I have been in a relationship for 8 months, we knew each other for a year beforehand and got close after a mutual friend passed away.
It came out later on that he was texting other women when we began to get close despite saying he wasn’t, and this continued for 2 weeks after we started a relationship. The messages weren’t sexual or suggestive but they were sent with the intention of trying to build something with any of the women who were willing to take it further. I had asked him during the first week to make us social media official. Purely to ensure he had stopped speaking to the women and they knew he was no longer single. He instead deleted all his social media accounts as he said making a relationship official online is pointless. I was stupid and took his word for it he had stopped speaking to women. Of course he still was for 2 weeks until he came clean out of guilt.
fast forward to now, he did stop and proved it so I let myself forget about it to try and focus on building our relationship.
the issue is now and again it still crops up in my mind and makes me feel completely awful. I remember that he must not have liked me enough to still talk to other women. That he didn’t want his friends knowing he was with me. It’s ruined my self esteem more than I expected. He knows how I feel about it all and he has apologised so many times. We’re in a great place in our relationship and have spoken about marriage and babies one day.
I just don’t know how to put it all behind me and stop feeling so rubbish that it happened. Although it was only texts it feels like I was cheated on if that doesn’t sound too dramatic. I sometimes panic he will try and talk to these women again if he gets bored of me. Can anyone advise me how to move on from this and what he can do to reassure me that it won’t happen again? I won’t leave him for it I just want my self esteem back.