I dated him for almost three years and really loved him. He seemed like such a stable, nice, and loyal guy… but eventually I started to get the feeling something wasn’t right. I should’ve listened to my gut but I didn’t and I seriously regret it.
1. I started noticing weird things.
There was just something off about this guy. He’d drop me home after a date but have a bag of clothing in his car that he said he was just taking to the office—yup, he had to go into work on a Sunday afternoon. I tried to push my doubts away but it was a serious struggle.
2. He’d been so good up until then.
I thought I was crazy to doubt this guy. He’d been such an amazing boyfriend previously, so why should he be doing something shady behind my back? It was crazy for me to think in this way. I felt paranoid.
3. I turned to my friends.
I confided in my closest friends about my concerns and they confirmed that I was crazy. “He’s always making time to see you and he calls you every day!” one of my friends told me. I realized she was right, but why was I still feeling like the issue wasn’t put to bed?
4. Other signs started cropping up.
One day we were in the car when he got a text message and he immediately drove to the nearest gas station, suddenly remembering he needed to buy something. My gut told me he was stopping to check his phone and I was right. Then he removed pictures he had of me in his bedroom. I noticed the empty frames that he’d hidden behind the TV and felt too weird to confront him because he could accuse me of snooping. It felt like he was definitely up to something, though.
5. My bestie loved him.
My best friend enjoyed his company and she’d trusted him in the past when it came to her career, so she always had great things to say about him. When I expressed my worries that were growing larger, she told me that I shouldn’t confront him because it would destroy my great relationship.
6. Our relationship seemed perfect.
Everyone who met my boyfriend and I thought we were the happiest, most perfect couple. It sure looked that way but I knew that appearances could be deceiving.
7. I just wasn’t happy.
I couldn’t seem to make peace with my fears. I had no evidence that he was cheating on me but my doubts were growing. The more I tried to tell myself to believe that he was a good person, the more my fears came to life! Every time I visited him, I saw more signs that he was cheating. It was crazy. One day, his daughter mentioned some woman’s name and I just knew—that must be the woman he’s cheating with!
8. I had to confront him.
I knew that I was not fearing things out of being paranoid or jumping to conclusions. Screw what my best friend said! It was time to speak to the guy and find out what was going on, before it killed me.
9. Nothing’s worth my sanity.
The experience taught me something really valuable: nothing and no man is worth my sanity. If I’m battling to feel relaxed, sleep at night, and enjoy my relationship, I have to do something about it because I won’t put my health on the line.
10. He denied everything.
He challenged all the “cheating signs” I’d been seeing and told me that he loved me. Of course he wasn’t cheating and his daughter didn’t know what she was talking about. The woman she’d mentioned was just his colleague. He really was working hard lately, and sometimes on weekends, and I could check through his phone if I wanted to. As for the pictures of me he’d removed, he had an answer for that too—he was redecorating and was hoping to display them in a better way.
11. Guilt washed over me.
I kept remembering how he’d looked at me when he told me he loved me and would never hurt me and I felt rotten. Maybe he’d been right, after all? Maybe my friends had been right? Instead of thinking about why I’d confronted him in the first place, I was kicking myself for not trusting him. “You’re lucky you have a second shot with him, so don’t blow it,” my bestie told me. “I knew he was a nice guy.”
12. Was he really nice?
I know he seemed like a great guy, but still, the doubts wouldn’t go away. Something was still keeping me up at night, bugging me all the time, and making me doubt him. When he went AWOL over a weekend during which I couldn’t get hold of him, it was yet another sign he was cheating. When he redecorated his home and still my pictures weren’t on display, I knew the guy’d been lying to me. Things were going south.
13. I was at a crossroads.
What could I do here? I didn’t trust what he was telling me, but I didn’t have enough evidence. I loved him, but I wasn’t happy and this relationship was draining me so much because I was so confused about what was really going on. I had to make a decision: my guy or my gut.
14. I chose my gut.
Everyone around me said I was crazy for doing this, but I decided to break up with my boyfriend. I told him that there was a reason why I just couldn’t seem to trust him, that there was something going on and I had to trust my own feelings about this. I might be making a huge mistake, I told him, but I had to own it.
15. He jumped into a new relationship.
It was his daughter who told me that he was dating that colleague of his one week after our breakup! How convenient! Clearly he’d been cheating on me with her and I’d made the right decision to leave him. I’ll never know if all the cheating signs were actually signs of his betrayal, but that doesn’t matter. I’m glad I finally realized that how I feel about my relationship is so much more important than what anyone else has to say. I’m the one who’s living it and I refuse to stay in a relationship that’s killing me.
By Giulia Simolo for Bolde