have you ever cheated?

[loststill]

Look we all make mistakes. Some worse than others. Me and my boyfriend are coming up on 10 years, newest child is almost 3. Post-partum and being a new mom really weighed on me. I also had a huge life change from being a happy independent woman in a relationship with the love of my life, working full time making my own income to being a complete stay at home mom. Things started to get a little distant between us in a way. I spent the first few months sleeping on the couch with baby because we were up that much. I did it all. In return I felt alone most the time and sure he always thanked me and told me how much he loves me, but I didn't feel like he was actually showing it. He was in a change around of jobs not too long after baby was born so things did get a little tight but the desire for freedom and money started to get to me more and I wanted to find a way to get it. Resulted in reaching out to this older guy I knew, and it turned into sweet talking my way through sexual conversations but nothing ever physical. As far as sending a few nudes the conversations all happened through messaging, and he would send me money to cash App. I truly never wanted to have anything happen just sweet talked my way to getting some extra cash. Not proud or making excuses to justify what I did because I know it was still wrong. Although I made it a point to keep it to the messages, something dumb inside of me said it wouldn't hurt as bad if he found out. Needless to say boyfriend found out and lost it. Of course I'm ashamed, embarrassed and couldn't get all the truth out at once so I lied my way around it for a little bit before I just gave in and told him everything I could think of but at that point he didn't believe a word I said. Days started feeling longer and I was feeling shittier about myself, becoming more depressed, confused of my purpose. not choosing to set my own wants aside... things escalated into accusing me of doing drugs because I gave up on caring about my appearance. Also now being accused of having sex with his brother, who lives with us. I can't stand his brother, and I wish he would leave but that will never happen, and although I feel this way my boyfriend will still to this day accuse me of having something going on with him. No matter how many times I deny it and calmy try to tell him otherwise (majority of the time I'm yelling) he still doesn't believe anything I say. I have openly offered to take drug tests, be watched by cameras, lie detector test, whatever to make him see the truth himself since he doesn't want to believe it out of my mouth. He doesn't do anything though but just keep using derogatory words and having no filter. Do I deserve some of it? Of course but at what point do I have the right to stand up for myself, still feel like a human, the mother of his child, the woman who DID NOT have sex with someone else or touch anyone else, nor did anyone touch me. I'm so lost because he keeps giving me mixed signals. One moment he's loving and having fun then out of nowhere he's accusing me of how I'm looking or something I did he notices and tries to correlate it with something negative, or his brother.. HE chose to stay and want to work it out. Sure its hard to move on from having your heart broken. But at what point does he ACTUALLY want this if he can't let go of accusations he makes up and isn't seeing my efforts of trying to be better person.. how does he expect me to love him and ask for forgiveness and strength to move forward when all he does is put me down and make me feel like I am incapable of being an honest person??

[Sony12]

I don't think this topic is really about asking people if they have cheated or not. It's about you being in an unhealthy relationship.

Edited Tuesday at 03:54 PM by Sony12

[loststill]

First time posting so I put the title as such to pull in people who have cheated to ask for advice on how they handled themselves. Yes were in an unhealthy relationship but because I cheated. Things have become unhealthy because we can't come to terms on how to come together and move forward. Or I'm just missing something all together.  

[Gebidozo]

1 hour ago, loststill said:

how does he expect me to love him and ask for forgiveness and strength to move forward when all he does is put me down and make me feel like I am incapable of being an honest person?

Because you aren’t being honest. You did something that broke your BF’s trust, yet you don’t appear to be particularly remorseful. You admit yourself that a part of you wanted him to find out about your interaction with that older man. It seems to me that now a part of you wants your BF to be mad and unforgiving and unreasonably jealous so that you’ll have the excuse to do more questionable things.

This is your way of rebelling against the unhealthy relationship that you find yourself in. But the way you’re doing it is unhealthy as well. When you feel unappreciated and disrespected and unloved by your partner, you don’t cheat on them, you break up. Lying, hiding, cheating, leading a double life never leads to anything good. It’s always destructive and self-destructive.

[loststill]

I admitted I wasn't honest when he found out. When I finally gave in and accepted what I did, I have been doing nothing but apologizing and changing how I do things and being as open as I can with him. He still makes up this mix of scenarios in his head and tries to make it reality. I have been being remorseful, I feel terrible. But when I try to show him love and when I try to do things better he just seems to not wanna do anything but find something I have done wrong that day. He puts up a wall but still expects me to keep coming after him. It wasnt my goal to plan to let him find out so I can make him keep thinking bad things. I have recognized why I did what I did. I hate that I felt I needed to do it. We have had conversations of moving forward and why I did what I did but then another day comes and so does a different perspective in his eyes of me.

[smackie9]

My advice is for you two to temporarily separate (you move out) to have time to heal/ reflect, and you getting yourself into counselling. All the couples I know that experienced infidelity, separated so they could have time to themselves. And it worked. They came back together with clearer heads, and ready to rebuild their relationship to the point that it's better than ever. 

Edited Tuesday at 06:23 PM by smackie9

[flitzanu]

instead of wanting your boyfriend to react the way you want, maybe you should be proactive and leave your boyfriend since you're unhappy, and that way you can pursue the older man you are having the virtual sexual relationship with for money, and your boyfriend could move on and find someone else and both of you could be happy.

 

[Gebidozo]

6 hours ago, loststill said:

I admitted I wasn't honest when he found out. When I finally gave in and accepted what I did, I have been doing nothing but apologizing and changing how I do things and being as open as I can with him. He still makes up this mix of scenarios in his head and tries to make it reality. I have been being remorseful, I feel terrible. But when I try to show him love and when I try to do things better he just seems to not wanna do anything but find something I have done wrong that day. He puts up a wall but still expects me to keep coming after him. It wasnt my goal to plan to let him find out so I can make him keep thinking bad things. I have recognized why I did what I did. I hate that I felt I needed to do it. We have had conversations of moving forward and why I did what I did but then another day comes and so does a different perspective in his eyes of me.

Of course it does. What did you expect? If I learned that my SO was having virtual sex for money while being with me, I’m not sure I could get over that.

Also, your relationship has been having many other problems, those that caused you to behave the way you behaved. Those problems aren’t gone, you haven’t solved them, and your BF knows that. 

Suppose he forgives you. Then what? Are you going to stop feeling miserable in your relationship? Is he going to change and help you more? What are the guarantees that you’ll be happier and won’t feel the irresistible urge to do something outrageous again?