My story... unsure how to move from here

I’m lost and not sure what to do. I (20F) cheated on my boyfriend (20M) twice. I went on a trip with one of my girlfriends to Miami. We have friends there as we used to travel there together a lot. We got dinner with two men that we were friends with. Later, we went to one of their apartments for drinks. It was casual. One of the men (AP, 41M) make a move on me and I turn him down instantly, and this proceeds for the rest of the night. I did not cheat on my boyfriend this night. My mind started to wander the following days. I sort of was getting annoyed with my boyfriend. He was being needy and anxious, didn’t communicate why he was behaving the way he was, and I was pissed off because I felt like he just rug swept every problem we had in the relationship. I was content with the relationship for the most part, but only because I decided to ignore the issues that were there. We almost broke up a month before the trip and I decided to take him back. We also almost broke up a week before the trip because of something that he did to me that made me second guess the validity of our relationship. I guess I learned to forget rather than forgive. I was just in a weird place and desired validation from other men to know that I’m worthy of more. This definitely stems from deep insecurity and self-esteem issues. I was unhappy where me and my boyfriend’s relationship was at and did the following to self-sabotage rather than just communicate.
AP asked me and my friend to dinner a few nights later. We didn’t have any plans, so we said yes. I got a few drinks in me, and I had the courage to not turn AP down. My friend and I went to the AP’s apartment. He kept trying to heavy pet me, I kept stopping him. This was taking it too far. I kept drinking more. I probably had 5 shots alone at the friend’s apartment, and I am a very small person with an even smaller tolerance. I don’t really understand what happens next. My girlfriend tells me to check out the bathroom because it was "well decorated". I go stumble in there and AP follows me in. He starts heavy petting me again and I think I was too incoherent to really care anymore at this point. That’s all that happened that night. AP ended up angry with me at the end of the night because I was "too drunk and annoying".
I came home a few days later. I was guilty and it was obvious with my actions. My boyfriend could tell something was up. My girlfriend wants to go on another trip. She wants to go back to Miami a few nights and then go to NYC. I tell her I don’t want to go to Miami, but somehow, she convinced me.
We go on this trip two weeks after the first. It’s our last night in Miami and we have no plans. I was drinking on the beach and my girlfriend told me to text AP for plans. I agreed to text him and he sent us an uber a few hours later. I felt like I already fucked up the relationship and that it was already beyond repair. AP pours us wine when we arrive. I drink two glasses on top of the two that I already had at the beach. My friend takes a shower at his place less than 5 minutes of getting to his apartment. I was left alone with him for 15-20 min. We decided to resume the same activities as weeks before. After getting out of the shower, she leaves the apartment and says that she’s going to meet up with a guy. I was already so drunk at this point that I didn’t think to leave with her or to leave on my own. It just happened so quickly and I was in shock because this isn’t something that we discussed prior at all. I just stayed there. I ended up staying the night and sleeping in a different bed than AP. I left early in the morning to go pack my bags and leave for the airport. Me and AP sent each other messages while I was in New York and our communication ends here.
My girlfriend and I went to dinner with another man in NYC that was in the same friend group as AP. This man and I were getting along well, but very much as friends and nothing else. We took pictures together. My girlfriend was posting videos and pictures of me and this man trying to pose the situation as if I was cheating on my boyfriend with this man. I wasn’t, we were just getting along well. My girlfriend and I get into an argument because she was acting weird and mean towards me. I call my boyfriend as soon as we get back to the hotel and cry to him on the phone for two hours about the things that she’s posting about me and how it’s making the situation look worse than it really is. Which is true. He saw the posts and was upset by them. Me and her didn’t talk for two weeks after the trip.
Fast forward to December 29th, D-Day. My boyfriend comes over and breaks up with me. We had a talk the next night and he said that he just needs time away from me right now and that we can be on a break. This was perfect timing because he was going on a week-long skiing trip anyways. We didn’t talk at all for a week. I was hurting so bad. I missed him, I hated him, I loved him, I cried, I screamed, I was angry, I was mad at myself. I was going insane, looking at his social medias on fake accounts because I was blocked. I felt every emotion. I contacted my girlfriend and told her what happened. She acted so confused and said that AP must have contacted him. She was my support system for two days until she wrote me a long paragraph about everything that’s wrong with me and essentially called me "self absorbed" for only talking about myself when I was in the midst of a break up.
My boyfriend comes home, and we have a talk. I tell him that I can’t do a break and that I’m driving myself insane. This was selfish but this relationship was my life at this point and the only thing that I did outside of work/school. I couldn’t deal with uncertainty with something that was such a large aspect of my life. I tell him that we either need to work on our relationship or we need to break up for good. He decides that he wants to get back together.
A week after getting back together, I discover that my girlfriend told my boyfriend about my cheating. I also discover that she was feeding my boyfriend lies, and told him that we did more than heavy petting. I’m not sure what else she told him because me and my boyfriend never discussed it. Her texting him seemed like revenge and that she only sent me those texts about how awful I am because she felt guilty. We stopped being friends when I found out, and she made the situation very dramatic and threatened to get lawyers/the police involved. She also texted my mother and had one of her friends text my boyfriend basically telling him how awful I am.
After getting back together, we both rug swept the situation. He didn’t tell me how he was truly feeling, he didn’t ask me questions, we didn’t make any moves to try to better our relationship. I also didn’t know how to handle the situation at the time and didn’t understand how to bring it up to him and how to help him. My boyfriend and I went on a trip together and celebrated Valentines. It was like we went back to normal pre d-day. I blocked AP, we started sharing locations, and we gave each other our passwords to our phones.
I believe he may have had somewhat of a D-day 2 on our trip together. He had the password for my phone and went through it when I was in the shower. He took screenshots of my messages on Instagram and sent them to himself. I don’t think there was much there that he didn’t already, but then again, I don’t know what he knows. We never really formally talked about what happened. I didn’t give him a timeline. He just knows what my friend told him. I have yet to know what she told him, as I have not read the messages between the two of them. I do know that he has accused me of things that never happened, and then claims that my friend told him that. As far as I know, these lies are based on the extent of my cheating and how far I went with AP.
On February 19th, he broke up with me. Telling me that he doesn’t think that he can get over it and that he doesn’t trust me. I was heartbroken and very selfish for the next two weeks. Crying to him, sending him multiple paragraph length texts, calling him nonstop regardless of him not answering. All I could think about was "How could he do this to me?" "Why doesn’t he think we can work it out?". I tried convincing him that we can do couples therapy and that we can work it out. He didn’t budge. Nothing I was saying to him mattered. I don’t blame him either.
On February 27, the plan was for him to drop off the rest of my belongings. The day before, we changed our minds and decided that he would come over and talk. I had a breakdown before he came over. I had every intention on killing myself. All I could think about is how awful of a person I am and how guilty I feel for hurting other people. I felt like I didn’t deserve to live. I self-harmed that night. He got to my house, and I grabbed my belongings from him and shut the door on him, even though the plan was to talk. He called me a minute or two later, expressing that he wants to talk. I let him inside. We were silent for a while. I had nothing to say. Everything I wanted to say to him, I had already said to him the past week. He wasn’t going to change his mind; he knows what he wants. He says that he wants to leave, and I start to get scared. I know that the moment he walks out of the door, that I will do it. I tell him what’s going on, and I sob in his arms for a while.
He starts praying for me and for me to see the light and to be stronger. When he ends the prayer, a loud bang came from my house. A large plant randomly fell over, regardless of us being the only ones there. That bit was besides the main point, but it made me feel like God was there with us in that moment.
There were so many feelings going on at this point. Me and my boyfriend start hooking up. He asks me to spend the night at his house, I saw this as a "he wants to be with me" but he saw it as "I’m worried what she’ll do if she’s alone". Nevertheless, I spend the night. We hook up more times. We grab lunch together the morning after. He starts future talking and saying that he applied to some medical expo in Miami, and that if he gets accepted then he wants me to come. Things are back to normal at lunch. He kept pushing the idea of IC on me and saying that he will reach out to his church so that I can talk to one of the pastors. He really wanted me to go to therapy, considering my actions the night before. I was emotionally drained and kept staring off in the distance at lunch. I still felt empty from the night before.
He takes me home and I ask him what’s going on between us. He says that he still feels the same way. He makes plans to see me on March 6th. He leaves, and we communicate with each other the next three days like we’re back together. Sending each other memes, spending hours on the phone, texting each other. We even made plans for me to see him during the weekend. I was getting mixed signals. He was acting like things were fine, calling me baby, saying he misses me, he loves me. On Wednesday, I ask him again what’s going on. He says the same thing, but that he’s confused and that when he sees me, his feelings for me are rekindled and that he’s reminded of all the good memories and forgets the bad. I talk to my mom about this, and she tells me that it seems like he’s just leading me on until he finds someone new. I don’t know what to think, I’m just so lost and confused and want to help him, but I feel helpless myself.
I ignore him on Thursday to see if he’s the one trying to contact me, or if he’s just replying back to be nice. He tries contacting me again on Friday morning. I basically tell him off and tell him to stop contacting me if he doesn’t want to work on us, that he is confusing me and I’m not sure what to think. He basically says that he understands. I selfishly badger him more about it, asking why he’s sending mixed signals. He says the same thing about how he enjoys talking to me and seeing me, but he doesn’t want to be with me. We didn’t talk for the rest of the day.
Saturday at 5am, I call him nonstop until he answers. I know he was up because he was posting on his social media platforms. We start talking about the same thing. I want to help him heal and fix our relationship and he says he can’t trust me but that he still has feelings for me. He said that we might be able to get together in the future. I text him after the phone call and tell him that he either needs to block me or needs to call me and tell me how he wants to proceed. I said that this is too emotionally damaging for both of us to continue talking and rug sweeping, that we either need to productively work on the relationship or we need to stop talking.
He didn’t block me, nor did he call me back. I tried calling him, no answer. I sent him a long text, repeating the same things and that I was sorry for all the pain that I caused him. I proceeded to block him on everything. He blocked me back. He sent me a text shortly after saying "I understand that you want to work out and better our relationship but I feel like I’ve been hurt so much and betrayed so much there’s nothing that can be done to right the wrongs that have occurred. I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls today it just pains me to talk to you but I know you feel the same way as well. I’m sorry for all the pain that I have caused you too". This happened Saturday night.
I don’t know how I feel right now. I wanted to enforce no contact so that we can both heal and process our emotions and thoughts. This would not be possible if I was still in contact with him, or if I had the liberty to check his social media’s whenever I wanted to. I have no self-control in that sense. I don’t know if I want to get back together with him. I reread our texts since the breakup, and it’s so painfully obvious that he doesn’t want to be with me. Why did I keep pushing so hard to try to fix things and try to prove to him that we can be stronger from this? I’m not sure if I should wait for him to break no contact or if I want to break it. I’m not sure if this is even a relationship that I want to get back into, considering somethings that happened before the cheating. I love him and I care for him and I feel terribly about the pain I’ve caused him. I’m definitely a fixer. I hate messing things up and not being able to fix them. I also dislike being out of control. This is the one thing that I cannot fix. It is out of my control. He doesn’t want me to fix it.
I had my first IC appointment today. I was really excited about it and look forward to future appointments. I want to better myself for my future relationships. I look forward to discovering more about myself. I’m not sure what my next move should be, if anything. I write him letters in a journal that he gave me. It makes me feel like we’re still talking. I’ve purchased "Not Just Friends" and "How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair". I also scroll through here and the subreddits for hours a day, just trying to understand and grasp any knowledge that I can get. I know that we’re both so young, but the heart wants what it wants. I’m hopeful that we can sit down and have a conversation sometime in the future, but at the same time, I’m not sure if that’s possible. I don’t think he wants anything to do with me.
Any advice or guidance would be nice. I posted some of my story on Reddit and got very mixed reviews/advice. Harsh judgement isn’t necessary, as I’ve already reflected on my past actions, and I can’t go back into time and undo anything. I know that I’ve been selfish, and rug swept. Also, please no comments about how I’m so young and to use this as a learning lesson. When you were 20, you probably thought that you would marry the person you were dating and would do anything to get them back.

5 comments posted: Wednesday, March 9th, 2022