Thirteen days after my boyfriend promised we would work on our relationship, he started talking to another woman online. He kept the conversations from me while giving her attention and continuing to spend time with me. I had been waiting to see what fixing things would look like. This was not what I had in mind.
We have been together for two and a half years. I’m 24; he’s 21. This wasn’t the first time my trust had been hurt, which made that promise matter. I wanted to believe we were finally trying to repair something together, rather than simply getting through another apology.
When I found out about the woman, he apologized. Two days later, she helped me contact him through an anonymous account. From there, I saw him describe me and our relationship negatively. He seemed to play down what had happened and said he wanted to concentrate on his career because the relationship had cost him two years.
That hurt in a different way from discovering the hidden conversations. I was still thinking about a future with him, while he was describing our time together as something he had lost. I couldn’t tell whether that was what he truly believed or what he wanted someone else to hear. Neither possibility gave me much to hold on to.
Around twenty days later, I approached him through another anonymous account. There was flirting again. This time, he acknowledged having a girlfriend, but he still continued the exchange and followed the account on Instagram. Later, he unsent the messages and blocked the account on both platforms.
I knew he had admitted I existed. I also knew that admitting it hadn’t stopped the interaction. When he unsent the messages, I was left wondering: had he reconsidered what he was doing, or did he just want the conversation gone? I don’t know. I can describe what happened without knowing what was behind it.
By then, I was no longer simply waiting for him to be honest. I was creating situations to see what he would do when he thought I wasn’t there. Those tests gave me information, but they didn’t give me the relief I wanted. I had become both the girlfriend hoping we could recover and the person checking whether his reassurances would survive another conversation.
Now he says he wants to fix things. He reassures me and makes an effort. I don’t want to pretend none of that counts, but I can’t set it apart from how quickly the earlier promise was followed by another hidden exchange. I’m trying to understand whether he wants this relationship or the attention he can get outside it. I can’t answer that for him.
I still love him. I still wish he could be the person I wanted to build a future with. Leaving would mean giving up on that future; staying would mean finding out whether I can trust him without continually testing him. Neither feels like a small thing after two and a half years.
For now, he is offering reassurance, and I am still checking his social media, wondering what I haven’t seen.
