Boyfriend met a girl off of a dating app. Says they only kissed + is extremely apologetic. How to move past this?

Hi. I’m 26F, my boyfriend is 26M. We have been dating for five years and live together/have a cat/have talked about getting married. I thought things were going well.

Then I noticed he was staying up on his phone lately, and I caved and checked his texts/call log last night. He’s been texting and FaceTiming another girl (who’s in her early 20s) for the past month. By the texts I read, they’ve been on several dates and are very flirty. He met her on a dating app that isn’t on his phone anymore. Last night, he was making plans with her for Sunday.

I’m totally shocked, and heartbroken, and so, so angry. I confronted him when he woke up and he owned up and apologized immediately. He also texted the girl the truth and then blocked her. He said they did not have sex, but admitted they did kiss “a few times”. Most of their dates were during the day. He says he has no feelings for this girl though and that he did it for the validation. (He says he’s been feeling unsure of himself since finishing his graduate program/not being in school anymore. Obviously that’s no excuse, but that was his answer when I asked why he needed more validation.)

He swears it will never happen again, and I want it to work out. I can’t imagine life without him.

How can we move past this?

TL;DR: Boyfriend was going on dates with another girl. He blocked her since I found out, and swears they never did more than kiss. Why would he do this? How do we move past this?

Submitted January 27, 2023 at 07:36PM by nottobeserious https://ift.tt/qAhToN4