Dear Matt:

You shared that you came out to your parents at 21 because of your love for this man, that you have loved him for three years, that you drastically changed your life for the better so that you could be happy with him, that monogamy is very important to you, that the plan as of last week was that the two of you were to live together, and get married sometime in the future.

And yet, for the last 10 months or so, he repeatedly cheated on you with 3 different men. He didn’t tell you. You found out by looking through his phone. His response: “He says that it was absolutely never about me and it was entirely related to his own feelings of inadequacy“.

His mother’s response: “this absolutely has nothing to do with you. We’re going to get to the bottom of it“.

The motivation behind these responses is to protect your ego/ sense of self worth, as in saying: he didn’t cheat on you because of any inadequacy on your part, Matt (not being handsome enough or smart enough, etc.), but because of inadequacy on his part.

This claim is supposed to make you feel better, as in you thinking: it is not my fault that he cheated on me, it’s not that there is something inadequate about me!

If you accept this claim that it had nothing to do with you, then you accept that in the future, if you resume the relationship with him and he cheats on you again.. then again, it will absolutely have nothing to do with you.

But what he did should have had something to do with you, it should have been a whole lot to do with you because the result of what he did has been the most heartbreaking experience you ever had in your life (“I have been reeling from the most heartbreaking experience I have ever lived through“).

When he cheated on you, he wasn’t thinking about how hurt you will be if and when you found out, and this, right here is the problem.

“he has struggled with self esteem issues severely for the last decade… his mother…. replied..’…  We’re going to get to the bottom of it.’“- reads like it was a surprise to his mother that her son has been struggling with severe self-esteem issues for 10 years, and now that she found out, she wants to get to the bottom of it (and fix it..?)

How does a mother miss such a thing for a decade?

“He has told me he is now in intensive therapy and wants to completely wipe himself of his issues he’s been hiding from me and from himself for 10 years“- he hid severe self-esteem issues for 10 years, so he didn’t know : no thoughts of inadequacy ever crossing his mind? It was all a surprise?

There is no way that a person suffers from a low self-esteem and never a related thought crosses the mind.

No one completely wipes themselves from severe low self-esteem issues, at least, not quickly, no matter how intensive the therapy.

There are plenty of people who suffer from low self-esteem but they do not cheat because they don’t want to hurt the one they love. And this is the problem I mentioned earlier in this reply: his 10-month cheating was.. not about you getting hurt.

I just read your 2nd post, Matt, the one you submitted 10 minutes ago. Your attitude and plan to continue your individual therapy and become a better judge (of him/ what happened) in the future.

“What do I do with all this love?“- first and foremost, at this time, direct it to you!

anita