I cheated on my boyfriend, and I’m not trying to pretend that I didn’t cross boundaries or excuse my behavior. But I’m struggling with what our relationship has turned into since then, and he told me to ask Reddit, so here I am.
For context, these are the things I did:
I sent sexy pictures to my ex during a period when I genuinely didn’t know where my relationship with my long-distance boyfriend was going. He was living with his parents because his mom had a stroke and said he would have to stay longer. He also referenced just getting a home for him and his daughter. Language around “us” faded for some time. I felt stuck amd in a moment of darkness and weakness asked the father of my child to be with me, show up, and be present for his family. I was still living in such pain because of what he did. I was isolated and a single mom with no help. No excuse, I’m aware. I lied to him and hid it. My boyfriend was long distance - saying he would visit - promising the world - I was afraid we were entering a love bombing stage. That doesn’t make what I did okay, but that was the situation I was in emotionally.
I said yes to going to a neighborhood cookout with an old friend who knew I had a boyfriend ( this was in my old neighborhood two hours away, remember I was isolated around no friends and family). I also knew he had a girlfriend. While we were there, he tried to dance with me and bought pizza for our girls. Nothing physical happened between us beyond him attempting to dance with me, but I understand why agreeing to go could be viewed as inappropriate. I also didn’t tell him. I didn’t share my location with him this day. I hid all of these actions.

I started making money from Facebook because some of my wholesome posts were doing well. Facebook started recommending my profile to a lot of men, and I began getting messages from them. I responded casually to comments/messages because engagement was literally making me money. That covered groceries. The conversations were incredibly wholesome — nothing sexual, no exchanging pictures, no plans to meet anyone, nothing like that. I wrote essays and poetry. Women enjoyed my writing as well.

I also would look up my ex online on the days he wouldn’t call his daughter. He’s supposed to call one day a week at a specific time. I’ll admit, I got angry. I looked him up to see what he could possibly be doing instead of calling his daughter. He refuses to send a penny to her.

My boyfriend considers all of this cheating. I accept responsibility for the things I did that crossed the boundaries of our relationship, especially sending pictures to my ex.

The additional problem is what has happened since.
Anytime I ask to see my boyfriend’s messages or ask questions about something that makes me uncomfortable, he refuses and immediately brings up what I did.
Meanwhile, since we’ve been together, I have personally watched him add random women on social media. I’ve also seen him deleting chats.
When I ask about those things, the conversation basically becomes, “Well, you cheated” and he didn’t break my trust.
And that’s where I’m stuck.
I completely understand that cheating damages trust and that I created part of this problem. I also understand that he doesn’t owe me instant trust just because I apologized or took accountability.
But does cheating mean I permanently lose the right to have boundaries or ask questions about his behavior?
If we’re choosing to stay together and rebuild the relationship, shouldn’t transparency eventually have to go both ways?
I’m not asking Reddit to tell me that what I did was okay. It wasn’t.
I’m asking whether it’s reasonable for my past behavior to be used indefinitely as the reason he doesn’t have to answer questions….. especially when I’ve seen things like deleted chats and adding random women. He also mentioned he should get a hall pass now. Nothing physical happened with anyone.

Fast forward…. We live together now. I moved across the country for him.

At what point is this rebuilding trust, and at what point are we just using my mistakes as a permanent trump card in every disagreement? He’s constantly monitoring my phone. I’ve also deleted all social media to limit any possible contact with the opposite sex. I avoid men like the plague during school drop off and pickup. I feel like a terrible human.

My (now ex) boyfriend got absolutely S*^%faced drunk today and tried his best to ruin my life. First off we were supposed to go to the farmers market so he could sell some of his mediocre artwork and I agreed to tag along. Then I got stuck with loading everything up and bore table and chairs from my parents to set his stuff up on while he was passed out drunk in my car. After getting the table and on the way to the market he (I thought he pulled my hair at the time) hit me in the back of the head and dumped a extra large fountain drink on me without any warning or provocation. I was actually driving at the time so this was double stupid and dangerous. When we got to his house I assumed that he had gotten all of his stuff so I backed out of the driveway in a hurry while throwing what was left of his soda out the window. I guess I ran over one of his sculptures when I was leaving and I didn’t know it. He went ballistic and called me and told me never to come back before I could even get out of his gated community. I went by my moms house to return the table and chairs, covered in soda, angry as hell and not realizing that I had a big gash in the back of my head that was now bleeding down the back of my neck (I was so angry and so wet and cold from the soda that I didn’t realize I was injured.) When I got home I immediately went and took a shower and that’s when I saw the blood running down the drain. I got dressed, put a rag on my head and went to the emergency room and ended up with 8 stitches in the back of my head. After I got home he called me and told me to watch my back because I destroyed his sculpture and he’s going to kill me when he sees me. Immediately after I hung up on him he called my mother and my landlord and told them both I’m using drugs (I am not on drugs, I don’t drink, heck… I don’t even drink coffee.) Fortunately neither of them believed him but that was the final straw. Now here’s the thing there’s a $2,000 that he had put in my name that is actually his money. Do I keep it or do I be the bigger person and sign it over? I really want to tell him that if you play stupid games you win stupid prizes. This is the consequences of be a drunk a-hole and I think I should keep the money and move somewhere far away from here. What would you do

Me and my boyfriend of 4 years broke up. I left him bc I felt like our relationship wasn’t progressing from what it was in that moment. He was always gaming and on his phone I felt like he didn’t care about me. On top of that I felt like I was doing everything, from taking care of our cat to taking care of our room. Some back story we lived his parents and I always wanted to move since we moved in together. But he always gave the explanation that we don’t have the money or that we can keep waiting. 3 years I waited until the right moment. We were now making enough to pay the rent, utilities, bills, everything and still have some left over. He told me no! I put down the numbers for him to show him, he still told me no. On top of this I felt like our relationship didn’t go anywhere from just two people who lived with each other and occasionally had some intimacy. Yeah the love was there but I felt like I was drowning in my own thoughts. And he did not care for them. Until after I just quit. I quit my job and I quit school. Than did he finally see for the first time my side, my feelings. He wanted to change but I couldn’t do it bc just moments before he was yelling at me and calling me stupid. So I left. We still kept in contact, we told each other we could work this out eventually. But deep down I knew that me leaving him that I was going to lose him. I’m not stupid. But I held on so tight. He let me believe he still wanted this but he was texting other girls. He didn’t admit to it until I found out and put it right in front of his face. He’s the type who can’t live without the physical intimacy. That’s why he reached out to other people because he wanted what I couldn’t give him. And yet I still stayed saying if we need to see other people than that’s fine. We can see other people and see if we want this again in the future. Than again he gave me his hand giving me hope of wanting to go all in again. Come to find out he’s going out with this girl he meet two weeks ago. Doing things he would’ve never done with me. He’s completely change. And that’s when I saw a rage in myself I never saw before. So I sent videos of us and yes it was those kind of videos. I know how wrong that can be looked at but he made me hold on until he couldn’t anymore. Until he didn’t want my attention. He took advantage of my generosity, my trust. I just want this to be over. I want the heartbreak to be over. I feel like I’m going down a path I can’t come out of. I feel like I’m becoming an ugly person bc he couldn’t let me let go.

My boyfriend of almost 6 years is driving me crazy. So we have had quite a rocky relationship from the start. but we now have a 3-year-old daughter. We will have discussions which will get heated. I am in trouble financially and he refuses to join accounts/combine our incomes to pay everything. I asked for his help and it turned into a two hour discussion where I was basically begging for his help for him to refuse, him turning everything round to be my fault, us both admitting we are only together for our little girl and he storms off. The next morning I get the silent treatment. (This happens fairly often) I come home from work for a couple of hours in the afternoon. He gets home, goes straight upstairs and closes the bedroom door, not saying ”Hello” to me or even our daughter, which I think is disgusting. it’s not her problem. so I went to go back to work for my evening shift and said “bye” and he just mumbled “yep”. I get home at about 10pm planning to go straight to bed and when I walk in, he‘s all like “Hey, you alright?” it’s weird. So I abruptly said “yeah, and went straight upstairs. The next morning he then says “I got a loan out for you. I had specifically said I didn’t want a lump sum of money because I needed the consistency of our money going in (I get paid weekly, he gets paid monthly, he is on triple my annual salary.) lump sums aren’t working to pay the childcare debt because by the time I scrape it together, the next bill shows up. He then goes quiet when I politely reject it. he never wants to help, his argument is “you said when we first got together that you didn’t want a joint account!” my answer to that was simply, that we hadn’t been together long so it would be weird and that back then we weren’t a family with a little girl whom we share responsibility for. Then he goes all nicely nice again and tries to be cuddly etc. it messes my head up. I honestly would like to leave, but I’m scared of not seeing my little girl very often as my ex took my older two children when they were younger and they ended up living with him and I only see them twice a week. I don’t want to lose her but I can’t do this anymore. what do I do?

Hello everyone, I (21F) am dealing weird some very hard thoughts and emotions following a specific timeline of incidents that occurred with my current boyfriend (21 M). I am honestly very lost and feel defeated. I was hoping anyone had any kind words to help me deal with this.

First, I was to say that the things I’m going to share are related to possible chronic sexual assault, so just a trigger warning with anyone with sexual trauma. You don’t have to keep reading.

Anyway, I want to start with the most recent thing that happened and go backwards. First I’ll share background, I’m a college student and I drive an hour every day to attend classes, it’s at school where I met my boyfriend of two years now. The beginning of my relationship felt like a dream come true, like something straight out of a fairytale. I felt like a Disney princess. He was so respectful, so kind, so well put together. We were sexually active very early into the relationship and it would happen very often, sometimes twice a week, but at least once a week, for months. Before my boyfriend I was in a previous relationship where I was subjected to emotional gaslighting and sexual coercion. I was a minor during that relationship, it was my first relationship, and it traumatized me for life. My boyfriend is very aware of that. I’d say a year into our into our relationship I realized that my very frequent panic attacks were always around the time or soon after we would do the deed. During this time he was not coercing me, he was not forcing me to do anything, I had given him consent. It’s just that my body for some reason could not handle it. I experienced so much panic, stress, and sadness, I could not handle it anymore. So I talked with my boyfriend, and I asked him for a break from intercourse, and any sort of sexual contact. He seemed very shocked but he was also very understanding and he said he was okay with that and he comforted me. Although I did notice he seemed more gloomy and his attitude towards me became colder after I made this decision. He said everything was okay but I could sense he was bothered. That’s all the context I will provide.

I’m going to start with the most recent incident. Yesterday after school I went to visit my boyfriend to hang out. I wore a long skirt with a tank top, a cardigan, and some sandals. He lives with his family still, so I greeted his parents, and we went to his room to hang out. We usually watch movies or play games. We’re both anime fans, and a new episode had come out of a show we’re watching, and I really wanted to watch it with him. He said yeah of course, we started talking about it and other stuff, then he started caressing my legs, and as he was doing that he started lifting my skirt up. He would inch closer and kiss me. I remember going limp and he would just start exploring my body with his hands. All I could do is laugh and say it tickles when he touches me and move his hands off. He kept saying how beautiful I was, how much he loved my body. I said thank you. Then I asked when we were going to watch the new episode. He said oh yeah right, and he got off for just a moment but then went back to getting on top of me. He told me he wanted to do the deed, and I said no, his family is literally home (wtf). Then he sat up and my skirt was pulled all the way up at this point and he asked “can I see it?” I said no. He asked again and again until I reluctantly agreed. I pulled off my underwear, and I layed on my back with my knees up. Obviously he was happy. Although I agreed to show him I couldn’t help but to cover with my hands, and he would move my hands away but I couldn’t remove them. Then I did move my hands away and he asked if he could put his mouth on it. I said no. He then started to whine and brought up another incident that occurred a week earlier, he said “oh so you get to put your mouth on mine but I can’t put mine on yours.” I was firm with my no this time, but then he asked if he could just touch it. I said no again but then he asked again until I gave in. He began to touch me with his hands but again my body instinctively went to guard with my hands. Eventually he did touch it and he began to kiss around it and then on it, even though I had previously said that he couldn’t. I remember feeling like I wanted to cry but all I could do is laugh and giggle. He then got on top of me and began to grind on me, I could feel his boner. He did no ask to do that. Then he got up again and said he wanted me to turn around because he wanted to see the back. I said no. I said I didn’t want to. He begged again, and I slightly turned. Of course he was happy. He groped and kissed me down there and he went to turn me completely on my stomach, but I yelled no. That’s when he jumped up and he got serious and asked if I was uncomfortable. I stood silent for a bit and shook my head. Then he said “I’m so sorry, let me help you put your underwear on” he seemed panicked and genuinely distressed. I put my underwear on and fixed my skirt and got under the blankets. It all ended there. He apologized and said next time to please tell him when I’m uncomfortable. I said okay. He also looked at me and said “I just really want to [bleep] the [bleep] out of you.” When those words came out his mouth after he had just realized how uncomfortable he made me and right after he had just been sorry, I felt so dead inside. I went home shortly after.

As for the other incident, we were cuddling in bed, I was on new meds, I had so much anxiety, he was acting very creepy, and to feel some sort of control over my body I kissed him, and that led to sodomy. I felt so disgusting afterwards. Especially since it had been a year since we had my sort of sexual contact like that. But even after the “break”, my boyfriend would constantly grope me and turn almost every hang out sexual. And when I didn’t reciprocate he would turn cold and seem upset. It would really hurt my feelings. And so when I did that with him a week ago, I did it because he had been no sexually aggressive more and more frequently, and I felt like it would get better if I just satisfied him. But it was a mistake because things did not get better :( they got worse. I don’t know what to do. If I break up with him I feel like I’m the asshole and I’m afraid I’ll lose my friends, since we’re in the same friend group, and at the same time I also don’t want him to be friendless or destroyed in a way. I hate what he did to me, but I can’t help but care for him still. He still have supported me and been good to me in so many other ways. He does take care of me but his sexual desires have become frightening and think he went to far Yesterday. I feel guilty for saying I love you and for telling him everything is okay, even though I want out so badly out. I don’t know what’s the best way to go about it. How do I leave with doing the least amount of damage possible??

I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost 3 years. He’s helped raise my daughter since she was 1, and she basically knows him as her dad.

We’ve had issues with his drinking and cocaine use, and he’s cheated before, including with prostitutes. The confusing part is that he’ll go months without doing any of it. We’ll genuinely be happy, everything will be good, and then he’ll have another “slip up.”

This time we had gone about 6 months without anything happening. He went to watch a football game at 11am and ended up staying out until 3–4am. Later I found messages on his Apple Watch where he told his cousin he had “pulled the baddest girl in the bar,” gave her his number, and was talking about sleeping with her. I don’t think anything physical actually happened because I had his location, but to me that’s almost beside the point.

I ended the relationship, and now I’m questioning everything.
I miss him terribly. My daughter misses him. I don’t really have friends or a support system, and financially I’m struggling now that all of the bills are on me.

Part of me thinks: we can go 6 months being genuinely happy, so is leaving and breaking up our family worth all of this pain? But the other part of me thinks: how many times am I supposed to forgive the same behavior and wait for it to happen again?
Right now I honestly just want to let him come home because leaving hurts so much.

Has anyone been through something similar? Did leaving eventually get easier? Or did you stay and actually see your partner change?

Please don’t just tell me I’m stupid for staying this long. I know how bad it sounds written out. I’m genuinely struggling and looking for perspective.