My ex, 30f, and I, 32m, broke up awhile back. We have been trying to work things out tho because neither of us want to move on. She still comes over every month (we live 3 hours apart), do stuff together, etc. We have been trying to make it work, but recently (November 27th) I found out that even though she still says she loves me and wanted to make things work, she was sleeping with these 2 guys multiple times. 6 times over the course of at least 7 months, with a 7th time planned (and supposedly cancelled) for the 16th of december. I had a suspicion about it for multiple reasons, but my suspicions were confirmed when I accidentally opened discord on the laptop I recently set up for her. I saw her sending photos that I had taken of her during our trip to a fair, saying she’s like to show him all her costumes in person. Seeing that, my heart sank and I started reading the entire dm, which contained them talking about meeting up, the aftermath of their meetup, her saying she missed him, and other things… the first time they met up she had told me she was watching a movie with her family, but that was a lie. She was with him…

I confronted her about it, saying if she was doing stuff with someone else I just wanted the truth and that if she just admitted it, I wouldn’t be as hurt. But she tried to beat around the bush, saying it never went beyond sexting. This was false, as I saw her and him messaging each other, with her saying what she enjoyed about their encounter… I kept pushing, basically begging her to please be honest with me. Eventually I told her I saw the messages and asked her again, where she admitted she did. she said she had met up with 2 guys two separate times, but at first she said it was only once each. I kept pushing, and eventually she admitted it was a total of 6 times between the two guys. With one of the guys, they didn’t use protection…

I know we aren’t together, but we had been trying to make things work. At least I had been. She has been visiting every month (I’m not able to visit her due to my work schedule and the distance). I’ve always had trust issues due to how I grew up. My ex would tell me she loves me and wants things to work between us, and I’d try my best to do whatever I can for her. When she comes over, we try to cook together and do stuff together. I would pay for almost everything, and yes I’d get annoyed when she wanted to add random sweets to our groceries but I did it because I loved her. I thought she was trying to make this work, it seemed like she was, but now finding out about this… 2 guys, 6 times, over the course of months… she was still coming to my house every month, telling me she loved me, telling me she wants to be with me and only me, sleeping in my bed with me, being intimate with me… we did stuff together, even if outside my comfort zone but I did so because I loved her and wanted her to be happy. 

I’m both angry for trusting anyone again, and broken because I was afraid of this happening. I’ve been cheated on, lied to, emotionally and physically abused, manipulated in past relationships and in my family life. And here I felt like I lost everything again.

She says she is sorry and wants to make this right, that she regrets it, but I feel so emotionally numb now. I told her that she broke whatever semblance of trust I had left, and that she’d have to work to regain my trust. She says she regrets it, and I know it’s harsh, but 6 times. Six times. I know I’m not there enough for her, nowhere near as much as I want to be. But did she not regret it the first time? Or second? Third? Why try to hide it from me when I was telling her if she just came clean up front it wouldn’t hurt as much. Yes it still hurt, but the fact that I had to push and pry to get her to admit it. And she says she was planning to tell me in December, yet she had another escapade planned for the 16th.

I was able to contact one of the guys and he had no idea and kept apologizing to me, telling me he hasn’t deleted any of the chats so if I wanted to know anything to let him know. He blocked her on everything (and I made sure she blocked him on everything) and he told me that had he known she was actively with someone, he wouldn’t have done anything with her. The other guy I haven’t contacted, and tbh I’d rather not.

I can barely eat or sleep now. She said she wants to make things right, show me her phone whenever I want to prove she’s being faithful now, be more honest with me, etc. but idk… I said yes to her open phone thing, and she gave me some of her socials. Low and behold, she mass deleted stuff and mass blocked guys, saying she was scared of what I’d see, because she knows they’re bad.

Long story cut alittle short, I’m a forgiving person and I CAN forgive her. I’ve told her she has to re-earn my trust now after everything she did to me. But now I’m extremely paranoid that she’s just fucking around because the distance gives her cover. She reassures me she’s not, but idk. She had been accusing me of doing the same for the past 2 years because I have a friend (21f) that has had a thing for me for a few years that I visit every few months, but I had never acted on it . My ex would get jealous that I’d see her and think we were doing stuff. Yet she was doing the very thing she was accusing me of. I’ve had every chance to, she does not hide that she wants me, but I’ve always rebuked it because I wanted to make things work with my ex and she’s been respectful of that, not overstepping boundaries and telling me she wants to see my ex and I work if it’ll make me happy. I’ve always had more of an older brother like relationship with her.

I just needed to vent and rant. At this point we are back to FWB (monogamous), while she earns my trust back. Idk if I can ever forgive her after this, and maybe I’m stupid for giving her this when she doesn’t deserve it. I’ve been having panick attacks on and off since I found all this out. I’m in the middle of transitioning from one company to another, so that’s been weighing on me too because I like the team I’m currently on but I’m trying to better my career. I was doing it to have more time to visit my ex and the possibility of a better long-term career for us. Now idk if it was worth it and it’s too late to go back.

I know we weren’t technically together, but she had made it clear that we were monogamous. So I didn’t pursue or even try to meet anyone else, I didn’t try to sleep around or anything, etc.