Hi everyone,

I’m posting because I feel completely lost and I don’t know what’s real anymore. I (25F) have been with my boyfriend (26M) for over two years. I love him deeply, and he is kind and loving in many ways but there’s a pattern of lying and defensiveness that has genuinely destroyed my mental health.

I’ll try to keep this as unbiased and straightforward as possible.

Early relationship issues

• At the start, he was still following a bunch of women he used to be interested in and still had dating apps installed.
• I brought it up gently and he got very defensive, but eventually unfollowed and deleted everything, saying he “didn’t know” it mattered because this was his first relationship. He got defensive not about unfollowing but about me not trusting him and insinuating that he is not loyal.

That was the first time I felt uneasy, but I moved on.

Drama with one of his female friends

One of his female friends was extremely rude to me. Multiple of his other friends had the same issues with her. He defended her for a while but after a lot of fights and stress, he eventually cut her off (I did not push for this).
This whole period gave me so much anxiety that I went to therapy.

Sexual jokes with female friends

He used to make sexual jokes and comments about his size with female friends before we were together. It still made me uncomfortable but he said it was “just British banter.” I also have guy friends and never encountered this but I thought everyone is different and I let it go.

The incident that broke my trust

A month into our relationship, he helped a female friend move houses. I didn’t ask many questions because I didn’t want to seem controlling.

A year later, something about it bothered me again, so I asked who she was. He said:

• First made it sound like it was a guy friend but I pushed against this.
• she was just a “common friend”.
• they don’t talk anymore.
• I need to trust him more.

I felt guilty for even asking.

Fast forward to this year… during an argument I brough the incident up again, he suddenly confessed that:

• she wasn’t a random friend.
• she was someone he used to see before me and met her on a dating app.
• he promised to help her move before we started dating.
• he went to help her after we were officially together.
• she was not aware that he had a girlfriend and they were just friends.
• they only exchanged memes every now and then. (But before promised he was not in contact with any past women).
• he lied because he “knew I’d get upset”.

This completely shattered me. He swore nothing happened, but the timeline and the lies broke something inside me.

I tried to leave, but he begged, apologized, and promised to change.

Another lie resurfaced

Recently we were talking about old memories and I remembered something he told me early on: that trains were not working and he stayed over at a friend’s house. He texted this on instagram accompanied by those one time play only pictures. He sent me one at late night at the train platform and then one in the morning on the same platform with the train. He said that the trains are not working and he is stuck in Camden and his friend did not tell him about the train issues. Then in the morning he sent me another picture from the platform and I asked if he spent the night on the platform as a joke and then he said he stayed at his friend's house and had a guy night in. We were only seeing each other for a month here so I actually did not think too much about it.

When I asked about it now and who was the friend, he suddenly changed the story and said:

• he was lying.
• he wasn’t at a friend’s house.
• he used to take old pictures and send them to people to “look popular” because he didn’t have many friends.
• he had those pictures from a long time ago before he met me because he was seeing a girl in that area.
• he would go around the city and click pictures to send to people and act like he is popular and has friends.
• he felt really desperate about finding a girlfriend and women did not treat him nicely so he had to act like he is popular.

This explanation made zero sense to me.

Then he tried to delete old messages

Then, I realized he deleted old messages from his phone (not mine) which said he is staying over at his friend's. When I asked him why, he said:

• it was easier to delete them than explain them.
• he wanted to “protect me from overthinking”.
• he would delete messages from female colleagues or other people too, rather than explain.
• he does not like when I insinuate that he cheated or was disloyal.

This sent my anxiety through the roof. When I asked to see the "old pictures" he sent me on instagram, he said he deleted them before and does not have them anymore. He gets really defensive over cheating and had a rough childhood with divorced parents due to what I assume is also because of cheating. he constantly says he feels sick when I insinuate he might have cheated and though he regrets his decisions, I should not throw away this relationship because he is not a cheater.

Where I am now

I honestly feel like I’m losing my grip on what’s true. I don’t trust him at all anymore, even though I desperately want to. I do think he cheated multiple times (physical or not) but I do not have any evidence to prove this. I’ve booked therapy again because the stress has triggered extreme anxiety and depression (past therapists suggested antidepressants).

I love him so much, and he says he regrets everything, but he keeps lying about something every few months. Even when the lie is small, the impact on me is huge because of the history. I feel like everything he has told me is a lie.

He also makes it harder to leave because he says he loves me, can’t live without me, and he’ll do anything to prove he’s changed… but then something else happens. I also hate seeing him in this pain but I cannot mask my emotions of distrust and disappointment.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

What would you do in my shoes? Is this relationship fixable at all?

Please be kind. I genuinely need outside perspectives.

TL:DR

Been with my boyfriend (26M) for 2+ years. He’s kind and loving, but he has a long pattern of lying, from small things to big things, and changing his stories only when I confront him months or years later. He lied about helping a girl he used to see after we were official, lied about where he stayed one night, deleted old messages “to avoid explaining,” and always gets defensive before apologizing. I’m anxious, depressed, and can’t tell what’s true anymore. I love him, but I don’t trust him. Is this relationship fixable, or is this just emotional instability I should walk away from?