I've been with my boyfriend for four years. We've known each other since we were 14 and started dating at 17. He's been such a significant part of my life. Before all of this, I genuinely thought we had the most beautiful relationship. We were best friends, incredibly affectionate, had the same sense of humour and shared the same values. He made me feel loved, safe and special. I never had any reason to question his loyalty. Even my friends thought he was probably the last person who would ever do something like this.
Recently, my uncle passed away. The day after he died, I was crying in my boyfriend's arms, completely devastated. What I subsequently found out was that on that very same day, my boyfriend had contacted THREE massage parlours enquiring about getting a massage.
One establishment responded and asked if he wanted a massage. He replied along the lines of: "I want a massage at _____, can you send pictures of the girls so I can choose?"
These weren't ordinary professional headshots. They were provocative promotional pictures of escorts, with dice covering their faces.
What makes this particularly difficult to dismiss is what happened AFTER he received the pictures. He continued engaging with the establishment. The conversation essentially went back and forth around three times: they would send him pictures, he would respond with a time, they would send more pictures, and he would respond again with a time, asking about coming in. Eventually, he left the last set of photos on read.
He maintains that he never actually went to the establishment. I have no evidence that he did, and I'm not claiming that he physically cheated. However, I find it incredibly difficult to accept that this was just an innocent massage enquiry. He contacted three establishments, specifically requested pictures of the women so he could choose one, received pictures of escorts and continued communicating with them about coming in.
I eventually discovered these messages myself, around two weeks later. Until then, he had continued acting completely normally with me. For approximately 20 days, he had been affectionate, holding me, kissing me and telling me he loved me, all while knowing what he had done and keeping it from me. I had absolutely no idea.
When I confronted him, his initial reaction was to minimise it. He described it as "just a message" and made excuses about not wanting a stranger touching him. He has since apologised, but he continues to insist that there was nothing sexual about what he did and that he never intended to have sex with anyone.
This is what I cannot get past. I am not asking him to admit to something he didn't do. I am asking him to acknowledge the nature of what he actually pursued. How can contacting multiple massage establishments, specifically requesting pictures of escorts to choose from and repeatedly engaging with them about coming in be characterised as an innocent massage enquiry? Even if he never physically went or intended to have sex, surely he can acknowledge that the behaviour itself was sexual in nature and a betrayal of our relationship?
He has even said things along the lines of, "I can't tell you the lies you want me to tell you." It makes me feel as though he's framing my need for accountability as me asking him to invent a confession, when all I want is for him to stop minimising his actual decisions.
Another thing that makes this particularly hypocritical is that, during those 20 days, he was still acting as though he had the moral high ground in our relationship. He would tell me not to be alone with my male friends and make comments about boundaries and loyalty. Meanwhile, he had done this and was concealing it from me.
His family has also tried to justify his behaviour, essentially saying that you can overlook a little disloyalty if someone is otherwise a good partner, and that boys will be boys. He apparently also told his family a version of events that left out the fact that he continued responding after receiving the photos. I feel as though he's more concerned with protecting his reputation than genuinely confronting what he did. I get it though. I would be ashamed if I did something like this.
For context, I am no longer with him. I don't want to get back together because I don't think I can look at him or our relationship the same way again. But we were together for four years, and I still miss him terribly. We had a genuinely beautiful relationship, which is what makes this so difficult to process. He has never even LOOKED at another woman wrong, I feel utterly blindsided.
He knew about my past experiences, my vulnerabilities and the things that had hurt me before him. He knew how much loyalty and trust meant to me. I shared parts of myself with him that I had never shared with anyone else. I trusted him completely.
Now I almost regret being so vulnerable with him. It feels like the person I considered my safe space has become the person who has made me feel least safe.
I also find myself feeling disconnected from our memories. It's as though finding out about this has completely changed the way I see the last four years. I struggle to reconcile the person who treated me so beautifully with the person who made these decisions.
I don't know whether I'm being unreasonable, but I genuinely feel that the fact he pursued this at all, regardless of whether he physically went through with it, is a form of infidelity.
What do I do? Do I forgive? Is it not that deep? I don't know. I feel so humiliated he threw away 4 years for a 'cheap thrill' as he admitted to me.
