>I’ve been with my boyfriend for 11 months. He’s my first ever proper love, the reason why I’m writing this post right now is that I’m not very good at being open and direct about my feelings and thoughts. But thought writing this forum here would be a great help at letting everything out and being completely transparent.

This is the story. When we first met (tinder) everything was so great, such things as arguments weren’t a thing and we rarely had disagreements. Around 8 months of dating, I was going through a lot of stress and thought that having a relationship wasn’t the best option for all the stress, so I broke up with him after one of the biggest arguments me and him had. And I’m not going to sit here and write this and pretend like the whole relationship was perfect and that we never hurt each other, because that’s exactly what happened. Something occurred that hurt him and he understood it but not fully, my decision of ending the relationship wasn’t the greatest decision to do after hurting him but felt like the right thing to do.

After that day I didn’t like how I ended things and it just kept running through my head on how I could’ve done it in different ways, but I wasn’t going to contact him right then. Since we met on tinder this one morning, I had a gut feeling that something was off so I redownloaded the app and as I was checking I realized that he had unmatched (and I know that he hadn’t deleted because he never did that) so what I thought was that he was back on the app again and yes it hurt because it was only two days after ending it but I didn’t allow myself to get hurt by it. That same day I decided to check his Instagram and I saw he was doing some Q&A post on his account and someone asked him if he was on the market and he posted a video of him saying he was on every market available, and seeing that post was kind of what did it for me because for someone to act so normal and okay after ending definitely was very hurting.

I think around a week later, I sent him a message and I just sent it for myself to start moving on and not hold back anything from the past after doing so he replied and ended it with still wanting to be a part of my life, which I, of course, was very iffy about. So, we just talked and everything was normal. Later that night I brought up the whole tinder thing and he denied it, he said that he didn’t know how that happened because it wasn’t him who he did that, I knew something was off but dumpily looked past it. I still made sure to let him know that if he was using it to just let me know because I think I deserve that much. We kept talking and sort of became more than friends but nothing official and he told me he wasn’t trying to pursue anyone else and I accepted it and while the whole talk was going on, he told me one thing he didn’t like about me while we were dating and it was that I wasn’t as open as he was but this is nothing new because I usually don’t talk about my problems and feelings, he told me in order for us to be back to normal I would have to open up to him and tell stuff from now on and I saw nothing wrong with that.

After being told that, I was very vulnerable and just told him everything that was happening. Everything was going good after this but one afternoon I received screenshots of his tinder account and I know that it wasn’t his old one because everything was updated on it. When I received that message, I felt so many things it was betrayal, hurt and anger because the whole time I asked he made it seem like it was me thing. The worst thing wasn’t what he did it was that I trusted him. After receiving those messages, I knew that he had known because the person that sent those messages said he had blocked and an hour passed and he hadn’t sent a message to me. So, I took it upon myself to message him and just ask why. And his response was “You want me to listen to my side or are you good” so right from the bat it wasn’t a good response, he explained himself and said he downloaded tinder to vent to people about what had happened which I, of course, didn’t understand because who would download a dating app to talk about personal problems? I then proceeded to ask why he didn’t just tell me when I asked and he said that he didn’t want that affecting us being official and because he wasn’t doing anything on the app. And I honestly thought his reasons were very shitty because if his intentions were honest the least, he could have done was let me know about what he was doing. He then said that if he had a choice between making friends on the app or me, he would’ve chosen me. This I found not truthful because that was never a choice or thought that came through his mind because he chose the app at the end of the day.

Weeks later had passed and we were still talking and even got back together, no matter how much I tried looking past it I just couldn’t, this would be the fault for many little arguments, I would never just admit that it was the tinder thing because it used to get him mad for like a “why aren’t you over it” type of thing. And the only way I could explain it is that I never expected for him to do something like that, I do think this has affected me in some bad ways, I’m always keeping my guard up and just not as trusting because I was so vulnerable at the time and to see how he could’ve hid it and never brought it up himself did something to me. There’s this one night (was very recent) that he pointed out why I was getting upset with him every other day so I just told him and his response, in my opinion, was just very harsh, he basically said that downloading the app was the only way he felt that he could fix what I ruined in the first place. I’m an extremely sensitive person and he knows that but he continues to make comments like those when we argue, and they obviously don’t help and it happens a lot that I ask him why he chooses to stay and he tells me because he loves me which I understand to an extent, but making comments like that often doesn’t really show that. Sometimes I think to myself if I hadn’t received that message would he had still told me? And when?

He’s so clueless to the pain he has caused, he just puts how I’ve hurt him to the picture every time. He once said he has never hurt me like I’ve hurt him and mind my language but I think that’s straight bullshit, just because he isn’t aware of it doesn’t mean he hasn’t. He continues saying that how I hurt him is the biggest thing and no matter what he does it won’t compete with that. At that point, I got mad because he isn’t aware of what he has done and caused so I told him that he has hurt me as much and he asked what it was because in his book he isn’t aware of how he has.

I guess I’m writing this forum to just let everything out and, in a form, asking for people’s opinions and just thoughts about the whole situation because I don’t know what to do. I love him so much and really am trying to look past this but it’s just difficult and I know this is the only thing keeping us from being good because when we are doing good and randomly get reminded of this, I just get upset and then we go from good to discussing this all over again.