Dear diary…

I don’t know where this is going to go, but reading the posts and comments here has been helpful so I’m going to just share my story and thoughts also. I’m going to try to condense things but we’ll see where this goes.

9 years ago I started talking to my AP via Snapchat. I’d met this guy twice before about 14-15 years ago. The conversations started out innocent but one day AP sent an indecent photo of himself. I was uncomfortable and told him to stop and I stopped talking to him for a bit. We eventually start chatting again and one day I accidentally sent him a photo of myself that was supposed to go to my BP. It wasn’t my intention to share myself with him like that but when the feedback was positive it felt good. It was nice to feel attractive and wanted. Our conversations became flirty. One day he shared a video of himself jerking off, and another of him banging someone recorded in a bathroom mirror. I ended up sharing another photo of myself. Eventually he invited me to come meet up with him and it was in that moment I realized what I was doing. I was leading this guy on because I liked the attention. I never wanted to meet up with him or leave my BP for him. I told AP about my BP, because I’d never mentioned that to him previously. I told him we couldn’t continue talking the way we were. I should have just blocked him right then and there but I didn’t. I knew what I was doing was wrong and I wanted to tell my BP what was happening and I wrote out an email to him to try and confess. I never actually sent that email though.

Eventually weeks later AP sends another indecent photo of himself while my BP had my phone. I immediately felt shame and embarrassment. I was scared to tell him that I’d been engaging with this guy in the way that I was and so I lied to him about the situation. I told him that AP had done this before and I told him to stop, which was true, but just a slight piece of the truth. I never told him I shared photos of myself, the type of conversations we had, or the videos I was sent. I guess I was trying to protect us by lying. I was scared if he knew the truth he would be upset. I stopped talking to AP and I deleted and blocked everything related to him. I never wanted to feel that nauseating kicked in the chest feeling again. Since then, I haven’t put myself in the situation where one innocent conversation could lead to a few compliments and put me back in the same place I was in before.

Fast forward to almost 2 weeks ago, my BP finds the email in my inbox that I sent to myself and never shared with him. He’s obviously crushed. I shared with him how I sent photos. I did a little bit of trickle truthing. The next day I shared with him how I received videos, because I truly didn’t remember them when we first talked about the situation. He asked how long I talked to him and I said a few days/weeks, but really meant a few weeks/months. I stopped talking to AP for days/weeks at a time. It wasn’t consistent conversations. That was an honest misspeak. I don’t remember how long I talked to him, it was a few months. I didn’t tell my BP that my AP invited me somewhere to meet up with him until I looked through photos on my phone and saw the place he invited me too. I just didn’t remember that initially. I know all the BP reading this are going to think I’m full of shit but I truly didn’t remember, but when I did I told him. I’m not intentionally trickle truthing. It makes it hard when this wasn’t a relationship that meant anything of significance to me and it was 9 years ago. But it still meant something if I sent photos and shared part of myself with AP. There are still details I can’t remember. When did I start talking to him? When did he send the first photo? What day did I send the first photo? What day did I stop talking to him like that? I just don’t remember the dates. I started to dig through everything to try and figure it out.

My BP got trapped into days of “sherlocking”. He wasn’t eating or sleeping, he was going through every account I have to find more information. I gave him access to my emails, iCloud, social media, phone, anything he wanted. I downloaded my Snapchat metadata and tried to confirm the information I told him. He was obsessing over things that had nothing to do with my AP and seemed to try and find things he could twist into something else I was lying about. And no shame towards him for doing this, I know why he was doing it. I lied for 9 years, why would he trust me now? Even though it was frustrating for me I know it was 100x worse for him. I know I betrayed him. I remember the feeling I felt when I got caught and I know it was 100x worse for him. Seeing him behave this way due to something I caused makes me feel terrible. I never wanted to hurt him. I made poor decisions that ended up crushing him. There is a lot of devastation that has come from my wrong doing. Now I’m feeling such remorse. I see what something I thought was entertaining and fun has done to him, me, and to our relationship. I never realized the magnitude of what I was doing. I’ve been watching YouTube videos, searching this subreddit and a few others, ordered an infidelity workbook, I’m being honest and open and answering the hard questions. I’m trying to do what I can to make this right. I’m also doing what I can to try and keep my mind off of it, which is hard. We’ve both shared things from our past and realized things about each other that we never knew or paid attention to before. I know he doesn’t trust me yet, this pain is fresh and he still has a lot of questions unanswered. So do I. Why did I do this? How could I let something like this happen?

I took his power and choice from him 9 years ago. He made the decision to marry me and have children with me based on who he thought I was back then. He was never able to make an informed decision about being with me because he didn’t have all of the information about the infidelity. What I thought was just one lie turned into a lie every moment that I kept the truth from him. I had 9 years to come clean but I didn’t. I’ve realized now that I have a lot to work on within myself. The shame is something that I feel really big. The self doubt. The negative thoughts running through my mind.

We took an online quiz to see our attachment styles. Which if you’re reading this and don’t know what that is, google it. I feel like knowing my attachment style is somewhat embarrassing to know and still at the same time it’s helpful to understand why I do some of the things I do, or why I behave like that. It’s actually really eye opening.

I dug on the internet for days trying to find a way to contact AP. He isn’t on social media anymore, moved cities, numbers listed for him online aren’t his. I dug up his parents contact info and his email addresses. Old businesses he worked at. Tried to search what I thought might be his on cashapp, all social media, etc.

I finally found his phone number and texted him and he replied. Last night BP and I came up with what to text him to get confirmation that I never met up with him and never slept with him. That was a big question for BP that he needed answered and didn’t trust when I told him no. We mentioned to AP in the text the place AP invited me to and said I never remembered if we met up or not, to try to get a confirmation that we didn’t. He said something along the lines of “that checks out, I used to love that place”. Then asked me if we slept together. I think now it’s made BP feel a little better about the situation and he might a little more trusting. AP doesn’t even remember me. He had my name saved in his phone and thought I met him at a bar recently. He doesn’t remember me from 9 years ago.

Last night BP also went back through my phone and found notes and screenshots from when I was looking on Instagram for inspirational quotes or just typed out how I felt. Now he’s upset at himself for not being good enough and treating me poorly throughout our relationship. Honestly though it’s confusing because now it feels like we’re both sharing the remorse for our actions when I feel like this shouldn’t be something he feels right now. Yeah he wasn’t always the greatest partner, but I didn’t ever want to leave him. He still treated me good and I knew I was loved, he didn’t deserve what I did. It’s not like I told myself BP is terrible and I need to find someone new, and then found AP. I just think my anxiety about not feeling wanted or the need for validation from others clouded my judgement in the moment when APs responses during the affair made me feel good. I’m going through so many emotions and it’s difficult to process this all at once.

BP says now he doesn’t want to focus on the affair and wants to focus on healing himself and bettering himself before he can focus on the affair. I agree we both have things we need to work on. He is making it clear that there are things I’m still doing wrong, like not crying enough, not showing enough emotion, he feels like I’m manipulating him and all of my expressions are scripted, defending AP. And just as an example for that, BP called AP slimy. I said “I don’t know if I would call him slimy, but he did send me a video banging some random girl”. I guess I didn’t want to criticize the person I chose to talk to because he didn’t do anything wrong to me. He didn’t chose to have my affair. He didn’t know I had a boyfriend at the time until I told him. Compared to previous physical and sexual abuse I’ve experienced in the past, AP wasn’t abusive. He made me feel wanted and good about myself. It was slimy that he shared another girls intimate moments with me probably without her knowledge. I think BP really doubts if he even knows me.

It’s just hard and I feel like no matter what I do to try to repair and work towards recovery isn’t good enough. I’m just sitting with my thoughts that are all over the place and feel frozen. Even though he tells me recovery is what he wants it’s hard to see it. I hope this is all level headed enough to read through. I feel like I’m all over the place and don’t know what I’m feeling or what to think.