealthy. I feel like I’ve lost myself in this relationship.

But I had stopped believing that asking him where he was would give me the truth. I had to rely on what I could verify.

The weekend my friends came
In July, my closest friends came to visit. I wanted him to be part of it.

His behaviour that weekend triggered my suspicions again. I could see his location and knew he went to Southend, but I didn’t know why or with who.
At one point, what he told me didn’t match what I could see.

He eventually came back, showered, got ready, and met my friends. He had been wearing clothes I had repaired for him.

There was football that evening and he said he couldn’t come out, but then he turned up at the same pub anyway. He barely engaged with us.
I was told later he had been busy all night.
And I accepted there were things I didn’t know.
But I couldn’t cope with the inconsistencies anymore.

I ended the relationship
I ended it. I packed his things. I told him to leave.
But I didn’t really want him to go.
I loved him.
He didn’t want to lose me.
And once again, crisis brought out the version of him I had been asking for. He opened up, apologised, became vulnerable, and we reconciled.
What I didn’t know then was that when I took him back, I didn’t know the full truth about Southend. I didn’t know there were women involved or photographs.
He knew more than I did.

Then things got better
After we got back together, he actually changed. He came home more, communicated more, and was more present. I started to feel less anxious.
For the first time, I thought maybe we had turned a corner.
We had what I would describe as the best period of our relationship.
And then I found out what really happened in Southend.

Last week
I found photographs. One shows my boyfriend asleep with another woman.
I don’t know what happened beyond that, but I can’t get the image out of my head.
While I was worrying about where he was, he knew exactly what he was doing.
And I didn’t.

And there are more women
There are more women. Messages. Repeated patterns. People I don’t even know.
Every time I think I understand it, there is more.
And it has completely destroyed how I see myself in relation to other women.
But I’ve realised it isn’t about them. It’s about his choices.

The lying
He lies so well. He can be affectionate, present, and loving while hiding a completely different reality.
And now I don’t know when he is telling the truth.
I don’t respect him anymore, but I still love him but I don’t respect him anymore. I think he loves me too, which makes it harder. But I don’t want to be one of many women he compartmentalises.

I want a relationship without secrecy. I hate who I’ve become.

I’ve invaded his privacy, checked his phone, tracked his location. I don’t like who I am in this relationship.
But I also can’t promise I wouldn’t do it again, because I don’t trust him.

He doesn’t know everything yet
He knows something is wrong, but he doesn’t know I’ve seen everything. Eventually I will have to tell him. Im holding back because theres no coming back from this.

I think I understand now
It isn’t the women.
It’s the lying.
I can’t stay in a relationship where I don’t know what is real.
I don’t want to leave him, but I don’t think I can trust him again.

And I don’t know how you come back from that.