I have been living together with my partner for a year and a half now, and one year of long-distance relationship.
I got into a relationship with him because he was an extremely good talker, always promising the best and was really vocal about being loyal, hating cheaters and that I'm the one he's going to marry in the future.
We rarely met up during our first year because I was a struggling fresh-grad from university, and couldn't afford to travel. When we meet, he always takes care of all the expenses and I always go home feeling loved and cared for. Although, I often thought about how he can control his urges but he always reassured me he'll never cheat because of his "low sex drive".
Fast forward to last year, his family pressured him out of his home because he lost his job, and I found a job which pays below minimum wage, so I took him in and solely took care of finances, he also got a part-time online job which pays even less, but is enough for our food. I'm not gonna lie, those 9 months were really difficult but I was happy because I am with the one I love.
Another fast forward, eventually I found a better job and we relocated to the city which he also found a similar paying job. Previously, I had no reason to ever suspect him of infidelity as he's very lazy when it comes to sex. He told me stories of his previous hook-ups from Grindr and other relationships but it didn't bother me because that was all in the past. However, I always had this feeling that he's not always completely honest about his past, and so, against better judgement, I checked his emails and found out that he not only changed his password on Grindr a few months after we starting dating, but he also installed that app along with Tinder, and has been using Grindr everyday, even when we're on videocalls together.
When he came back from work, I confronted him about this revelation and he kept insisting that he was only there looking for "massages". In our country(ph), looking for massages on Grindr is very common, and he also insisted that he never got an "extra (sexual)service" with his supposed "massages". Initially I believed this but by asking further questions and by observing his behaviours, I am now sure that he was indeed cheating with me throughout our first year of relationship. He keeps denying this fact and even deleted his accounts further erasing any proof that he in fact met up with other people to have sex with. In his defense, on the few messages I saw from his accounts, he was ignoring their sexual advances and only entertained the massage offers, and I didn't see anything past the first few because the deleted the account immediately in front of me. I really want to believe him, but cheaters will never admit that they cheated unless they really want to take accountability for their actions. Still, he insists that he never had sexual interactions with the people he met up with.
It's been 6 months since I found this out but I still can't shake the feeling that he'll do it again. I get nightmares almost every night, picturing the things he did with all those other men. He's never reinstalled those apps when we are living together. He keeps promising he'll never do it again, and that he was always faithful to me, but he still is jokingly flirty with other men and even deleted some messages which I noticed. At first he reassured me whenever I bring up the subject. But now when I bring up my worries or feelings about the thing he did, I get dismissive responses asking me to move forward from that situation if I want our relationship to survive.
What can I do to save the relationship? I feel like I've loved him for so long and provided for him so much for me to just give up after finding out the things he did throughout our first year of LDR. Because I really, really want this to work out someday.