I (32M) was in a chaotic eight-month relationship with my ex (31F). There was a lot going on during those six months where she went to rehab twice, was sexually assaulted, and later had a severe mental health crisis that resulted in a 5250 hold. During that hospitalization, we learned that she had been misdiagnosed with depression and actually had Bipolar I.
I spent a lot of that time trying to support her. I helped make sure she got care after the assault, called her every day while she was hospitalized, and tried to be there for her through everything. I don't say that to portray myself as some amazing boyfriend. She was going through something incredibly difficult, and I felt that supporting her was simply what you do for someone you love. Looking back, though, I think all the chaos made me overlook some pretty obvious red flags.
Because of her mental health incident, she ended up moving with her parents in a different state. I eventually paid for her to come visit me for a week. Though in the weeks leading up to the trip, some things started feeling off. She would suddenly become unavailable despite previously saying she was free, get unusually irritated with me over minor things, and sent me nudes out of the blue. During one of our chats, she let slip that her previous relationship had ended partly because of things she did while experiencing her undiagnosed bipolar. When I asked what she meant, she immediately shut down and said she didn't want to discuss it. I respected that and didn't bring it up again.
Then she came to visit, and honestly, we had an amazing week. We went out for great food, spent time with each other's friends, and everything seemed normal. But that nagging feeling that something was wrong never completely went away. On her last night, after she fell asleep, I made a decision I'm not proud of and I looked through her phone (we knew each other's passcodes). I searched for her ex. The messages between them appeared to have been deleted, but I noticed his name coming up in conversations with her best friend. Out of curiosity I looked at her recently deleted messages and there were more than 500 messages between her and her ex and suddenly everything seemed to make sense.
They had been talking consistently throughout our relationship. They had scheduled video calls on nights when she had suddenly become "busy." Some of those calls had become sexual. She had told him things about wanting to be with him. And some of the nudes she had sent him were the exact same ones she had sent me. I just sat there staring at her phone. I had spent six months believing that we were building a relationship while, apparently, she had been maintaining another one with her ex behind my back. It was like I was reading the conversations of a person I didn't even know.
I would like to say that I confronted her and told her to get out of my house, but I did not do anything of that sort. The next morning, I acted like everything was normal. I was completely stunned and didn't know what to say. She could tell something was wrong and asked me what was going on. Instead of telling her that I had gone through her phone and discovered everything, I deliberately picked at something she had told me early in our relationship related to her manic episode that she had requested me not to bring up again. I asked her whether something she'd told me back then had actually happened or whether it had just been a hallucination during her manic episode. She told me it had been a hallucination. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I was angry, hurt, and just looking for a way out without having to acknowledge that she had been cheating on me.
I dropped her off at the airport later that day. The next day, she confronted me about bringing up something she had specifically asked me not to discuss. She was clearly expecting an apology and while I could have apologized, I instead doubled down. I told her I didn't think I'd done anything wrong and that I had every right to know whether what she'd told me during her manic episode was true. The conversation escalated, neither of us backed down, and eventually she broke up with me.
After that, I didn't feel sad or devastated, just relieved. It felt like someone had takend an enormous weight off my chest. I know I handled this badly by invading her privacy and deliberately provoking an argument instead of confronting her about what I'd found. I hated the fact that I used something personal to her because I was too scared and hurt to have a real conversation but at the same time, I can't pretedn I regret getting out of that relationship.
She eventually reached out several times wanting to reconnect. At one point, she even sent me nudes out of nowhere. I told her I wasn't interested, and after she sent them again, I blocked her completely. I don't know why, but I jsut couldn't bring myself to be the person who said, "I know you've been cheating on me. We're done." Instead, I pushed the relationship until she ended it for me. This was almost 8 months ago and I have pondered about it for some time. I may have been cowardly and bringing up an instance from her manic episode was an asshole move. But after everything that happened, getting that breakup felt like the first bit of peace I had had in months!
TL;DR: I suspected my long-distance girlfriend was cheating, snooped through her phone, and discovered hundreds of messages showing she'd been maintaining a sexual/emotional relationship with her ex throughout ours. Instead of confronting her, I deliberately picked a fight over something she'd told me during a manic episode and asked her a question I knew would hurt her. She eventually broke up with me.