Is this pointless? Does the truth matter?
TL;DR
Three years ago, I forgave my partner’s infidelities after he promised a "full disclosure". I just discovered a new betrayal that occurred during that recovery period—meaning he still cheated while we were "working on it." Now, more and new details are leaking out. I’m asking for a full disclosure but our couples therapist thinks it’s a pointless request if I’m not leaving. Is it unreasonable to want/expect a full disclosure to move on?
More detail:
I (28f) have been with my bf (28m) since 2022. We began dating in January of 2022 and officially became a couple in March of 2022. Things moved really fast to say the least.
By July of 2022, we were living together. in July or 2022 I found out he had cheated on/lied to me. Including:
- having repeated unprotected sex with a woman he met prior to me and was sleeping with while we were dating up until March or 2022 when we became official. (He was at her house in July of 22 the day I found out but says nothing happened)
- videos of him sleeping with his “long time best friend” who he had me hang out with. They hooked up a few weeks before he met me, and he had innapropriate videos of her dancing on him while we were dating in Feb/March or ‘22
- in Feb/March of ‘22 that night and that he “just got head” from another woman there
- a week in June he went to Vegas when he wasn’t answering his phone or talking to me, he told me hooked up in the restroom with a girl for “seconds” before a security knocked on the door.
There’s more detail. But those are the big things. I was NOT in a good place when I learned all of this. I wasn’t in a good place when I met him either. I know the natural thing to do would be to leave then. But I didn’t. I already didn’t feel well emotionally and it felt like the infidelity itself hurt me to the point where I had even less emotional energy to cope with or act on the matter. I just spiraled, and I spiraled for a long time. But I stayed.
I asked him for a few things— namely to unfollow any women he had been intimate with on social media, and otherwise cut interactions, and to tell me the full truth, all of it.
He followed through on this (at least I thought so. Fast forward another three years and we continue to have challenges in our relationship— a mix of both trust and communication issues/feeling unsupported. In February of 2025, we agreed to to go therapy.
We go through 7 months or so of therapy. It’s really really hard. My therapist helps us start over, clean slate, and challenges me to just learn to trust him— no monitoring, challenging me to get comfortable with him doing things alone, encouraging him to give me reassurance if I need it, etc. it helped a lot.
I can confidently say that I was emotionally in a place where I really trusted him and truly found the sense of emotional safety I had been searching for. It’s worth noting my bf had already changed so much about his life at this point and the therapy just made him more compassionate and a better listener, communicator, and overall more emotionally nurturing guy. I’ve never been more in love in my life, and I’ve never been happier with him.
Then on Christmas Day 2025, my bf confessed to me that in February of 2023 when he was working out of town he actually went to a strip club with his coworkers (strong no for me, which he knows). I asked what happened. He said that him and his coworkers were all sitting together talking to some of the dancers and he got one of their instagrams. And that was it.
Notably, this happened months after I found out about what I thought was everything in July of 2022. He still did this 7 month later (Feb ‘23) while we were still trying to recover from the initial infidelities / lies I learned about.
I was angry. That he did it and that he kept that a secret for 3 years. For the two years prior to therapy I must have asked him a million times to just tell me the full truth. I felt crazy telling him I felt like he didn’t tell me everything and he’d tell me that was it, there was nothing else to reveal.
At this point though, I was learning about this 3 years later. I didn’t know what to do with that information anymore. It was Christmas, I had been so unbelievably happy and safe until then. I think I just didn’t want to process it. So I cried for a few moments, got angry, and that was it.
Now last week (it’s May 2026) he had to go out of town for a job. Something happened with his phone the first night he was out. His location was off all night. My texts weren’t going through. It felt like a repeat story so I began to prepare my things to break up with him.
We talked about it this past weekend when he returned and he convinced me that it really was a glitch. He has a prepaid Verizon phone and he said he paid the bill but the data didn’t kick on for some reason and shut off at midnight. What do I know? I know he has had similar issues but it was weird. He did let me check his phone and when I searched it I didn’t find anything weird.
I accepted his explanation but told him i haven’t processed his 3 year secret, the fact that he ruptured my trust again after everything and that he didn’t come clean during couples therapy. He says he understands and he’s told me all the truth.
Days ago he revealed he also went to a private patio with the stripper and smoked with her this past weekend, not the indoor group setting at the club that he initially described.
I told him this past weekend that I’d schedule a new appt with our therapist (set for today) and that all I am asking for is the full truth. I don’t feel in myself right now that he’s told me the full truth. Just partial truths. I told him therapy is his last chance to say the full truth with someone who can support us in the aftermath.
We went back today and the couples therapy in many words said that there’s nothing she can do/say to convince me to trust him, or to accept whatever version of events he’s given me thus far, and that I can’t stay with him if I don’t want to trust him.
I said I just want to know the full truth and I know that I don’t have it. She said there’s no point in me knowing the whole truth if I’m not going to do anything with it. He cheated on me, that was bad, I didn’t do anything about it. So what’s the point of knowing now?
He lied bc he was doing something bad. He didn’t fes up later bc why would he? I could also choose to believe that he’s been honest for the past year and start over with a clean slate.
I said it’s important to me that he show me he’s changed by choosing honesty. It doesn’t feel to me like he’s changed if he’s still bargaining over the truth. I don’t want to be lied to. Every time I learn something new, it’s like my heart breaks all over again, it feels like a whole new betrayal.
During the course of today’s session I learned that he also contacted the stripper after the fact and they had a “conversation”. New detail yet again.
I just want to get the full truth from him so that I can make peace with it once— not multiple times over the course of years.
Our therapist said that when we started therapy with her we didn’t rehash all the old details, that we agreed to start fresh. I said I didn’t agree to wipe this from the slate bc I didn’t know about it— it happened months after all the infidelities I knew about. She said that I knew there was infidelity anyway. I said I want to move forward knowing that my partner is at least honest / genuine and continuing to keep secrets undermines my sense of security /trust.
She asked what I wanted and I said I wanted him to write it all out, and that I wanted written record of everything bc I don’t want to keep feeling crazy. I don’t want to be gaslit and lied to and told he never said this, never said that, etc. I want what he is telling me is the full truth on paper, and if he deviates from that, I’m out.
Regardless of how you might feel about my relationship in specific— do you think the truth is important for repair? Or is it pointless if you aren’t going to “do anything with it”?
Is there anything to “do with it” other than just leave?