Hello friendly reddit users, never thought I’d be writing.
I’m [21M] and my girlfriend is [20F] We’ve been together since the end of 2020.
When we first got together at 16 and 15. Obviously, that’s a long time considering our ages. We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve grown apart while being together, grown back together, and become pretty knowledgeable about what it’s like to truly take care of another person and have someone so deeply embedded in your life.
First things first, I’d like to say that everything else in our relationship is damn near perfect. Our families love each other, we love each other’s families, we care about each other, we show up for each other, and we always talk calmly and compassionately. To me, it feels like everything is really, really good other than trust.
We had both cheated while we were young, and I’m sure there were plenty of other mistakes throughout the relationship on both sides. But one thing that really stuck out to me happened after we broke up last year. I was the one who ended it. I went out for a summer of sales, did really well, and came back home. But all the feelings from when she cheated early on carried into the present. It was like, am I really going to let that disrespect carry into my future? Am I going to have kids with this woman, and have my kids’ mom be someone who betrayed their dad? I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s how it felt.
At the same time, we obviously care about each other a lot and have been willing to do anything for each other. She’s literally cut off her whole family, all of her friends, and basically shaped her whole life around me.
What happened recently was that she had her friends and cousins over, and apparently decided to go through my phone and look at my Facebook search history. There was a girl in my search history every other day or something, but it came from clicking on accounts while checking who added me, Facebook Marketplace, or just randomly wondering how someone was doing. I know technically that still isn’t okay.
But what she did was seek revenge, and when revenge became an opportunity, she took it. It wasn’t horrible, but someone from a past relationship reached out to her and said, “I miss you.” She replied, “Oh yeah?” He said, “Yeah, but you got a boyfriend.” She said, “Yeah.” Then he said, “And you’re still replying.” After that, she blocked him in a panic and deleted the messages.
Truth reveals itself in mysterious ways. She deleted something else in a scare that wasn’t as bad because of those messages, and I caught her red-handed. How I know what the messages said for sure is because I re-downloaded the TikTok direct messages into a file and read them myself.
Of course, I was extremely disappointed and she was distraught. But I was also 2,000 miles away on the other side of the country working in sales for a different industry, low on money, with a lot going on and rent coming up. I just couldn’t break up with her then.
Yesterday, I broke up with her. I didn’t even mean to say all the truth I was feeling, but the worst of it just came out of me. I told her how I felt about what I saw, how she betrayed me, and how I just can’t really see myself ignoring that and carrying it into our future, having kids, getting married, and all of those things.
And that’s what hurts so much. I love her, my family loves her, I love her family, and her family loves me. There are so many deep connections between us too.
What do you guys think?
Have a good day fellow Redditor’s.