The best way to break up with a Facebook cheating partner

When you are in a monogamous relationship with a partner and boundaries are violated, agreements and promises broken you have a choice. You can either forgive and hope for the best, or you can walk out. My rules for relationships are clear from day one: Cheating is unacceptable. Call me a bitch, but I have enough self-love to leave any guy over any form of infidelity.

It was an intense relationship, due to COVID19 and the lockdown. We build an imaginary world, full of promises that he could not keep. I told him once: don’t make it more special than you can manage, but he was sure: with him, my life would never be the same, it would be different, better, more fulfilling and mature.

When we met the first time I told him to hold back a little, he was talking about exclusiveness already there and then, eager to put his mark on me and reserve me. Way too eager. I should have known. Yet, I am that kind of person that is easy to forgive mistakes, and we all have a hunger for a partner right?

Was it love or Stockholm Syndrome due to the lockdown?

We chatted for hours, we sexted (sort of) and we bonded. It was almost Stockholm Syndrome. Being in Lockdown he became almost my only contact with the outside world. But yet, my heart opened, and when he got his first night out from work after the lockdown my heart rejoiced.

We had fun, the sex was not good, nothing like he promised me, and there the illusion started to crumble.

I remember one time, I relistened huge parts of our WhatsApp voice chat just to remember all his promises. I googled how Mexican men are when dating (not much intel on that topic) and how to deal with men that ‘over-sell’ themselves. For clearly that is what he had done.

His first real day off the veil fell a little more

Then came his long-desired first day off. 2 nights and one day to spend at my place. He almost moved in. I kind of shocked me that he took the liberty of leaving behind clothes and pants. To me, that is something you discuss, not just do. Anyway. It is only clothes I lulled myself, it means he is serious about us.

But spending so much time together also revealed other perks, like his constant flirting with other women on the internet while I was naked in his arms. Or the endless WhatsApp messages with kissing faces women send to him. “They flirt with me, I do not flirt with them”, he told me when he pressed send to two kissing faces to a random woman. I tried to remember the last time he sent me kissing faces…..only on my Instagram when a male friend from Northern Africa complimented me on how good I looked and how happy.

I told him his constant flirting with other women bothered me, he laughed it off. I decided to Google him and do some background research. And that is when everything moved from a seemingly solid base full of forever after promises moved to a slippery slope.

Multiple Facebook accounts and I was in none of them

When I confronted him with all his Facebook accounts (no bae, I am not that active on FB) he tried to get out of the conversation by kissing me and telling me how much he loved me. But my gut feeling was doing overtime, especially when I saw ‘her’ name pop up on his phone just too many times.

I saw a past of my so-called monogamous heterosexual boyfriend that shocked me.

And I was in none of his accounts otherwise his “friends” (and the quotes are his!) would make drama on my Facebook.

That alarmed me.

Lucky for me the so hated Facebook that wrecked so many relationships and is able to imbalance our love life so much was in my favour this time.

I checked ‘her’ profile and to my astonishment, she changed her single status to being in a relationship with my monogamous boyfriend. Whom earlier assured me he would not do better in an open relationship. (Don’t even ask why I discuss subjects like that!)

Not even a week ago I explicitly asked him if I was the only girlfriend in his life: Yes babe of course you are, why do you ask?

Now I knew he cheated on me, what to do?

he was supposed to come for another 2 nights and one day off that same evening of the morning I found out about his relationship with this woman, she was in his life and Facebook months before he met me. So I was “the other woman” obviously. It made me feel cheap, dirty, a whore. It made me feel inadequate, defeated, stupid. But most of all it made me feel angry and hurt.

By now I knew my boyfriend as a smooth talker, a little on the manipulative side and an avoider of relationship progress talks. So would there be any reason to ask him why? He would probably dish up some lousy excuse. (and trust me, in his numerous chat messages to try to talk to me afterwards he did, he even said she had no meaning to him at all)

I was confused, shaken, hurt, I felt disrespected, but most of all so incredibly stupid for not trusting my gut feeling (again). One would say that at the end of 59 years, one would have mastered the art of trusting a gut feeling?

I tried to calm myself, made a doctors appointment to get myself checked and tested. I know stupid too. But I needed to be practical in order to clear my head.

And while in the waiting room, still fuming in anger and trying to hold back the tears of the hurt, I came to the conclusion there was only one way to deal with him

I came up with a plan that would strengthen my self-esteem and I knew I needed that!

So many scenarios came and went in my mind I thought of

• contacting her and confronting her with his behaviour (so wrong I know)
• talking to him and let him explain (even though I knew that would be dangerous)
• go to his work and make a public scene (too much of a hassle!)

I questioned

• why I wasn’t enough
• why he thought it would be okay to lie to me
• why he thought he could play with my feelings knowing where I came from int he past
• what part of the monogamous and exclusive promise we made he did not understand
• what part of me and my devotion to him made him believe I wanted to be his second? (if there were only two relationships which I start to doubt now)

But I knew that would get me nowhere. it would only push me deeper into the victim role. And although I felt hurt, that was not a place I wanted to be. Maybe for a day or two, but I needed the strength to erase him from my heart with as little damage as possible.

So this is what I did and it hurt him

I started erasing him. From my social media. I was open and transparent and he was in all my social media. I was proud of us. Stupid naive me!

• I erased his likes on my IG, my likes and comments on his seldomly used IG, and unfriended him
• I deleted all my tweets about him and us and unfriended him
• I deleted his name from all the articles here on Floating Coconut about him and replaces it with the very anonymous “My boyfriend” (now: ex)
• I deleted all photos (he was the selfie king, so I had plenty) from my phone, my laptop, everywhere!
• I closed his guest account on my laptop
• I packed his clothes and stuff he left at my place
• I packed everything that reminded me of him, every item in the studio
• I took screenshots from the evidence I found

It all felt good, liberating, it made me feel strong. And by then I knew: I did not want to talk, I was not interested int he why and how for I would never get a straight answer. I just wanted to hurt him and my subconscious gave me the tools to hit him where it would hurt him the most: denying he ever was a part of my life. As an attention seeker and self-indulged male, he would feel that. Every deleted tweet would hurt him, every removed post would emphasise how much I lowed him and how much he had hurt me.

And then I texted him.

I texted him the evidence. The screenshots and told him not to come that night, but to come the next day to pick up his belongings that I had already packed, and that I erased him from my (digital) life.

He would certainly draw the conclusion that I was over and done with. I never told him that over text, but it became clear when he replied: So you don’t want me to come tonight? It hurts that you kicked me out of the studio already.

I replied that he knew my rules, he broke them willingly and he could pick up his things the next day, just text me the time.

When he arrived I was already downstairs with his bags and handed them to him, no words spoken, only ‘hi’. And when I closed the iron gate, he uttered from behind his facemask: Don’t you want…don’t you want….searching for words. And I opened the gate a little, trying to be polite when I looked over my facemask into his empty emotionless eyes and said: What do you want? you hurt me……

And he answered: yes I know you hurt my feeling too.

And then I knew for sure what an asshole he really was. I hurt him too……that was more important to him than my feelings. And with a “tssss”-sound I closed the gate and went upstairs. head high, back straight, moving slowly with my ass that he loved so much tight in a legging for him to see all my curves…….

And that was the end of it.

NOTE: of course more was said during that day and he tried to get me back in his harem, he even told me he loved me and she meant nothing to him, but I was certain that without trust this relationship would never survive. No relationship can survive without trust. And I did not trust him anymore, Not after all the stuff I discovered about him on Facebook, past, present and a guarantee for the future. Besides, I have my pride!

Are you in a situation like this? Has your partner Facebook cheated on you, or did he or she broke promises and hurt you badly? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

 

Do you feel like talking privately about your relationship or do you need some guidance? You can e-mail me with your question, and I will answer you from my professional experience as a counsellor.

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