Boyfriend cheating because he needs to feel like he's a bad person

[Sindun]

Does anyone know what to do when your partner cheats because he wants / needs to feel like a piece of s***? I know it’s unresolved childhood trauma and I can’t force him to go to therapy. So I’ve left him. But I still care about him deeply and hope one day to be friends but at the moment that’s not possible – we tried for the past 3 months to be friends and I thought everything was great we were building honesty etc. (and I even suggested to him a few weeks ago that our friendship might be strong because we both see potential for something more and he said that was spot on), but he was lying to me again, pretending he was single and working on himself, but he was secretly seeing someone.

[MsJayne]

Yes, I know what you should do in this situation.  You should leave him to languish in his own self-obsessive stupidity and stop wasting your life hanging out with a loser. 

[ExpatInItaly]

10 hours ago, Sindun said:

Does anyone know what to do when your partner cheats because he wants / needs to feel like a piece of s***?

I know what to do: not believe that load of equine manure for one hot second. 

 

[Sanch62]

16 hours ago, Sindun said:

...he was lying to me again

This is all you really need to know. You can't believe a word he says, and you can't fix him.

Leaving was the right thing to do, and you will thank yourself for it, hopefully sooner rather than later. He's not your project.

[ShySoul]

21 hours ago, Sindun said:

I know it’s unresolved childhood trauma and I can’t force him to go to therapy. So I’ve left him. But I still care about him deeply and hope one day to be friends but at the moment that’s not possible

You are doing exactly what a good, mature person does.

You protect yourself by not tolerating the lies and deception. You leave.

But at the same time you don't choose to hate him for it. You understand where this behavior is coming and you wish him well. You leave the door open to reconnect and be friends should he reach the point of facing his issues. You balance caring for him with caring for yourself. And you choose to forgive a person and not see them as a villian, while not forgetting or excusing poor behavior.

You have the right attitude and are doing everything right. You will be okay. I hope both of you are okay.

[smackie9]

You can't be friends with THAT. Toxic is toxic. Shove those feelings aside and go find your self worth. You can't paint a turd gold to make it real gold. 

[ShySoul]

Sindun, she didn't exactly cheat, but I was involved with a woman who repeatedly ran and would say hurtful things to me. Once we were done for good she rushed into another relationship, even getting married (it was a disaster). To an outsider she clearly was a liar and messed up. For me having known her so deeply, I could see the issues inside of her that she was avoiding. I knew why she did those things. It didn't excuse them and reached a point where I had to walk away. But I still loved her and wanted the best for her. Thinking negative of her in the long run wasn't going to help me. I didn't want to carry that weight inside my heart, letting it bring me down.

Remove yourself from him as he, at this point, can't be trusted. But don't carry with you ill will. That will only poison you. His acts aren't worth it. The best revenge on someone who hurts you is to wish them well and know they can't get to you. Feel sad about it for a time, but don't be consumed by it. Be the bigger person who forgives and still cares about them, even if it has to be from a distance and not in the romantic, lets be together kind of way.

You're mature. You're smart. You will have better. He'll have to live with himself and the knowledge of what he did. You're the winner here.

[ShyViolet]

On 7/2/2025 at 5:04 AM, Sindun said:

Does anyone know what to do when your partner cheats because he wants / needs to feel like a piece of s***? 

Yes, you break up with them.  And that's really it.

You are going down a bad road if you think you can "fix" a broken person or help him with his problems.  It's not your place.  Your job is to make responsible decisions for yourself and to take care of you.  Walk away from this and stop letting his toxicity into your life.

[Sanch62]

1 hour ago, ShyViolet said:

Yes, you break up with them.  And that's really it.

You are going down a bad road if you think you can "fix" a broken person or help him with his problems.  It's not your place.  Your job is to make responsible decisions for yourself and to take care of you.  Walk away from this and stop letting his toxicity into your life.

Yep. Cheating is a deliberate betrayal, not a 'mistake'. Throwing up a 'reason' that you can do nothing about just compounds the problem.

Once someone demonstrates that they own the capacity to deceive you, it makes no sense to buy into anything they tell you after that. Even if this bizarre 'excuse' is true, it leaves you nowhere to go. You can't resolve it, and you can no longer trust anything they might say or do. That's a limbo of walking on eggshells to await the next deception.

Is that how you want to live out YOUR future?

[stillafool]

TBH, his excuse for cheating sounds like a bunch of bull he said just to end it with you.  Why would you want to be friends with someone who cheated on you and doesn't respect you?