I (20F) went out with my friends a couple months ago and cheated on my boyfriend (20M). I didn’t sleep with anyone, it was making out and a bit of touching (not that that makes it any better, I’m not trying to minimise what I did). The person I cheated with was a good friend of mine. I don’t know why I did it. It might be in part to do with seeking validation as I’ve always struggled with low self-worth, but honestly I don’t know. I don’t remember what I was thinking when it happened.

The day it happened I messaged my boyfriend, told him what happened and told him we should break up because he deserved better. The two days following that my friend (not the one I cheated with) had to come and pick me up to pretty much watch me because I wasn’t eating or sleeping and had said I wanted to kill myself. I felt so guilty and ashamed and hated myself. And I knew that how I was feeling was nothing compared to what I put my boyfriend through.

The third day after it happened I spoke to my boyfriend face to face. I was expecting him to shout at me, swear at me, even hit me. He’s the kindest person I know and would never hurt anyone but I felt I deserved it. He said that he was massively hurt, angry and confused, but that he wanted to work through it if I was 100% committed to putting the effort in. After a lot of crying and talking we managed to get things back on track.

I’ve massively reduced my contact with the person it happened with (no messaging, no calling, I see him for an hour at work 3 days a week but it’s just a polite “hi”). I’ve started therapy and I’m supposed to be going back on SSRIs soon (anxiety & depression). I’ve been 100% honest and open with my boyfriend, answered any questions he’s had and done everything I can to make this right.

I genuinely love him more than anything, and after a truly shit couple of months it’s going really well again. But every time I look at him all I can see is how much I hurt him. Every day I feel so guilty and ashamed and hate myself and I keep apologising to him and getting upset over what happened. I feel like a terrible person and like I don’t deserve anything good in my life. Especially him. He’s the first person in my life to make me feel properly safe and loved and I completely broke his trust and hurt him so badly.

I just needed to get that off my chest.

34 comments

  2. I’m happy that you two were able to mend things, the best thing to do is NEVER do it again. Just be vocal about your needs and wants in the relationship, even if in your mind it sounds ridiculous. You’d be surprised

    As for the “friend” you cheated with, the best thing to do would be to completely cut off contact with them EVEN in person. Maybe tell him that you can’t talk to him for obvious reasons, and if he doesn’t respect that, get a restraining order or something.

  6. I hope you are feeling better now but this is why it is hard for me to trust in relationships lol. I’ve had something like this happen with my ex lol and she became pregnant by her FRIEND. Good thing it didn’t last long

    Please be careful with who you call a friend though. That isn’t fair to your boyfriend or whoever you are with in the future. Might as well be single if you’re going to have people around you that don’t have good intentions

  7. >Every day I feel so guilty and ashamed and hate myself and I keep apologizing to him and getting upset over what happened. I feel like a terrible person and like I don’t deserve anything good in my life.

    Is he constantly bringing up your cheating from a few months ago?

    If he is not, you need to stop/reduce bringing it up everyday.

    Reminding him again and again will not help you or him.

    Constantly bringing up the memories of a time in his life in which he was upset will make him upset.

    Also constantly apologizing and getting upset over it will make him feel guilty for putting you through this which is not your intention.

    You also should have some kind of individual therapy not only to reduce the constant guilt but also in general.

    Also never repeat it but I think you know that.

  8. If your boyfriend is willing to work on things it’s because he thinks you’re worth it, you’ve made a mistake, you owned up to that and were willing to face the consequences, as hard as it may be you need to find a way to forgive yourself, if you don’t you’ll end up in a self fulfilling prophecy, where your guilt and feelings of not deserving your boyfriend will end up pushing him away.

    We all err, learn from it, learn to love yourself and move forward.

  9. I’d say to stop apologizing to him because you are forcing him to remember everything that happened. I do get that you are working on yourself and that’s totally great, but you need to support your boyfriend too and right now it doesn’t seem like you are doing that. It’s going to hard for him to enjoy the relationship if he constantly has to feel like a victim rather than a participating partner. That’s the part you need to focus on, creating and sharing happy moments with him.

  10. Well u made every thing about urself. How sad you felt and then talking to the person you cheated with after breakup. And then meeting him. Him coming to help you. I am sorry hat me. But ur bf do deserve someone better. Definitely not a personal who is narcissist like you.

    Ps- I have nothing against you. But just that u r selfish. Fcking him over because in ur mind you don’t respect him enough and you will do it again. A person who genuinely loved or respected Someone wouldn’t talk to the person the cheated with especially didn’t meet him. But again like I said you think world move around you.
    Anyways who things still works out for him and you 😃

  12. You were brave and did a lot of hard things in dealing with your mistake; foremost confessing, being truly sorry and owning what you did. This was hard and is what ultimately gave your relationship a chance of survival. It will take time to heal and you will go through phases both individually and as a couple as you process your feelings. Keeping communication open and healthy is paramount so you don’t drift from each other.

    That being said, you need to work on forgiving yourself. It’s only been a couple of months so maybe the feeling of guilt is still overwhelming, but accept that this is also necessary for your relationship to grow past this. If you don’t, you will be stuck in this mistake, feeling like you don’t deserve him. He may feel resentful because you keep reliving the trauma in your relationship. You may resent him because he will always have the upper hand. So build back his trust, show him he can trust you and believe it yourself when you do. You are young and this episode is a painful lesson. Don’t let it harden your heart too much. You still deserve to be loved.

  14. I think any reasonable person would have forgiven you a long time ago, it seems your bf has. You need to be reasonable and forgive yourself so you can move on. When you continue to over-apologise you are reminding him of something he is on his way to forgetting. You are doing it for your own sake for your own guilty conscience, not for his sake, so you need to make an effort to apologize less and less and then not at all. Good luck, you sound like two decent people.

  15. Take a look at r/survivinginfidelity and r/AsOneAfterInfidelity. Those will give you an idea of what’s to come, and the second one should offer you some guidance in the reconciliation.

  16. Obviously cheating is never a good thing but it happened and you were 100% honest with your partner and that’s something that’s really hard. You’ve done everything right and if he is allowing you to be in his life and actually is wanting to forgive you and be with you I think it’s time you forgive yourself and make sure it never happens again. If something like that we’re to ever happen again, tell him before or tell him you’re having the thoughts. Communication is key!

  17. i need an update post the next time you do it again, throw yourself another pity party, and say how it will never happen again…again

  18. First, your cheating has it’s root cause with depression and low self esteem. You need to know what in you that is broken. You need to get another job and ghost lover boy if you want to save your relationship with you bf. I do believe you love your bf and you need to forgive yourself. Your bf loves you so do not hurt him again by cheating. Good luck….

  19. you should cut all the friends you were with. and changing your job to not see the AP again is a must.

  20. You’ll only hurt him more by telling him, you need to keep this to yourself and then you need to work on you to figure out why you felt the need to act out in this way. And then commit to yourself not to do it again

  21. well if I were you for one, i’d change my work. Or stop saying hi to the person i cheated with. And secondly, continuously reminding your boyfriend by apologizing WILL make him leave you. After a while it doesn’t come off as genuine it may just come off as artificial. You also are not allowing yourself to grow and are not allowing him to see you grow. He cant see that you’re putting effort in and growing if you keep bringing him back to the same place. I genuinely hope nothing like this happens in your relationship again, goodluck!

  22. Let it go!! You came clean and while it can be called “cheating” it’s is of a lesser degree than a number of other forms. Your bf shows how much he cares for you, that you deserve his affection. Taking your meds and talking things through with a therapist can help you through this and gain confidence/self esteem in yourself.

  23. I literally just posted a similar thing just now wtf…. how are you dealing with this guilt bc I don’t know what to fucking do

  24. You need to let it go. Don’t forget it, or what it cost you but let it go because it’ll eat you alive and probably cost you your relationship anyways.

    You’ve apologized, you’ve made changes, you’re working on self improvement, let it go and move on, focus on being happy and making your bf happy and live your life.

  27. Girl, respectfully, you have issues, and it’s not the cheating. I think you know what I mean, but I’ll say it anyways. It would help if you had some alone time. You’re not ready to be with anyone right now. Your self-esteem is shot. And that’s not anyone, but yourself can fix. The fact that you’re suicidal about being sad for someone else shows you need help and alone time. You got this maybe go to the gym, pick up a new hobby, build up confidence reading, find something, but be alone for sometime.

  30. Guy friend, typical. If you respect your boyfriend you’ll cut out all the bullshit guy friends in your life. Commit, or don’t. Just stop pretending it’s no big deal.

  31. Dude, if you really did inform your partner right after you are a far better person than 95% of people.

  32. Don’t stay with him cause you don’t deserve him. You fucked him up already leave him alone

  33. So, you might not like hearing this, but you need to stop this self-hatred thing. I know that self-flagellation feels like the right thing to do, but it’s selfish– all you’re doing is forcing the burden of comforting/validating/reassuring you on him. It’s self-indulgent and does nothing to help him at all.

    If you really, truly want this to work, this has to be the *first thing you work on.* Stop saying you don’t deserve anything, you’re a terrible person, you want to off yourself, etc; that’s hyperbolic and catastrophizing. He has forgiven you. The rest of the work *has* to be on your end.

  34. You’re doing great. I have problems forgiving myself for things, too. You didn’t make your boyfriend choose to give you another chance; that means he sees good intent and trustworthiness in you.

    This isn’t supposed to be belittling, but a 20-year old human brain is still super young. Give yourself some grace because our brains develop pretty slowly; we make decisions we don’t understand allllll the time in our youth. You’ve learned from what you did, and that’s the whole idea

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