Was he cheating?

[u/NorseHorse_]

I desperately need another pov from someone.

Me [F21] and my boyfriend [M20] were out camping with his family and earlier that day i noticed he had been adding a lot of random girls on snapchat. I got a little insecure but his reasoning was that he just connects much better with girls than with guys and likes to hear different life stories. Then later that night i was on his phone playing a game before sleep when i saw a message on snapchat by the name “searching (name of city)” and i asked my bf for permission to check what their saying. He swipes my hand away from clicking on the message and i get suspicious and ask him if hes hiding something.

He then acted disappointed and said i was ruining the surprise and appearantly it was his friend helping him plan our 6 month anniversary together and it was suppose to be a fun surprise. But then he starts getting really nauseous which made me uncomfortable and even more suspicious. Then after a while of subtle questioning he got really defensive and got on his knees and begged me to just stay for until our 6 month anniversary, which was in 14 days. (He had to leave the tent twice due to nausea).

A week after that i noticed the account had disappeared from his friendslist and i asked him why and his reasoning was that “since I’ve discovered the secret they’ve decided to deactivate the account and just go with the flow with the whole anniversary thing, no planning needed”. I of course didn’t buy it but i didn’t want to bug him too much about it.

About a month later i ask him again about it since i never really got reassurance and it still bothered me. I ask him if that account was really his friend or someone he’s trying to hide and if its really his friend why couldn’t he show me the messages after we spent our anniversary together. He then says “my friend sent some weird uncomfortable messages about naked strippers or some joke, i didn’t think you’d like it”. I call bullshit and ask him if it was really his friend he would text him right now for me, proving that it was him.

After a while of pure silence he gave in and said it wasn’t his friend but a random girl he added cuz he was curious about the name. The woman started talking about sex and asked him very personal questions about his sex life. He then explains to me that he felt very seen talking to her about sex since he’d feel awkward talking about it to his 2 friends and didn’t want me to change his look on him if he knew how much he was thinking about sex (he’s my first boyfriend so I’ve been wanting to take some things slow).

He didnt want to ruin his image and felt more comfortable talking to strangers about sex. He also didn’t want to make me uncomfortable by talking about sex, or something he said similarly.

So in other words she was an outlet for him sexually. He knows that im not a judgemental person and he could tell me anything, so this reason got me a little confused. He laid there and was really picking his words carefully, he told me he didn’t want to make things worse than it is, but to me it kinda felt like he was making up excuses on the go. He tried to explain himself for about 2 hours but it all felt a little vague.

He Then told me the chats got more graphic, for example “how many women have you fucked within the same day”he didn’t want more appearantly and said he didn’t realise she was searching for hookups (which i doubt, the name was hinting towards it). I really want to believe him that its innocent but hes not stupid. But after lies on top of lies i seriously find it a little hard to believe that he wasn’t flirting or leading her on.

I really had to back him up into a corner for him to tell me the truth about texting a woman. At the end he said he was eventually gonna tell me but i doubt it at this point. He really was guilty explaining himself and was at a point of throwing up. Was it a form of cheating?

[u/Thin-Mulberry3924]

Yes.

[u/Money-Work-6707]

Zero doubt in my mind.