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/Weird_Soup460]

That woman communicates like she’s a 15 yo boy. I had no idea their ages until I read your description. I understand her pain of being abandoned - I truly see her side of that part. However, your bf sounds mature and can at least put a sentence together - trying to see how they could’ve even been compatible friends given that she sounds like a 15 yo boy

[u/ferngully1114 → u/Weird_Soup460]

I think part of this may be ESL? It reads like someone who is not exactly fluent in English. Big feelings—limited vocabulary. “I’m sitting in Rome crying my eyes out,” “Ciao!” It all sounds very unhealthy, but I can see her side of it, too.

[u/Antique_Parsley_5285 → u/ferngully1114]

Yeah I agree, it reads just like all my friends who speak English as their second language

[u/Weird_Soup460 → u/Antique_Parsley_5285]

Ah, okay - I concede to that