Boyfriend of a year and a half is a stranger

To start off this is very fresh, I’m talking like 1-2 days. Found out some at first and then the flood gates opened and found more. I can’t even believe I’m posting to a sub like this. Dates matter here so I matched with him on tinder January 13 2025, we met January 18 and were pretty inseparable since then. Became official April 11.

We had celebrated that Valentine’s Day together, intimately and like a couple would do, wrote me a sweet card and got me a bag full of things that I would like. I have found out that on that day, the day before and many days after, he was still on the apps. We were exclusive at this point. I don’t fault him for anything before Valentine’s Day honestly bc although I was all for him, I get it, it was super new. But by V day, he absolutely had told me he wasn’t talking to anyone else and had deleted the apps. He KNEW how I felt about this.

He continued talking to girls on the apps, and taking it off the app into text messaging up until April 3rd.

The first piece of stepping out I saw was he swiped up on an Instagram picture of a girl in a bikini he had talked to before in the past. He did this one month ago from today. He flirted with her and told her how good she looked and how he will be tuned in for more pics like that of her. She said oh we could go on vacation if you didn’t have a gf! And he agreed!

There’s also a solid possibility he was on the apps a year ago while we were together but he hard denies it even though I have proof of it saying you matched with so and so on 6/24, 7/5, 7/7, and 7/10. He never sent any messages to those girls but like he HAD to be on there swiping right? Can’t be old matches?

And to top all of this off, I uncovered a secret porn addiction. He’s been lying to me this entire time. He knew how I felt about porn, and porn addicts, my ex was one and I was put through it with him so it was a dealbreaker to me. This ENTIRE time he’s been watching it.

I am just broken. I cannot believe the person I’ve shared my life and my home with for this amount of time is someone I don’t even know. We talked plenty about cheating and what stepping out looks like to us and he has agreed that cheaters are horrible people!!!

He is extremely apologetic and wants to make it work. He says there is a lot he hasn’t even realized himself and that he didn’t realize he had a porn addiction but that he was lying to himself. He admitted he lies and it’s just easier for him sometimes. His reasoning about being on the apps is because he had been hurt before and felt like no one would take him seriously so why should he take them seriously and I very well could’ve been lying to him about how I felt so he just did it and he continued playing the field even though he knew it was wrong. He’s now told me that he has felt guilty several times during the course of our relationship for his actions and he knew it was wrong, but he wanted to lie to me so that he could keep me.

What on earth do I possibly do here? How do I begin? I know therapy for sure for him and for me and then eventually for us. He has an appointment with a therapist scheduled tomorrow. It’s better help so I don’t know if that’s gonna be sufficient enough, but it’s what we got.

I genuinely need support. I cannot talk about this with anybody in my real life. It is so embarrassing he is somebody that I have held in such high regard and really thought he was a good one, the perfect golden retriever boyfriend, he was so amazing to me has treated me so good. I have never been treated better by anybody in my entire life, I cannot believe that he has done this to me. He also fooled all my friends and family to making them think that he’s a good guy plus if I’m going to keep him in my life, I can’t tell everyone what he is and what he’s done. I think I just need someone to tell me it’s gonna be okay.

We just signed a lease two for a year and get the keys in less than two weeks.

I know this was long and I’m so sorry but I just needed to get this out.