My story: How I discovered my boyfriends affair

I discovered the truth on Febuary 7, 2017. I guess the truth had been haunting me despite a happy relationship… there was something wrong. Funny thing is, I thought I was unhappy with not having a job or something. No idea that the root of my unhappiness, discontent and insecurity was stemming from my seemingly 'perfect' relationship.


But there I was at 2 p.m. playing a game on my phone when I got a message from "her" that read:
He doesn't love you, I've been fucking him. We talk on Snapchat he has me saved as "Braydon"


My heart was pounding and my body was shaking. It took less than two minutes to hack into the account and as my phone screen refreshed I prayed that I wouldn't find anything. But it wasn’t. I found 3 months worth of messages from her to my boyfriend detailing a 3 month long affair. I wanted to scream but my boyfriend was home with his friends. I couldn’t even scream at him.


I sobbed in my bed alone wondering how and why we got to this point.


I knew I shouldn’t torture myself with the texts but I began to read through them. Her messages to him were mostly sexual, describing their encounters detail by detail. Them planning to get together and him planning on leaving me for her. I skipped through the texts picking dates that had meaning to me, days he didnt come home. Was he responding to her or initiating the texts? How did this begin without me noticing? Was I blind? Was I that far removed from my boyfriends’s life?

The questions flooded my brain. The pain of what he had done was overwhelming. I physically got sick. I couldn’t sleep. I kept going back to the messages in my head.


Did he want our relationship to end? Did he ever love me? I’d never felt pain like this. Ever. It was straight to my core.


I loved this man. I gave him everything. I loved him dearly and we discussed our love as though it were unique, something everyone wants but not everyone receives. So how could a man that looked me in the eyes and say he would never risk losing me enter into a affair? I knew who she was too. She was his ex from before me. The woman who had put my boyfriend in jail previously for demestic issues.


I struggle with how many details I want to know. Once you know something, you can’t un-know it. He says she made him talk to her by saying she would drop the charges. He says she kissed him that day. He kissed her back. Then two weeks later he stayed the night at her house and told me he was at a friends. This continued almost on a weekly basis if not more, until the day I found the messages.


So here I am 2 weeks later. We are still together, living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed and we are still in love. When I confronted him, he acknowledged everything. At first, he tried to defend himself by saying he was doing it for us and so we would be able to have a good future with him not having any charges. Then he tried to say that I am the love of his life but he doesn’t think he is the love of my life.


It took him a full day to break down. I think he realized that he risked our relationshp, his relationship with his parents, his job and everything that is meaningful in his life for a woman that he doesn’t even care to see again. When I told him that if she wasn’t 100% out of his life then I was going to be–he didn’t bat an eye. He said he was relieved. He said he tried to end it twice. I don’t know if that is supposed to make me feel better or not? He says he slept with her for her needs, not because he wanted to.


He begged me to forgive him and said he would do anything. I believe him. I’m not saying that I trust him again. But I believed him when he said he loved me. He was self-destructing and he failed to recognize that the real devastation was to me, his girlfriend. He may live with the guilt, but I live with the pain, the endless images in my mind, the triggers that catch you off-guard and the sadness that fills my heart. I can’t sit on the toilet without thinking: my boyfriend cheated on me.


I guess I am writing this blog because I want to know why he did it. Honestly, we had (have) not just a good relationship–a great relationship. We are that couple that our family and friends try to emulate. We talked. We made love. We got along with each other’s families. We went on vacations. We supported each other through really tough times. Yes, we had our moments but we were thankful for each other. When we heard of people cheating we acknowledged how lucky we were to be with our soul mate. So why did he doubt my love? What makes a person risk a life they built with their true love for someone that is meaningless? How did he allow it to continue for months? How did he live with the guilt? How did he look me in the eye? How did he tell me to surround myself with honest and good-intentioned people if he was not doing the same? Why was his need to make her feel better more important than me?


I am hoping these questions will be answered here.

In the end, I love him. That’s all I know right now.

Why do people cheat?

There’s an amazing Ted Talk on infidelity that I recently watched that touches on all of this and I recommend it highly. But if you don’t have time to watch the entire video just read the closing from the video:

I look at affairs from a dual perspective: hurt and betrayal on one side, growth and self-discovery on the other — what it did to you, and what it meant for me. And so when a couple comes to me in the aftermath of an affair that has been revealed, I will often tell them this: Today in the West, most of us are going to have two or three relationships or marriages, and some of us are going to do it with the same person. Your first marriage is over. Would you like to create a second one together?

Infidelity Trax | Little Do You Know | Alex & Siera

I am sitting in my bed and this song just began playing on a YouTube add. And even luckier for me, the lyrics were right there on the screen for me. How could this song be about anything else besides infidelity?

The relationship that almost killed me

Here are some of the times I didn't leave him: I didn't leave him when he hit me so hard that he paralyzed my diaphragm and I couldn't scream for help. I didn't leave after neighbors had called the cops from my blood curdling screams, or when he grabbed me by my throat and dragged me around the house, or when friends and family begged me to leave. I did not even leave when he threw me against the floor and tried to stab me. Did I think about it? Of course I did. I thought about it every single time he raised his hand to me. Sometimes I even did leave--for a night, for three. But I always came back, because as any battered woman can tell you, the leaving can feel harder than the abuse. Most of us carry with us a wretched crib sheet of times we should have left, and that list just keeps getting longer. Here's the story of how I put an end to mine.

Meeting him was like meeting the rest of my life. He was a funny, boxer just like me. He came into the picture and love-bombed me, constantly telling me that I was the most beautiful woman in the world, asking to spend every waking minute together. We moved in together once I had moved out of our hometown for school. He brought his clothing and a stack of video games, plus a vicious temper and a need for control that I hadn't known was on the packing list. The fights were ugly. He'd call me "slut" and "whore" and constantly belived i was seeing other guys instead of going to school. His words destroyed me, but I thought that if I kept him happy, I would have a partner and a proper family for the first time in my life, something I desperately wanted. So instead of removing myself from the situation, I became hypervigilant. I would make myself sick trying to follow all of his rules, constantly reassuring him that I wasn't cheating and telling him that I'd always be there to take care of him. Slowly, I became estranged from all of my friends. I became totally isolated from the rest of the world and, unsurprisingly, completely miserable.

It went on like this for years, him slowly exerting more control over my life, and me letting it happen. I stopped modeling and took on menial work--the only work he would allow me to do. My primary job, of course, was punching bag. Whenever he felt insecure or uncomfortable, he let me have it. On our way to pay the landlord, we got into an argument about money. I showed him a stack of bills and reminded him that I was the primary breadwinner. In response, he grabbed my shoulder and shoved me hard against a wall and backhanded me. I was startled, more shocked than scared. He immediately switched back to normal and apologized profusely, saying he had no idea what had happened and swearing he'd never touch me again. There are patterns to abuse, but they never feel like your patterns. A woman can take herself to the grave thinking that she is the exception, not the rule.

Three months later, he broke that promise. We were having a heated discussion over me wanting to continue my educatiuon. He grabbed me by the hair and yanked me to the ground and started punchinbg me in the face. I stood up and, in self-defense, cracked him one back. He exploded and dragged me through the house. I left that night, taking a long, sob-filled car ride to a friend's house. The next day, Tyler called and told me he loved me. He was sorry. He didn't want to be apart. We were a family, he said. Please don't break us up. I was back home in three days.

One day a fight got to the point that he went and got a knife and got ontop of me. Holding it to my throat explaining to me just exactly how he wanted to kill me. I began fighting with every once of my body to escape him, ending in me getting stabbed in the knee as I ran away. I finally left. I'd like to say that I loved myself enough to do it for me, but women in my situation rarely do.

I sought the assistance the victim assistance organization a hospital had referred me to after that beating. They gave me a caseworker who would function as a partner during the leaving process. Together, we filed a permanent order of protection against him. The caseworker introduced me to other women who had been abused--and none of them pointed accusing fingers at me. My sense of isolation began to thaw, and I realized that I had stayed in an unhealthy, abusive relationship for nine years because of those first three happy months. Not a good time ratio, I know, but probably not a rare one.

In many ways, my path away from him was a typical one, and guided by my caseworker. But I did several things that were a little off the books, and I think they were some of the most helpful. During the "violence years," I had kept a journal of his abuses. I'd sit sobbing in our room--apologies wafting in from behind the locked door--and force myself to write down every gory detail: each cut and bruise, every poisonous word and threat. After I left, I started to reread those entries daily, making myself reckon with the abuse that I'd endured. He was funny and charming, and for years all it took was a hug or a laugh to melt me right back into his arms. Revisiting those false promises helped me see the patterns I'd been ignoring for so long.

I lived at the bookstore, poring over every book about abuse I could find. That self-education taught me that I didn't make himthe way he was, that a man like him would always hold me back, and that children who grow up around abuse are many times more likely to end up becoming batterers or domestic violence victims.Something i would never want my future children to become. Every story I read was like another stitch in my wound--I wasn't alone in this. Women could leave. I could be one of those women.

The day that I moved out remains one of the proudest days of my life. It was like a massive sense of peace. I slept better. I laughed more. I stopped waking up worrying about what the day was going to hold, and found excitement in knowing that I was the person in control of my future. I started reconnecting with old friends, and slowly a new, safer life began to emerge.

It has now been a year since I left him. I have found a new love- a real love i feel peace in knowing that when we have a family our daughter(s) won't emulate the relationship I had because of a bad example of a father. Our son(s) won't drive a desperate young woman to knock on my door, remove her sunglasses, reveal a black eye, and say, "Look what your son did to me." My life is beyond my dreams. Nothing makes me happier knowing I have a man who wants to protect me instead of hurt me and I no longer have to live in fear of the future, but instead am allowed to be excited about it.

I realize the difference between falling in love, and having a soulmate.

I knew the second I saw you, that you were going to influence my life in all the ways I was terrified of someone doing. I knew the second my eyes saw you it would be one that I would (hopefully) never get tired of seeing. 

I didn't want another boy in my life. I didn't need anything except to focus on my studies and myself. I was on a journey of being wild, difficult and impossible to forget. I was having a blast by myself, dashing through the lives of people around me. I was working on unleashing everything hidden inside me, and I didn't need somebody compromising that. In the time before I met you, I belonged to myself for the first time.  I prided myself in being independent and free of responsibility, but I found myself staring everytime I saw you.

I realized I was missing someone I didn't even know. 

I spent that last several months going on dates and meeting wonderful people. I've met the sweetest, funniest, and kindest people... people who were captivated by my words and my dreams. I was convinced something was wrong with me, because I tried so, so hard to return feelings and I never could. Why did I want a stranger to become permanent in my life? Is it because your soulmate will be the stranger you suddenly recognize? Am I crazy? Did my soul simply comply with yours when we met?I didn't know you, but I wanted to know every single thing about you. I was living my life clutching the railing of the cliff I was placed on. You were a beautiful uncertainty, an enticing enigma, and you were the first thing I was the most certain about in a long time. The pull I have towards you has me endlessly leaping off cliffs. You had my heart before I could say no, but I don't think "No" would have never come out of my mouth. 

I have lived life never expecting much, and I have contently lived my life that way. Yet you took my hand and opened a door to an entire galaxy when my soul only required a single planet. Simplicity is all I have ever needed, and you continually gave me everything in and outside this world. Simply.

You are a star that turned into a galaxy, and it will take a lifetime of chaotic traveling that will forever leave me in a state of sereness. In the short amount of time that I have embarked on this resplendent journey, it seems like you have made me a better person without changing me at all.  I had someone ask me what my biggest weaknesses were, and all I could do was answer truthfully: I'm a little insecure, and I will never ask for help, even if my hands are full and I need to tie my shoe. My third weakness, and probably my biggest? You.

My words didn't flow out of my mouth like music anymore, and it seemed like my thoughts were wrapping themselves around each other, like little girls pushing eachother towards the cute boy without being the leader. You were and forever will be my biggest weakness. I stare at you endlessly because I crave your words and thoughts more than my own.  I stare at you so I can fill more pages with the intoxicating sublime of your soul. I suffocated for the longest time on the fragments of myself, the battles I endured, and the things I had lost throughout my life. It seems like I learned to finally breathe when you walked in. You opened doors, windows and the future. I have an infinite amount of space, yet your soul next to mine makes it hard to even gasp.

You are my unexpected person, at an unexpected time. 

You didn't ease your way into my world, you flooded my existence. I smile without your face in front of me, and I hear your rythem without your words flowing around me. I became lost in you, in the weakness and unexpectedness. It seems while being lost inside you, I was being found.

When I sit next to you, having some small part of me touching you always, will you ever fully understand how in this small amount of time so much of me resides in you? How if I seemingly lost you, I would be losing some part of myself?

My intimacy with you isn't physical, but the kind where we lay together at two a.m. brushing feet, as we whisper our biggest dreams, fears,and desires. The kind were our hands trace lines as we share memories, and laugh creating new ones. I ache for you in the most guiltless ways. I ache in the moments I want you to know how much I adore you, and crave nothing but to be places next to you. The aching tumbles through my mind, shuffling every thought I have of you continuously through my mind as I crave to whisper my thoughts, mixing them with yours. 

I realize the difference between falling in love, and having a soulmate. 

You choose who you love, but you have no choice in your soulmate, the one who will undefiantly be your best friend and hold you close. It wasn't love at first sight when you walked through the door. It was a sense of a far away comprehension... an understanding that it's going to be you and only you.

When I see you time after time, it's because there is no choice.

Put a ring on it

When you feel that your partner is the right one for you but you aren’t quite ready for marriage, a promise ring is also known as a pre-engagement ring. A promise ring is a gesture that you’re serious about the relationship. It’s a symbol of commitment; but beyond that, its meaning is subjective. A promise ring represents a future engagement and is a way to reflect on commitment to one another. Even though it doesn’t carry the same weight as an engagement ring, a promise ring is a relationship milestone.

What a promise ring means:
-A pledge to be faithful.
-A symbol of commitment to the relationship and future.

-A promise to never stop loving you.
-Intent to marry some day
-Whenever we look at these rings, they'll remind us that we'll always be there for each other.

If you’re not sad in a relationship then you’re not in the right one.

It’s just, if you’re with the right person, if you’re with someone who changes your life, and who enlivens you — you’re not going to be happy every single day. You’re going to be sad, anxious even, that there could ever be a time where you didn’t feel that way. Love is this incredible thing, this intangible feeling that swells within you, it gifts you these crystallizing moments of appreciation and gratitude, these overwhelming oceans that build within your chest, constantly reminding you that you have something to lose. When you’re in love you always have something to lose, and that’s sad. That’s harrowing. That’s why love keeps you up at midnight, that’s why love lives as a lump in your throat sometimes.

And I know that people will furrow their brow when they hear me say that. I know that they’ll scrunch their nose and roll their eyes, because people believe that you would never fear losing someone if you were with the right person. People believe that such a worry wouldn’t exist within a confident relationship, but I don’t agree there.

See, I think you should always love someone like you are going to lose them. I think you shouldn’t ever get comfortable. You shouldn’t assume that they know you care just because you tell them. You need to show them. You shouldn’t ever stop showing someone that you choose them, that your heart has picked them above all else; that you’re willing to fight, to push, to fall in love with them every single day.”