I (36 f) have been with my long term boyfriend (36 M) for nearly 18 years.
I have to start at the very beginning as it give context to the whole issue.
We met when we were 14. I was absolutely obsessed with him and he felt the same. We lived miles away from each other but shared a mutual friend and he would come to our friends every week end. We would kiss, and be kids and he would go home again. This went on for a while. Life just lifed. We weren’t really boyfriend and girl friend ever.
All through my teens this was a repeated thing, as we got older, we started sleeping together. So on these occasions we would see each other we would have sex. And then I started college, he was working, we still lived miles away but we would talk and we always had this connection I never had with anyone else. I lost my virginity to him and Iv never slept with anyone else. There were men, I had a few boyfriends but I wasn’t interested in men at all really.
I had a real issue with alcohol during my teen years. Turns out I have ADHD and Autism and really it just helped mask all my low self esteem and confidence.
So yeah, this carried on. He went through stage where he wanted to see me, but I wasn’t interested really. I mean I was, I always only ever feelings for him but I was taking drugs, had a fake ID, was going to college, had a part time job and was just going out and getting wasted at every given opportunity. Sometimes I ended up at his mums house. Sometimes not. Then he discovered that girls loved him.
He is so good looking I can’t even tell you I think he’s the most beautiful man Iv ever seen.
He went through girls like I was going through vodka. I didn’t actually care at the time I don’t think. I cared about getting wasted but still, we ended up together. He had a little relationship for a couple of months. We slept together as soon as that ended, and then I got a job, and it would happen on occasion. He would ring and I’d go meet him, or I’d bump into him in a club and go home with him.
At one point, it was all on me and I was ringing him and then leaving his house before he would wake up in the mornings. We had lots of fun. We had a lots of sex. We went out together a bit, it def wasn’t all sex. I was the only one he ever took home to his mums house. I knew all his family, his sisters.
As we got older, I think stronger feelings came to play.
I think I wanted more but I never articulated it. When we were 18/19 he started going out with a girl - will call her Becky. He had come to see me after we’d not seen each other in months and I’d pied him off so he got with this girl and tried a relationship. He was with her a couple of months I think. 4, maybe. I was gutted. And I went to his once because I was hanging around with his friends all the time ( they had become my friends) and we slept together. It absolutely eats me up thinking about this. It’s not my proudest moment. And we should never ever have done that.
He never told her but he ended things with her a little while after. He was never really into her, not like she was him. And he told me he shouldn’t have been with her. It wasn’t fair to her because he didn’t care about her feelings at all. He’s not cheated with anyone else. And I’m he maintains he did it ‘just because it was you, I could never had said no to you.
I felt awful. So I didn’t see him again for a while. I’m not sure how but we ran into each other in town, he told me he wasn’t with her anymore. And of course, we ended up together. He moved away from his little party life and I had stopped going out really. He had this conversation with his mum that he was just fed up of the whole thing we had going. That he had always loved me, I was the only one he had ever had feelings for and he wanted us to try properly. She rang me and told me all the but he doesn’t know I knew.
He rang me on his works Christmas party, asked me to come and meet him and his boss paid for my drinks all night. This was a month or so, maybe 6 weeks after he finished with Becky. We were 19 at this time and we had the best night. We ended up at his sisters house and she told us to stop fucking about and just get together properly. We were very drunk, we laughed and agreed. And we have been together ever since. That was 18 years ago.
We were together all the time in the beginning of our relationship. I actually fell pregnant due to an issue with contraception about 3 months after we got together. After the initial shock we were both actually really happy as were our parents and siblings who had known each other years because of us.
Our baby was born the following December and we celebrated our anniversary just after.
Things have been good. We don’t argue. We never have. We went through a bit of a roommate phase, but it was short lived while we had 3 little ones. He works. I stay home.
Everyone looks at our relationship with jealousy. We are the relationship people aspired to have. He’s very chill, goes out once a year for his Christmas works do. Otherwise he’s at home with us. We’re the most boring family you’ll ever meet and our life revolves around the kids who are now 16, 14, 8 and 2.
Anyway recently I have had a OCD flare up. I have two breakdowns before due to OCD. But it’s always been healthy anxiety. Where I thought it would be a great idea to ask him if he’s ever cheated on me.
There was a few times he went out drinking with his pals. We’re were probably 23?! I think he was just remembering we had a whole life before babies and we were still so young. He swears he has never cheated on me but I have made myself terribly ill over these obsessive thoughts. Call it Karma I guess from being involved in cheating. My appetite is non existent, I cry all the time. I look for constant reassurance. He swears nothing has ever happened, no dancing with girls, no kissing or groping. He is actually very morally strong. Doesn’t follow any women on socials. Only has Facebook. Is very gentlemanly and is actually the most down to earth and probably nicest man ever.
But I am destroying him with this I can see it. I can’t get it out of my head that he probably has cheated and is just lying. I get such horrible images in my head. If a women came onto him I don’t think he would push them away, even though he swears he has never been within 19 feet of a girl on a night out. I constantly think about all little girlfriends from before & it makes me feel ill when I think about them. I feel extremely jealous of the one he was with before me that he cheated with me.
We have spoken about their relationship. Without too many crazy details.
He was with her for about 4 months I think. They didn’t see each other too frequently, and he said it was a relationship he shouldn’t been in anyway. He says he never had any feelings to her really, and feels guilty for being in a relationship with someone who viewed him highly and he didn’t care at all about her. To him she was just another girl he was seeing. I said that was unfair because she was obviously in love with him. He just says he was young and immature. He maintains if I’d have ever said I wanted a relationship he never would have even got with her but I was being such an arse to him at that time. He said he loved me through out our teenage years and ‘it has only ever been you, it was always you!. The guilt is eating me alive about this. He broke up with her because he said as soon as I came round he knew he wanted to be with me.
We have nearly broken up 5 times in the past 4 months. And we’ve never broken up before. I have got massive trust issues for seemingly no reason. Would I know if he had cheated on me? Was I too naive to think he wouldn’t and just blindly trusted him. How am I any different to Becky?
What even do men do when they go out to bars and clubs with their friends?
I can’t give you the proper extent of how much I ruminate and think about this. Most of the day maybe. I wake up panicking. Trying to think of every night we ever had together. He had humoured me this whole time. We’ve been through every girl he’s ever slept with. He has answered every question I have asked. Yet I can’t move on. I’m thinking of ending things for his sake. Because I don’t know how to leave all this in the past. I can’t move on from it and he deserves every happiness. He is the very best man in the world and I love him so much the very thought of him not being here every day makes me feel ill. I literally don’t know who I am without him! I went to the GP for help and they passed me to a pastoral team who I went to see, cried a whole lot. And that was it. I am genuinely one of the happiest people you’ll meet but this had made me consider antidepressants even though I don’t like them. I’m stuck in a vicious cycle of OCD rumination. And reassurance seeking. And I don’t know how to stop. All day I go between wondering if he’s cheated on my during our relationship to feeling sick with guilt over being involved in cheating. He told me to post here. Because he said people would say I’m being really silly to worry about these things. I’d love some help.
Tdlr - I’m considering ending my 18 year relationship because I’m suffering with intrusive thoughts on cheating.