My boyfriend's (37M) ex reached out to me (25F) to tell me that he had been sending her inappropriate messages. It was true.

It regrets me to say that I'm still processing everything and in shock, but I will try to be as thorough as I can.

I've been with him for two and a half years. Living together for just over one and a half. If you had asked me before today, I would describe us as the couple who never argues, trust each other inevitably, and despite our social lives, we would always look forward to coming home to each others presence. He was there for me when my mother passed away and he's made the recovery from that a lot easier by providing a happy environment for me at home. Today, his ex reached out to me to inform me that he had been cheating on me.

It started out with an email I had received, his ex from ten years ago found me on LinkedIn, she got a hold of my name, and also knew he often found his partners from work. Rightly so. She sent the email saying she had important information she had to tell me. I confronted him about this and he suggested we go for a walk during lunch where he had to tell me something.

From here, he told me a bit of history about him and his ex, I knew bits from before but he expanded on the dynamics of their relationship. They didn't bring out the best in each other and for this reason, when he had been able to engage in a normal conversation with her, he continued. This had been going on for about a year, up to recently. He mentioned, she had "mental tendencies" and urged me not to engage with her request, but if I had, that certain parts of their conversations could be taken out of context. I told him that I had to hear her side of the story.

After lunch, I called her and she explained that he had contacted a her a year from now, where she had just gotten out of her divorce. Recently, he had been contacting her more often and saying inappropriate things. I asked her if she could provide me screenshots of their conversation and she did. My god, I was preparing for snippets to be taken out of context but what I saw was 100% cheating. The messages would range from:

• I really really want to f*** you, not sure why as I've already done so lots

• I have f***ed you a lot, its not unnatural to want to do it again

• We predate my current relationship so it wouldn't be cheating

At this point, F context. I told him what she had told me can't be taken out of context and requested for an early leave from work to process everything. He told me he would be home as soon as he could.

When he got home, he didn't deny any of it. I read the messages out to him that so disgusted me and he admitted that he was looking for attention. In the past few months, we had been spending less time together. I had to travel for work, two weeks at a time, I had decided to take up studying again despite working. Prior to studying, we agreed that we would be spending less time together, he said he would support me through it, but what led to this was him not being able to tell me that he missed me and wanted more time together. We've spoken about it quite a lot, his summary is that he knows that he was wrong, he doesn't want to lose what we've made and built and he will do anything to earn my trust back. I felt that the fact that he had not owned up to it until I found out was self explanatory, in addition to that he had texted her that very morning, and tried to subdue it when I first confronted him.

Reddit, I'm so lost and confused. The one person that I had sort comfort in has just hurt me so much. I never believed that he would be capable of something like this, and over the simple fact that I was studying and not spending time with him led him to do something destructive to our perfect relationship.

I've requested for space, which will be limited since we live together, but I think this will help me process everything and come to a decision. What do I do? Do we break up? Do I try to forgive him? I'm at a lost right now. .

Tl;dr My boyfriend's ex reached out to me to tell me that my boyfriend had been messaging her inappropriately. Turns out it was true. Our relationship was perfect until I found out about this truth now I've got to make the decision on whether I forgive him, or leave him.

Submitted October 01, 2018 at 08:08PM by Inapropritecheatxts https://ift.tt/2IyEUov