So me and my partner have been fighting for a few months now, on and off. I’m 18 and in my a level period and he’s 20 working full time, we’ve been together for a year and a half and I love him with all my heart.

Two weeks ago I found out he’s been talking to a girl from his work online, I went on his phone and saw flirty messages between them from the last month. To me, I believe this is emotional cheating, two years prior my dad cheater on my mum and he saw how that broke me. Similarly his ex girlfriend had cheated on him, and he regrets not breaking up with her before she had slept with this guy, for he found messages on her phone and he classed that too as cheating.

When I confronted him about it he told me I was being over dramatic and it’s nothing serious, he claims she talks to him about her problems at home, and he talks to her about our relationship when we’re fighting. I shouted at him, left, and blocked him off of everything, he has not contacted me since.

I know if he came and apologised me and told me he loved me and regretted hiding it from me, I’d take him back. Whether this is me being weak and wanting the fact I’m being rejected to be false I’m unsure of. Yet I saw him out, and he ignored me and walked past me, as if I was never anything important to him. So the question is, should I reach out and talk to him?

Part of me feels I should because I know I love him and want to be with him. But another wonders whether he’s actually happier without me, because if he wasn’t and claims he’s innocent, then surely he’d try and talk to me?

Advice would be greatly appreciated right now, I’m aware my exams are priority, but not being certain on this situation is holding me back from prioritising them.