2 years ago i met my bf (21m) and i pursued him. we were going out every night. it was very innocent just getting to know each other but i was a different person then. i wont lie, my head was pretty big. i had lost a lot of weight and it was the best i had ever looked. for the first time ever a guy i was interested in seemed to have reciprocated those feelings. i felt amazing.

we started working together at a job and i was the only female there. i received lots of male attention for the first time in my life but i never thought anything of it. i thought we were just workmates. of course my bf knowing how boys can be, was suspicious of them and would try to warn me about one particular guy. i brushed it off and didnt cater properly to his feelings the way i wouldve wanted him to do to me. i know i probably seem like a total red flag. the shitty part is that i had 0 intentions of hurting him. i actually was super happy with him but i had this major problem where my feelings didnt reflect in my actions. i guess i had my guard up to some extent and couldnt believe i had a bf. when i say i received NO male attention growing up, i mean it. so when i finally got the person i wanted, i was full of doubt which impacted my actions. i couldnt be vulnerable with him and i couldnt treat him as special as i felt he was to me. it really sucks. it’s a totally different pain when you genuinely didnt mean to be an asshole but you were anyway.

my bf witnessed a guy at work tending to a small injury i had. it was a literal paper cut on my pinky, not a big deal at all but this guy i was working with grabbed my hand and took a look at it with my bf standing right there. i knew in my heart it was wrong and i was uncomfortable myself but i didnt say anything. this is one of the things my bf to this day is unsettled about. if a guy crosses the line with me, will i speak up or let it happen. this is one of his fears. i have people pleasing tendencies and i also am super non-confrontational so i never said anything when the men at work did something or said something i was uncomfortable with.

i also got along really well with the same guy that tended to my injury. we had the same humor and he’d make me laugh a lot. i also overshared a lot about my life with him. same things my bf knew about me. again, i had NO feelings for this guy, i saw him as nothing more than just a workmate but my actions were questionable. for some reason i got along better with this random guy than my own bf. and he was there to see it all.

all i can say about that is that being in a relationship scared the shit out of me. i think i subconsciously didnt treat my bf like i should have because he had become so important to me in such little time and i was scared of being so devoted and then it turning on me. i have a tendency to self sabotage. and i am paying the price for it now.

present day… surprise! we are still together. and it’s not easy. unfortunately, i was my bf’s first real heartache. he said he never felt jealous in his life and that he never cried over someone until i came. i felt terrible. he has gotten stronger now because i guess all that pain he learned some things but one of those things is to not trust me. i cant blame him. even in the past when he brought up these events at our old job, i made the mistake of invalidating his feelings and not really hearing him. being too consumed by my own guilt that the attention then comes to me, leaving him hanging.

ive done it too many times. ive wronged him once, but every time it came up after that i wronged him again and again. i want to fix this. i want to show him that i really do understand. even reflecting on what happened at that job i want to cry because i can imagine if that happened to me and the roles were reversed, id be absolutely crushed. it’s actually a miracle he is still here.

im trying not to put too much here to read so if you need some clarification on anything, please ask. there are some things i couldnt give too many details on. i want to help my bf and i want to slowly gain his trust. he didnt deserve that.