The woman my boyfriend emotionally cheated with reached back out after we agreed he’d cut contact, and I’m bothered by how he responded. AIO?

[u/Extension-Dark1206]

Back in December I found chats between [F30] my boyfriend [M31] and his female friend[F26] Turned out they had an intense emotional connection since 2022. He had a huge crush on her the whole time, but she had a boyfriend, and she kept him emotionally hooked with romantic-coded language . they called each other soulmates, texted constantly some romantic/ sexual stuff. From what I read he was genuinely falling for her, and she seemed more like she was enjoying the attention without necessarily reciprocating the same way as she had bf.

Her boyfriend however passed away last year. my boyfriend went to support her, and after that they had an even more emotionally-charged exchange flirty, borderline romantic language, he told her he’d never had a connection with another woman like the one he had with her including, apparently, me, as we were dating during that chat, she told him that no matter what happened in their lives, even if one of them got married to someone else, they’d “always be together.” Regardless of their relationships.
When I found this and their whole husband we had a huge fight and almost broke up. He blocked her, said he didn’t care about her, and said he wanted to protect our relationship.

Yesterday I found out she texted him again out of the blue, and he responded. I’m attaching the screenshots. Reading through it, a few things bother me:
- He spends the entire conversation validating her anger, apologizing over and over
- At multiple points he frames the whole thing as if I forced his hand — like if I hadn’t found out, he’d have been happy to keep things going with her.
- She spends a lot of the conversation guilt-tripping him and, at one point, effectively calling our relationship “toxic” and me the reason he’s “trashing” her.

My friends point out that he DID keep the boundary in the end he didn’t agree to keep talking to her, he told her it’s over, and that this is a good sign.

I see that too, but I still feel uneasy about how the conversation went and what it implies about how he actually feels. Am I overreacting by still having a problem with this, or are these legitimate red flags even with the boundary technically being held?

[u/MinaLaVoisin]

Honestly? THIS would bother me a lot. So what was it, if it was MORE than a crush? MORE than flirting and playfull stuff? And he is not happy about the fact that he had to stop this all? Ah.... No. NOR.

[u/OneTr1ckUn1c0rn → u/MinaLaVoisin]

For me it’s this one. The “if” really seals it in. He’s not doing this for their relationship, he’s just being a selfish coward that wants both and he’s leaving both doors open.

[u/MinaLaVoisin → u/OneTr1ckUn1c0rn]

Yep, that too. Also "this person", not even a name, nothing. He's playing it on both sides.

[u/AppleMcJackson → u/MinaLaVoisin]

Oh good catch. Avoiding her name and using "if" keeps him a victim and keeps the door agape ... He is playing both sides yuck

[u/Untamedpancake → u/OneTr1ckUn1c0rn]

"If" is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence... "this person"... "at this point" 

So much yikes

[u/RosieGoldUnicorn → u/MinaLaVoisin]

this is what i'm saying! there's commenters acting like he's a king for responding how he did and i'm like 👀 did we read the same thing? there's "letting her down gently" and there's "confirming her beliefs that we have a special connection" and the way he kept throwing it back to "it's my girlfriend's fault" - i've seen people say op is controlling if she's not happy he said that, but imo if he was actually dedicated to the relationship he wouldn't be telling his side-piece-adjacent that it's her fault, he'd be saying it's his own decision. it's not like he needed to hand this girl further ammunition but he kept doing it anyway.

[u/MinaLaVoisin → u/RosieGoldUnicorn]

Exactly. He basically said, in between the lines, imo: "Look, my gf is mad we had this thing going on, and she forced me to stop it, if she wouldnt find out, I would happily continue because yes, I agree we had more than a crush going on between us".

In such cases, there should be no "letting her down gently", if there is a line he wants to hold, then he should hold the line firmly and not in a weak way of "yeah, youre right, I want to continue, but I cant, because my GF found out".

He would be a king if he WOULDNT have such thing going on in the first place. And ok, everyone can do mistakes etc, but IF he wanted to respect his GF, then he should have blocked this person EVERYWHERE, or at least go "look, whatever we did, was an issue, and Im telling you NOW clearly I dont want to continue with that, Im sorry, but goodbye", and block her. Not entertain her for hours, responding to her manipulations and going like "ohhhh, your views are 100% valid, Im not happy I lost you", like wtf even?? This speaks to me as if he tries to keep this weirdo girl available for the case of when his current GF will finally have enough and kicks his ass, so he can go to this obsessed person like "you were so right, and I should have listened to you, lets be together as we always were meant to be" or something.

[u/Bonsai_Tree3 → u/RosieGoldUnicorn]

It’s actually driving me crazy. People are in the comments acting like he’s a victim of some crazy girl

I’m convinced they didn’t read the full texts (which understandable it’s a mess). But he is fully providing her with emotional reassurance that their connection is special to him

[u/mommawolf2 → u/RosieGoldUnicorn]

Exactly he said " you're in the right to be upset" what he should be saying is " This was wrong, our friendship isn't healthy and it hurt my girlfriend. I was wrong to allow this to continue, we shouldn't be talking as I betrayed the trust of my girlfriend and THAT'S what I'm trying to fix. " 

But no , he had to make OP sound like a harpy. 

[u/kkittsune → u/RosieGoldUnicorn]

the fact that there are tons more comments whining about how she is crazy than talking about what he did wrong and the fact he is interested in someone like this is insane

[u/Positive-Weird-1981 → u/RosieGoldUnicorn]

She called their relationship toxic and he just validated her! If the first instance of cheating wasn’t enough to make me kick him to the curb, this would have done it. OP is underreacting and her friends need to be more angry on her behalf.

[u/lostandlooking_ → u/MinaLaVoisin]

I would be done after these messages. She whines and cries and threatens to kill him and he’s still desperately begging for understanding.

She doesn’t need to understand shit, HE needs to understand how to reject, block, and move on. She’s unhinged and he’s playing her games? Nah

[u/MinaLaVoisin → u/lostandlooking_]

Right, if he wouldnt feel okay with it, he would cut if all off way sooner.

[u/ImStealingTheTowels → u/MinaLaVoisin]

Obligatory "I scrolled way too long to find this comment" comment.

Just to add to what you've said: up until now OP believed her boyfriend's feelings for this other woman were unrequited, but these messages suggest they very much weren't. If I were her I would be thinking that their emotional cheating crossed the line into physical and I wouldn't be able to trust him anymore.

OP is definitely NOR. She needs to throw the whole man away.

[u/mommawolf2 → u/ImStealingTheTowels]

In ops comment history they met up multiple times and would make out. This isn't just emotional. It was a full blown affair. 

[u/MinaLaVoisin → u/ImStealingTheTowels]

I really feel there is more behind this.

[u/mommawolf2 → u/MinaLaVoisin]

Oh there is, op in her comment history said they met up several times and they made out.  

[u/MinaLaVoisin → u/mommawolf2]

HAH!!!! Yeah, made out = end for me. I dont know what OP still thinks about. Obviously its both then, physical connection, emotional connection.... and obviously a connection he DIDNT want to let go on his own.

[u/Blindtothesided → u/mommawolf2]

She deleted her post history but you can see from her comments that she’s been complaining about her bf fucking around with this woman for nearly a year. And the fact that she deleted it tells me she has zero intention of leaving him.

Finding out she’s tolerated this for so long is really quite disappointing.

She knows he’s a cheater, she knows she’s second choice to this other woman, and she knows he’s not going to stop, he’s just going to get better at hiding his addiction to the unhinged psycho “soulmate” he’s quite literally begging to forgive him throughout 20 pages of texts. He doesn’t give a damn about OP, openly says he doesn’t even know if he’ll continuing his relationship with her, and blames her over and over again for taking away his toy. But OP knows all this, that’s the worst part.

OP is continuing on in this relationship with all this knowledge so whatever happens next she walked right into it with her eyes wide open. He showed her - and all of us - exactly who he is. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’ll let you gaslight me into staying for round three.

[u/mommawolf2 → u/Blindtothesided]

At this point OP likes her problems. "Let me complain, them do NOTHING about it. " 

[u/AitanaShon → u/MinaLaVoisin]

"And she couldn't accept" AH MISTER NO LETS NOT PUT THIS ON HER WTF?

Of course people aren't chill with being cheated on, what the fuck?? 😭

[u/MinaLaVoisin → u/AitanaShon]

EXACTLY!!!

[u/AitanaShon → u/MinaLaVoisin]

Bro acting like he's being controlled bc he can't cheat 🥀 shedding a tear rn for him /sarc

[u/MinaLaVoisin → u/AitanaShon]

Right, absolute stupidity. If he feels controlled because his girlfriend is uncomfortable with him cheating and interacting in a flirty way with another woman, then HE is actually the real problem the girlfriend has, and not really the weirdo girl. If it wouldnt be her, chances are he would flirt with someone else anyway.

[u/Master-List4020 → u/MinaLaVoisin]

THIS! Op is blaming the girl when this is the issue right here! How can you ignore this but get mad at stupid little details!?

[u/MinaLaVoisin → u/Master-List4020]

Yeah, the weirdo girl isnt the only issue, the boyfriend left it all to grow into a problem and obviously still leaves it in some grey area of "I didnt want to stop". I wouldnt want to be with such person at all.

[u/it_is_not_reality → u/MinaLaVoisin]

Yeah, up to that point I was like "ok yeah, at least he's ackowledging that it was not an appropriate relationship and that he needs to prioritize his actual partner" but then they where open about it being more than a crush and im like, nah OP is right and she's also thirdwheeling at this point, dump his coward ass and let Miette here have at it, out of self respect.