A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:My boyfriend and I have been together for a year and a half, and we are very much in love. For eight months of our relationship, we were in long-distance. He soon moved away from his small hometown (family, lifetime friends, a job he loved - everything) to be with me in the big city.From the get-go out relationship was serious. We went to part of high school together (but never actually hung out) and reconnected via Facebook. We would chat for hours while both of us worked and talked on the phone all hours of the night. Each night would be finished off with long texts confessing feelings of love, etc. We had a lot going on in our personal lives, but always, always, ALWAYS made time for each other. Trust was never an issue - never even a second thought.When he got out here things were a breeze. He got a job right away and has been doing great with it. We've both been full-time for the past year, but strive to make time for one another. We took on to living together quite well. There were a couple minor bumps in the road (mainly when we were out drinking), but we got through them.In September of last year, my ex husband (whom I feel sorry for because I pretty much up and left with no real warning because I was unhappy) began e-mailing me after a few months of zero contact because he was still very much in love with me. He had e-mailed me occasionally over the course of the year after our divorce (September 2012). I e-mailed him primarily because I felt so terrible about leaving the way that I did, and though I had no romantic feelings whatsoever left for him, I still felt compassion for him as a human being whom I had hurt. In September he e-mailed me one evening about the flooding in my state and asked if me and my family was okay (an excuse to start conversation). The e-mails were short and terse and the next day he resumed them while I was at work. Not a couple hours into my shift they began getting inappropriate as he began asking me for photos and offered to send me some. This was after telling me about the "dry spell" between him and his current (almost move-in) girlfriend. I sent my boyfriend a message telling him of what was going on, and he asked to see the e-mails when I got home. I agreed. I finished off the e-mail convo to my ex telling him to never contact me again and that it wasn't fair to his girlfriend or my boyfriend to me e-mailing me like that. I tried to delete the inappropriate e-mails regarding the photos and whatnot because once they're seen, they can't be unseen by the human brain, but I didn't mind being honest and telling my boyfriend that my ex went over the line and that no contact would be resumed.When I got home, I grabbed my phone to show him the e-mails and noticed the ones I had deleted were still there. I tried to delete them again, but he grabbed the phone and read them anyway. I apologized, but honestly hadn't said anything inappropriate back, and didn't intend to. My boyfriend was hurt and told me that he had read another e-mail at one point from my ex that I had left open on his laptop while visiting him. The conversation was innocent for the most part, but my ex mentioned still having a tape of us. I asked why he had it, and that was the end of that. My boyfriend was still very hurt and unhappy about it. But we talked about it, I changed my number twice to avoid any form of contact from anyone who might know my ex, and I changed all social media access to be able to find me. Things seemed good, and got better, but I worked for months to regain his trust and prove myself trustworthy again.For months we seemed to be okay. There were periods of awkward air in our home on occasion, when I'd ask if he was okay, and if he was sure he was happy here with me. He assured me he was and that things were fine. On occasion, he would receive a lot of messages to his phone. When I asked him about them, he would tell me they were from his mom, co-workers, X-Box Live). I thought nothing of it.Back in February (almost one year together), I got really random messages from him while I was at work that made absolutely no sense. It was the night of the Super Bowl, so I thought one of his buddies he was watching it with snagged his phone or something. I messaged him and called him a few times with no response. It had me worried, so I rushed home. When I got there, he was passed out with his laptop open. I sent him to bed and checked his phone to see if he had gotten any of my messages or phone calls.There I saw three messages (one via Kik Messenger, and two texts). I couldn't read the majority of the texts as his phone is locked, I could only see the preview. The one from Kik said "mmm...tell me..." (was all I could read). It freaked me out. I then went over to his laptop and searched his History, where I found a profile on PlentyOfFish.com listing him as Single, but his headline simply read, "Just looking to meet some new people." I grabbed his phone and tried desperately to unlock it, but couldn't. I stormed into the bedroom and made sure he was coherent enough to understand what I was about to ask him (he was drunk). I asked him to show me his phone and asked who the girls were. He stumbled with opening it and seemed to be trying to delete something rather than show me. I snatched the phone out of his hand and he flipped out - screaming, cursing, calling me names. He said he would've shown me anything and that I had no right to go through his things. He brought up the incident with my ex and turned the entire situation around and I wound up on the floor sobbing and begging for his forgiveness. He slammed the door in my face and refused to talk to me the rest of the night.The next morning, we talked it out rationally (I did keep in mind that he was drunk the night before), but we honestly didn't talk much about the incident of finding the messages and the profile. Given the actions I took to approach the matter, I kind of just let it go, but told him to delete the profile and stop messaging those girls, whoever they were. He agreed.About a week and a half later I came home on his day off to find him again intoxicated playing video games. He barely acknowledged me, and was rather cold. I asked him what was going on, and he spoke without really making sense. He told me that he was having trouble with the anniversary of his grandmother's death and being away from his family (he is very family-oriented). He said that I had been very withdrawn in the recent months and that he felt very unwanted in his own home. I apologized profusely as I honestly had no idea. I mainly just gave him space while he played his video games. He unfortunately wouldn't have it and said that he was going back to his home town. He wouldn't listen to reason and just kept saying he was leaving. I sat there in shambles not knowing what to do or what to say. He said that he had lost trust in me with the incident with my ex and missed who he thought I was. I told him I had done absolutely everything I could to gain his trust back. I've offered him over and over access to anything and everything he wants. I literally have nothing to keep from him. The night again ended with him not willing to talk about it anymore.Once again, in the morning cooler heads prevailed. We talked it out, and he said he was coherent to everything he said the night prior, but that he was being irrational and emotional. He said that he did indeed love me and that he wanted to stay with me. The next couple of months were great. We made it through some tough financial times and personal issues. He apologized to me at the beginning of April and said that the stupid games would stop and that things would get better for us.The end of April, everything unraveled. I got on his laptop to search Craiglist for an item we needed and that he'd already contacted numerous posters in regards to (I didn't want to e-mail the same posters). In pulling up his history, I saw a dating profile site had been pulled up numerous times. It was logged out of, but I could see the window that showed his profile. I got on the site myself and created an account and searched for singles in our area. Sure enough, his profile pulled up listing him as Single. This profile dated back a year or so before we began talking, but had been logged into sporadically over the course of our relationship. A few comments were left of his page from various girls complimenting his photos and asking him to message them and add them on various messaging systems (Kik primarily). A couple of the girls also had similar comments from him. Some as recently as the beginning of April.From there, I went to his e-mail and found a folder strictly dedicated to nude photos of various girls. There were also a couple chats saved from a couple years prior keeping in touch with girls he had met on these sites.For a while I sat in disbelief, unable to grasp what I was seeing. I drank myself silly not knowing what to do. I called him at work and asked him what I was doing wrong, how he could do this after he told me everything was gone and things would change. He didn't say much and told me not to get back onto his laptop and that he was getting rid of it when he got home. That night, I cried in front of him again and said that I didn't know what else to do and that I thought things were good. He said they were and that I'd done nothing wrong, but that was about all he said.He went on a trip to see his family at the beginning of last month (a week after I found out), and I never really let anything sink in. Our week seemed almost normal. The night before he left, I asked to see his phone because I was uneasy about letting him leave without seeing it. He yelled at me about having to get up early and told me he'd show me in the morning, but that I could sleep with his phone. When I refused, he threw his phone off of our balcony. We spent the next two hours crying, arguing, and looking for his phone. He left the next morning with the promise of a clean slate when he got back.Over the course of the past couple of months, he's apologized profusely and admitted to f*cking up over and over and says it will never happen again, we've talked about it at length numerous times, I've had breakdowns constantly, my moods have been very up and down.. I feel completely lost. He's given me access to anything I wish to see whenever I wish to see it, although I'm afraid to look. A girl messaged him one night saying "hey sexy" while I was making dinner and I saw it and had a breakdown again. He agreed to change his number and didn't have hers saved, but deleted the message. He said until his number was changed, he couldn't help who messaged him, but he would let me know when anyone did.I want to forgive him, but my dilemma is that this is (basically) the second time this has happened, and all trust is completely lost. Even with his efforts, I'm still extremely paranoid. It's been two and a half months, and he's getting tired of me bringing it up so often, because he hates being reminded of it. He's said that he by no means wants me to forget it, and doesn't want to be forgiven until he's earned it. But he's also said that we can't keep having bad days because we will never move past it, and it will eventually destroy us.We've both agreed that we want to make this work, because we love each other very much. We've talked about marriage since nearly the first month of dating. We truly believe we're soul mates. We talk about kids and buying a house and everything about our future. We both still want it. We've just signed another year's lease together, because neither one of us is letting what's happened destroy what we've got.I'm mainly wondering what advice anyone has in regards to dealing with infidelity and making their relationship work. I know some people don't believe in "internet flirting" or whatever as cheating, but I do. It's just as painful for me to think about as if he'd been with them physically, because regardless, his lust and attention was toward someone (or multiple someones) other than me, and he shared intimate subjects with them.My heart still aches constantly, and I still don't trust him, and I'm still finding it hard to forgive, but I do want to make us work. He's the love of my life, and I know he loves me too. We both know that we wouldn't be here if we didn't want it. But how do I stop thinking about it? And punishing him for it? And punishing myself for it? I'm tired of crying and feeling worthless. Everything about what I thought about us and about myself has been compromised. Sometimes I just want to sit and be with him in love and harmony; sometimes I want to scream at him (which I haven't done) out of anger and hurt; sometimes I just want to be alone and cry.I don't know how long this will take, but I know we won't make it if I keep going like this. It's wearing on him and it's wearing on me. We've both made HUGE mistakes, and we both know that if anything like either of our mistakes were to happen again, that it's over. I believe neither one of us will let anything like that happen again. But my mind and my heart won't let go.. I feel suffocated. I can't be myself around him and let things just "be" anymore. We're broken, and I'm trying so hard to be okay and fix things, as is he (and he really is). Who can give me advice on how to get through this? I don't have many people to talk to who have been in this situation, and I'm desperate..
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, Anonymous 123  +, writes (11 July 2014):
 OP do you really, honestly see this working out in the long run? Ask yourself that question and listen to your gut instinct. This relationship that you describe is filled with lies, cheating, deceit and liquor-soaked shouting. Is this really what you want?
You desperately want to make it work but your B/f is in no way contributing to the relationship. He's using your past against you when in reality you've done no wrong, but he's using that little bit of evidence of your ex-husband to fuel his own dirty work and his dalliances.
Just listen to the way you describe your life at 25. "I'm tired of crying and feeling worthless. Everything about what I thought about us and about myself has been compromised. Sometimes I just want to sit and be with him in love and harmony; sometimes I want to scream at him (which I haven't done) out of anger and hurt; sometimes I just want to be alone and cry."
Why are you doing this to yourself? Is this how you want your life to be?
Look OP, nothing is going to change overnight miraculously, things will drag on the way they are and you will continue feeling like shit because whatever has happened in the past will not be easy for you to erase. Your boyfriend can try really hard to change himself but how genuine is he in his efforts and how much can you really believe him?
Maybe its time to take some time off from the relationship. You need to be alone for a while and you need to be at peace with yourself. You are just punishing yourself by being with him because as of now, nothing has really changed nor will anything change unless you take a stand. That's why I think that you need to take a break, allow yourself some space from him, think about everything and about how much you're willing to tolerate for the sake of this guy. You've had one bad marriage already, don't repeat the same mistake again.
During the break, make sure there is no contact with him whatsoever. Spend time with family and friends, do what you love doing. There is more to your life than crying over a man who frankly doesn't even seem worth it. Don't lose your identity in all of this that's been going on. You are not someone who can just be pushed around by a guy. You are unique, you are special, you deserve happiness and you certainly do not deserve to cry yourself to sleep every night.
A
female
reader, Tisha-1 +, writes (11 July 2014):
 Just to add, you talked about your ex-husband with this description: "whom I feel sorry for because I pretty much up and left with no real warning because I was unhappy"
So you basically left the ex without warning and without explanation.
Why did you get married to the ex in the first place?
You wrote a really long question but somehow managed to leave out the important details.
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A
female
reader, Tisha-1 +, writes (11 July 2014):
You say you are very much in love but then you list all these things that suggest that you aren't very much in love. I think you are working off wishful thinking and assumed that the texting/FB/phone stuff was the real you and the real him connecting.
I think you're finding out what happens when the real getting to know you stuff happens after you have moved in with each other.
Assuming you are 25 and were divorced nearly 2 years ago, that would make you 23 at your divorce and then presumably 19 or 20 years old when you got together with your now ex-husband.
I think you don't really know each other all that well and moved in too fast and too soon.
You say things like you feel suffocated and you can't be yourself and that you are broken but then you started the post with 'we are very much in love.' I think you are out of touch with what a really viable relationship looks like and operates and have a whole lot of fantasy going on.
If I were you, and were serious about trying to save the relationship, I would find a way to separate the living together situation and I would get myself to a counselor and ask that he join you.
You don't have many people to talk to who have been in this situation because most people would have waited longer to move in together and take the time needed to get to really know each other.
You both are working off some fantasy of what this relationship should be like and obviously it has nothing to do with the reality.
Time to take off the rose-colored glasses and recognize that you can have strong feelings for someone but that does not make them a compatible match. If you really and truly want to make this work then get yourselves into couples counseling. You need it.
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