Sinking lifeboat

[LoveWithout]

I have read several posts written by offenders, people who claim to have made a mistake, that claim to be riddled with regret but there is never a follow up. What happened to their relationship, did they confess, did it end or did they make things work? Also the other side never seems to speak up, no one ever seems to write about what they did after they were cheated on.

 

Does everyone just end their relationship, does no one fight and work through all the hurt?

 

I am lost and confused over what I am supposed to be doing. I have/had, I don't really know what we are right now, a BF. Never mind, let me start from the beginning......

 

Nearly two years ago I got a divorce. After divorcing I moved to a new town to go to school. Between school and children there wasn't much time for running out a finding a ton of girl friends so I did a stupid thing..... I downloaded Tinder. All I wanted was a friendly person to hang out with. Truth be told i'm not much of a girly girl, I always got on better with guys.

 

Not long after signing up I found a guy who was looking for friendship. He and I started hanging out in my spare time. It was nothing serious, he was entertaining and a wonderful counselor when life was getting really tough. Good things never last and he started falling for me. I really did care deeply for him and I loved him as a friend. He would always ask for us to be more than we were but would respect my declination every time I told him I simply wasn't ready for anything serious.

 

Fast forward 9 months and my ex and I are trying to figure out if we want to work things out or not. By this time I am frazzled, I beg for my friend to find someone else because I am just not sure about life or love anymore. He admitted to loving me and said he never wanted anyone else. For a year and a half he stood by my side through ups and downs and I grew very fond of him and fell completely in love.

 

The kind of love that makes you happy, the kind that makes you look past all of the other persons flaws and makes you feel like as long as you two are together the world will be alright.

 

 

We started dating a year and some change after we met and all was great until recently. After living in the new city and not being able to find work I decided to move back home to build a portable tiny house. It has always been a dream of mine to build my own house and now seemed like the perfect time. The man in question is in the military and about to go away for extra training, seeing as we are not married I can not move with him. The plan was for me to come home and build while he was away. By the time he is finished I will also be done and I can follow him to his new duty station.

 

 

Come to find out I wasn't gone a week and he had already downloaded Tinder because he was looking for people to hang out with (he was also new to the area when we met so he used Tinder to find a friend as well). If he would have been honest about it I would have just told him i'm not ok with that and i'm sure he would have stopped. However he wasn't, though he was honest enough to not seems as if he was lying. For example he told me he was talking to a girl but he said she randomly contacted him through his sailing blog and wanted to take lessons...

 

When I thought a random girl had contacted him I told him I had been cheated on before and I do not trust boy and girl friendships. He then told me I was crazy and tried to make me feel bad for being suspicious of her motives. I knew he was lying and leaving out details but I figured it was because he didn't want me to worry too much about something he felt was innocent not because he was being a complete douche. We had a fight, the end result was him canceling his sailing trip with this girl and him saying he will not do anything with an other girl. We dropped it and everything had been normal since.

 

Last week he came down for a visit and while he was out walking the dog I thought I would take some cute pictures for him on his phone so the next time he goes to his album he would find them. Being a girl and not wanting to have any of my pictures look hideous I went to his album to delete the ones I deemed icky. As I was deleting I noticed several selfies he has taken..... That he had never sent to me..... Now I have been with him for a year and a half, I know what his cellphone usage is like and never does he ever take selfies unless he is sending them to me.

 

After I found them I redownloaded Tinder on his phone and signed in. There my assumptions were confirmed. This girl had not just contacted him, he went looking for people.

 

He swears they have never met that all they did was talk and the conversations were innocent. Also as soon as we had our fight and I said I wasn't comfortable with him talking to and hanging out with other girls he stopped talking to her.

 

 

I 110% never saw this coming. He was amazing in my eyes, he stood by me and acted as if he loved me. Every inch, every imperfection. I was completely blindsided.

 

 

Now what do I do? I want to work through this. He is human, he made a mistake. Who hasn't been flirted with and made to feel special and we allow it? I have already forgiven him, but I still feel horrible.

 

 

All those times I asked for him to find someone else, to make himself happy, only for him to stand by me and reassure me i'm all he ever wants in life. I have gone through so much in the past 2 years, he could have left at any time and from my point of view he should have.

 

 

I feel like he never really loved me, he only loved having someone around. Memories that we have feel tainted, being naked in front of him makes me feel ugly which hurts because he is the only person that has ever made me feel beautiful. I find myself thinking of him or being around him and being happy only for my brain to catch a snag. Like sailing, it is his passion. He bought his bought and we went to get it together. Sailing is so much fun but it scares me at times. He made me drive the boat and it freaked me out so I affectionately name his boat Sierra Bravo AKA Stupid Boat. Right before he started talking about teaching this other girl how to sail he told me "no other girl can come on SB, she is made for you". Or right after we fought I suggested we get on words with friends and "meet again", ya know pretend like we didn't know one another and start again for fun. He said he doesn't want to flirt with anyone else and even doing it knowing it was me turns his stomach.

 

I don't know how to move past this, I don't want to be mean to him. I want to just forget it happened but I can't. I find myself asking him why and trying to understand at least once a day.

 

It all makes me feel like an idiot. Every time I love someone, and I mean really love someone it seems to slap me in the face....