long story short, my past relationships and romantic/sexual actions and fuck ups are putting my relationship with my boyfriend at risk. i was his first everything but he wasn’t mine and i know he’s my one and only and i’ve never felt for anyone more but i feel so fucking guilty for my past actions and mistakes and neither of us know how to stop feeling sad and fix ourselves. we’re too broke for therapy but both depressed and have issues and spend a lot of time together. i don’t know what to do, please give me advice for how to move forward. story details below

so my boyfriend and i have been together for about 6-7 months. he’s not my first relationship or first experience but he is my first true love and soulmate. until him i didn’t want to get married, until him i didn’t want to have kids of my own (biologically but now i’ve reconsidered), and i’ve never loved anyone more. something important to him is i was his first for everything, before me he’d turned down shit with other girls because he felt it would compromise good experiences with his future important relationship and didn’t want to waste time on pettiness.

a month before we got together i had just broken up with my ex, my current boyfriend’s friend. my boyfriend my ex and i have been on fine terms for a while and there aren’t hard feelings there. but i cheated on my ex (i kissed someone else) the night before we broke up, and i kissed our other friend. i didn’t make the move but it doesn’t matter and i accept full responsibility because i went with it. my first priority after that was to end that relationship so i wouldn’t hurt anyone more. my ex had a lot of insecurities with girls leaving him in the past for other people, and i knew that him knowing the truth of how i cheated would be hard on him for no reason, because it was completely my fault and he did nothing wrong. my ex still doesn’t know.

a few days after we broke up i ended up having sex for the first time with the guy i cheated with. at the time i didn’t know what i wanted and because i was then uncommitted to one person that excused my behavior. in my own life i am generally a very sex positive person and relatively open. but because i have a lot of pain with penetration it didn’t last for very long before i made him stop and we just carried on being friends and fucking around a bit.

a few weeks after that my current boyfriend, my friend at the time, confessed feelings for me and i stopped fucking around with the other guy. he had been playing games and obviously isn’t a morally sound person because he treats my ex like shit but claims to be his friend, he did shit with me behind my ex’s back and still claims to be his friend, and now that the dudes back with his long term girlfriend he still tries to hit me up knowing full well i’m with someone, and compromising his own relationship that i know to already be tough on both him and his girlfriend.

aside from that situation which makes my boyfriend understandably uncomfortable and me feel really guilty, all of my past experiences with different people also upset my boyfriend, and he feels like “the best thing in his life was just snatched away and stolen from him” and gets upset about the order of events between us, between my ex the douche and myself, in general.

i hate the word slut and the word whore in negative ways but honestly i just feel so shit and worthless because of my past actions and i don’t know what to do because it’s ruining my relationship. i’ve never wanted to change the past more than i do now but it’s literally impossible and i’ve never wanted something to work more but we always end up being sad at each other and feeling down and depressed and acting unhealthily.