Would you trust he didn’t cheat before leaving?

[NinaAlb]

My partner left the family home claiming he is being abused and lied to, although cannot provide any evidence of this. He called our mutual friends to tell them I am mentally unstable hoping they’d believe and support him. What he got was loosing all these people instead as they knew both of us and heard his baseless reasoning for stating that.
As I decided to give it another shot through couples therapy when he wanted to come back, I found that he had gone on dating sites and met women as soon as he left home.
rather than apologise, he blamed me for this and stated that “the grass isn’t greener”.

I am left feeling extremely hurt and strongly believing that he wanted to go all along and probably was cheating before he even left in the first place?

Are my feelings unreasonable?

YANBU but you are missing the point. He’s an abusive arsehole to have put you through all that and your relationship is over. His cheating (or not) is the icing on the cake but it was clearly over before this.

What on earth possessed you to want to give such a man a second chance?

Set your bar way higher. He isn’t good enough.

He claimed he didn’t trust you (which sounded like an excuse so he could go out and shag other women), left you, blasted your character to your loved ones and tried to convince them you had mental health issues, and even now he hasn’t apologised and blames you. Why on earth would you take him back, op? In the nicest possible way, he’s making a fool of you.

The fact I stayed with him is all I would be trying to work out

My sister's ex told their friends that she was a psycho and he'd only stayed because he was scared. She found out later that he'd not only been cheating but had been engaged to another woman for the last year of their relationship. He'd rewritten history to basically justify his behaviour to himself.

So I'd say it's certainly plausible that your ex cheated before leaving too.

YANBU for believing he was cheating before he left.

YABU for giving him another chance to do it again.

You deserve better 💐