I was with my boyfriend for almost 5 years. We began dating freshman year of high school and recently broke up because he cheated on me. We went through a rough patch because I wanted a break to focus on myself and my mental health and I felt I was prioritizing our relationship more than myself. During this rough patch (about 3 months ago) he felt unwanted and seeked attention from someone else, someone we work with(this is what he said anyway). We ended up getting through it but I was constantly feeling jealous and insecure because of his “friendship” with this girl from work. I was never bothered by him having female friends but this was different. It actually drove me to doing things I knew wasn’t right like checking his texts and call logs. I started feeling jealous by how much they spoke and how often he reached out to her. I decided to be honest and told him on multiple occasions how I was feeling. He assured me that they were just friends so I sort of just shrugged and convinced myself I was being jealous and overthinking. Expect a couple weeks ago, I find out through DM that he cheated on me with this girl. I receive screenshots of their conversations in which he’s sending her long ass paragraphs about how much he loves her and how much he loves her body, how he wants caress her and fuck her so hard (I have the words engraved in my memory unfortunately). I send him the screenshots and call him and he stood speechless. In the moment I was furious. I felt that I gave him so much and stood by his side only to be betrayed in my moment of weakness. I asked if they ever kissed or had sex to which he replied no. I asked for how long was this going on to which he said for one week in July (the time we were fighting). He said that as soon as we fixed our problem he cut it off with her but kept her around as a “friend” because he was worried she would blackmail him”. Later on that night heartbreak and sadness kicked in and he kept apologizing and saying how angry he was at himself and how he wanted to physically hurt himself. The next day the girl DMs me to tell me that they had sex (she told me this as I was on the phone with him). Anger kicked in again I asked him to tell me the truth one last time or he’s losing me for good. He admits that he brought her over to his house when there was nobody there and that we was about to do it but couldn’t go through with it because he saw a picture of us that he had framed in his room. The thing is, at the time he brought her over we had altered fixed our issue. So why did he have her over? before the girl texted me he made it clear to her that he doesn’t want anything to do with her anymore to which she said “if you don’t talk to me I’ll make you hate me” and then she said that they had sex while the person who lied to me swears on everything they love that that’s not true. So who do I believe? As the days go by, I believe that he feels regretful and I believe him when he says he’s sorry but I tell him I can’t allow myself to be with him because I don’t trust him and don’t know if I ever will. Fast forward, after hanging out a couple times and trying to be just friends (because after all, romance aside, we have an understanding for each other and we kinda grew up together and have an insane history so its hard to let each other go), I go to work to see that they are together. I get mad and ignore him for the entire day and at night I tell him that us talking is a bad idea because we need time to heal. The next morning he shows up at my house unexpected to return my things. We get to talking and he says that the girl went to where he was and that he didn’t speak to her the entire time. Blah blah blah after some time talking about random things, all positivity, we had sex. It felt like just sex. And after we just chilled. But then things started to heat up again and we started to kiss and stuff and half way through I start crying and ask him to stop. He holds me and tells me that he’s here for me and now we’re both crying. So we get back to business with tears in our eyes and after a while the tears go away and we’re in the moment. I was on top looking him in the eye and when he finished he held me real close to him and then I came and while we were both having an orgasm and holding each other we start crying again. I didn’t feel sad. I wasn’t crying because I was sad or mad or anything, I just had the realization that despite everything I love him. I never felt anything like that before. Now I’m confused because I can’t be with him because of trust issues and I can’t be without him because he’s my best friend and I love him. Everyone is telling me how to feel: “let him go and move on” “give it time and move on”

Side note: if you’ve read the entire thing, I appreciate you 😭❤️