My boyfriend (26M) of four years continued an emotional affair after promising to stop, because he believed it was God's Plan. (27F)

My boyfriend and I had a fantastic relationship. We talked all the time about getting married, all my friends were jealous of the way he treated me, and my family LOVED him. I moved back to my home city to be with him, and we were living together happily for about a year when he sat me down out of absolutely nowhere and told me he "couldn't be the man I deserved" because he had feelings for someone else.

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I was completely blindsided. Slowly it came out that this exchange student (Michelle) he had been showing around while I was away had been more than a friend. In the first version of the story, she was only in our hometown for two weeks, then in a later version, they had hung out for about a month. He said they started out as friends and then they kissed before she left to go home to Mexico. After she left, they continued texting each other. She had been his emotional support when his grandma passed away a few months ago (I had thought it was strange that he didn't seem to want to talk about her death) and he also told me that she had "made him believe in God" (previously he had been a staunch atheist). He'd been watching all these evangelist youtube videos and listening to podcasts and then talking about them with Michelle.

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I didn't know what to do. I asked him if he loved me, and he said he didn't know. I cried and basically lost my mind. Then, I packed up a suitcase and went to stay at a friend's place for the night. I remember trying to sleep and crying so hard I couldn't breathe. I had made so many sacrifices for him and our future marriage.

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The next day, we met up to talk, and neither of us wanted to break up. We did an online counseling program. We did multiple sessions where we communicated with a therapist both as individuals and as a couple. After the therapy, I felt relieved. I felt that our first, young, immature relationship had ended and that we were creating the foundation for a strong, mature relationship with the understanding that it's possible for us to hurt each other and that we need to be accountable to each other. Besides the one friend who I stayed with that fateful night, I told no one about what had happened.

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During therapy, we made a list of date ideas to spend time together and rebuild our relationships. One week after finishing therapy, the Covid lockdown hit. I thought that the reason we never did our date ideas was because we couldn't, and for the most part, I felt secure about our relationship because we were spending a lot of time together working from home.

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On Monday night this week (October 19) I just had a bad feeling. My boyfriend felt distant. I found Michelle's instagram (I wish I hadn't) and there were some relatively recent pictures on there that my boyfriend had taken. I asked him about it. He said they were from when they used to talk. I sent her a DM on instagram asking if she still talks to him. She said they talk every day, about "life, work, school, geopolitics" (?!). I asked for screenshots and for some reason she actually sent them. They were damning: "I miss you", "I couldn't stop thinking about you today", "I wonder where we will see each other again? Las Vegas? New York?", etc. I was extremely hurt.

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He used to talk to her on WhatsApp, but after therapy, he deleted it. The screenshots were from WhatsApp, and I wasn't sure whether they were old or not. I asked him over dinner if he still uses WhatsApp, and he said nope, he deleted it months ago. I asked him if he still talked to Michelle and he said of course not. I downloaded WhatsApp and searched him as a contact. It said he had been active just an hour ago. Then I started reading the screenshots and his face started twitching.

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We've been broken up for about a week now and I don't know how I'll ever move on. I can't picture myself with anybody else.

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But here's the thing I REALLY don't get...he is still pushing this religious aspect of things. He believes that Michelle was sent into his life by God and that it was God's plan for him to reach out to her. She is super religious, but I don't think it was very Christian of her to kiss my boyfriend. He believes he is supposed to have this "special" connection with her which he claims is divine and platonic. You don't have platonic relationships with women that you deliberately hide from your girlfriend.

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I'm posting because I need help sorting this out. How do I get over him? Why would he think he's divinely connected to this girl to the point where he can't stop texting her?

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TL;DR: My boyfriend continued a (mostly) emotional affair with a woman he thinks God put into his life. How do I get over him? And why would he think that his relationship with this other girl is sanctioned by God?

Submitted October 24, 2020 at 04:46PM by baileyarsenic https://ift.tt/3dUL55H