Really sorry for the long story, just trying to make sense of it all.
When I was 19 I had been seeing my DP for about a year when I made the huge mistake of cheating on him. It was a drunken one night stand on a night out. It’s the most disgraceful thing I’ve ever done, I was throwing up the entire next day from the shame, went to tell him straight away and hated myself for years afterwards. I think it played a part in some of the depression I suffered with in my early 20s.
At the time he was obviously extremely upset, we hadn’t been doing great anyway as we had been arguing about just silly things and continued to argue until he ended things about six months later. He came back after three months saying that the time away gave him clarity and he knew he wanted to be with me, let’s leave everything in the past and try one more time.
From then on it was just the perfect relationship. We got on perfectly, supported each other through uni, careers, bereavements and everything else. He moved into my mums with me so we could save for a year for a house deposit. We bought the house at age 25 and spent two years doing it up, aged 27 now and we’d had discussions about potentially getting engaged this year. He’d asked to try for a baby but I wanted to wait until I was about 30. Every year we seemed to get stronger and it felt like such a bond we had, we would sometimes look back and laugh at how silly and dramatic we were when we were younger and how it’s so cool we got to watch each other mature and grow into ourselves.
Anyway, he sat me down on a random Sunday night and told me he “thinks the relationship has ran its course, thank you for being the best partner and I’ve really enjoyed growing up with you, but the feelings aren’t there anymore and I just know it isn’t going to work”. I was shell shocked because I thought things were better than ever, but I just said to him “well most of the time the person you meet at 18 isn’t the person you end up with, it’s hard because I don’t feel the same way, but if you know it won’t work then it won’t, thanks for coming to me right away you’ve done the right thing by not messing me about, and we’ve been through everything else together so we will get through this together too”. And that was it really. I knew I wouldn’t cope alone and would need support, so I let him stay in the house and I moved back to my mums. The house is now up for sale.
Fast forward two weeks and it’s randomly come out over text from him that over the past 6 years or so he’s been cheating on me every opportunity he’s had. Kissing girls on nights out, a few one night stands, holiday romances, messaging etc. I never had one single suspicion over the years, genuinely zero inclination. He initially tried to word it as he never got over what I did all those years ago, so that’s why he did it. When I thought about the timeframe something just clicked and I realised it started after we got back together. I said to him “be honest, when we broke up was it the first time you’d experienced going out partying as a single lad, enjoyed attention from girls and then when we got back together you just never stopped”. He meekly just said “yeah I think so to be honest”.
It seems to me that he probably used what I did as justification whenever any guilt crept in but it was all of his own accord as it started over a year after what I’d done. However, I also can’t help but blame myself and think this is my just dessert. My entire life has fallen apart and I just don’t know what to make of any of it.