Should I stay or should I go?
Hi Ladies!
I’m sure some of you have unfortunately been in my position before or can understand it. I have been with my boyfriend for 2 years. We are mid 30s, basically live together and are planning on moving to another city together later this year.
5 months into our relationship, I found my boyfriend on a dating app. I picked up his phone while cleaning and his notifications flashed up and that’s how I saw it was a dating app. Stupidly or maybe not, I didn’t dig through his phone despite knowing his passcode. I think I was scared of what I would find and still think it’s an invasion of privacy. I confronted him and at first he made excuses than came clean and was very apologetic. Long story short, I forgave him and we moved on.
August 2018 so about 1 year later, I find him on Tagged. We were out and he was showing me something on his phone and a notification came up. I was quiet until we got home when I calmly confronted him. He basically told me he gets really bored and goes on the app to watch people’s videos. He offered to show me the app but I didn’t want to see. He swears - and I believe him - that he has never physically cheated. I know some of you will think I’m being naive but I do honestly think he wants the attention but wouldn’t act on it. Still
not great though. I told him how upset I was, it’s happened again and that maybe he isn’t happy in the relationship with me or being in a relationship and he needs to decide what he wants. I said it’s not fair to me, him or us to stay if he isn’t 100% committed to me and us. In short, he loves me, was so angry at himself blah blah and we moved past it but I do have some trust issues.
Fast forward and this last weekend I think I saw that he has Meet Me on his phone! I can’t be sure so don’t know whether to confront him and start a big issue especially as I’m about to travel for work for a week. I am emotionally drained even thinking about this - I love him so much and see our future together, we have been talking about trying for a child soon moving cities and on the surface, everything is great. However, I don’t understand why he keeps going back to these stupid apps. I even start thinking I’m obviously not good enough or not the right person for him and while I’m not changing who I am for him, my heart half wants to leave and half wants to stay. I know what many will say, I would say it also - why is he on dating apps, he can’t be happy if he is looking elsewhere, if there is no trust there is no relationship. I agree but I am very confident he isn’t physically cheating and I don’t know whether to give everything up. I’m also so scared, I’m early to mid thirties, I would probably miss the boat to have kids starting again - and of course certainly not a reason to stay or bring kids into their world but it makes me want to try and work through this. I would appreciate any advice. Thank you 😊