I just feel hurt, confused, and I want to know if I truly am overreacting, or if I'm being manipulated.

I've been with my boyfriend N for a year and a half. We were friends, then friends with benefits for about a year prior to making things official.

Before we made things official, he had also fooled around with another girl, C. When it happened, he told me the same night, letting me know that they had made out and he had fingered her a bit but nothing further than that. Hearing that didn't bother me at all, and I told him that I felt like my trust in him was very solid specifically because I knew he would be so transparent about what was going on.

A few months after that happened, he officially asked me to be in a relationship. As time went on, he kept hanging out with C, sometimes with me as a trio. Hanging out with her all together made me feel uneasy, because I noticed that whenever she was around, he would be very hands off with me and act as if I was just his friend. I ended up asking him if she knew we were actually together, or she thought we were all three hanging out just as buddies. He reassured me that she knew that we had made things official, and that he was just trying to make sure she didn't feel like a third wheel.

My uneasy feeling about her didn't go away. I didn't mind much that they had a bit of a history, but I started noticing glances that looked more than friendly, comments here and there that were a little bit weird, and he never broke the habit of refusing to walk next to me, hold my hand, sit next to me, etc. if she was around. Also, the more I spoke to her the more I realized she had a bit of a mean girl streak. She would tell stories bragging about manipulating men, and how funny it was that most men would do anything to have her. This time when I brought up my concerns to my boyfriend again, he got annoyed with me. He said that I was projecting my insecurities on his friend, and that my insecurities are no one else's responsibility.

Around our one year anniversary, N and I were having arguments about dates and sex. I felt like I was the only one initiating either. I backed off of trying to do either one, as I got the sense that he didn't really want to and I didn't want to pressure him. He confronted me to tell me that while he had a low libido, he did not want me to stop initiating sex. When I asked about going on dates, even just simple cheap/free ones, just to keep the romantic sparkle alive, he would get very irritated and say that every time we hung out he considered a date. Most the time when we see each other I would come over to his apartment and watch TV. He said that it hurt his feelings that he considered every moment with me special but I needed a big show and dance to feel the same way.

While this was happening, C briefly dated then broke up with some other guy. I'm talking for no more than a few weeks to about two months. When her break up happened, my boyfriend made a point to plan special days to hang out with her to "Cheer her up and make sure she doesn't feel lonely." This included going over to her house to bake muffins, going over to her house with art supplies to have an arts and crafts day, or going over to her house to have a movie night. I complained that these sounded like cute date night things that I would also really enjoy doing with him, but he brushed it off and said that he was just trying to be a good friend, and that he still saw me way more than he saw her so he wasn't sure why I was trying to imply that what he was doing with her was more special.

A few months ago, he finally told me that shortly after he and I started dating, he and C had sex. He swore that he just misunderstood the parameters of our relationship, and didn't think it would be a big deal seeing as they had already been sexual before.

I was completely devastated. Especially since I had been asking him our entire relationship if there's something more going on with her, and he had always insisted that she was nothing but a purely platonic friend. He used to say that I was looking at all of their actions through lens of insecurity, and that I needed to stop looking too far into things.

At first he was completely apologetic, crying, begging me not to end the relationship. He said that he knew that he had fucked up, not just with failing to tell me that they had sex but also because of the things with dates and not keeping the spark alive in our relationship. I relented and agreed to stay with him, with the understanding that there is no way I would be comfortable with him having a friendship with C. I stressed that I did not want to order him around and demand who he could or couldn't be friends with, and that I wanted to know that he did not want to to be friends with her anymore. He promised that he specifically did not want to be friends with her, and for a while I was hurt but hopeful that we could move on.

After about a month, instead of being apologetic he got very angry that I was not "allowing" him to be friends with C. He felt like it was unfair for me to be upset over what he called a clerical error, and that he didn't even try to hide that they had actual sex, he just forgot to tell me. He thinks that it's unfair for me to be upset as if he had meant to cheat on me and hurt me, and that I should be looking at the situation as a small mistake of forgetfulness instead of calling him a liar or saying that he cheated. One night after I brought C up again to ask if he had spoken to her recently, he screamed at me that I was an extremely selfish and shitty person, then he refused to talk to me for a week. I ended up being the one crying and begging hol this time to give me another chance, and promised to stop talking about the situation.

A few days ago, a mutual friend told me that recently C has been bragging about the situation. Apparently at a party not too long ago she was telling anyone who would listen that she and my boyfriend had sex for the first time after he and I were already official, and how she thinks we're going to break up because of her. Our friend told me that she was weirding a few people out because she was literally giggling about the situation, as if she was proud, and wouldn't stop talking about it. Furthermore, that same night N showed up, made a beeline to her to give her a huge hug, and told her in front of several other people that he broke up with me because I was too insecure.

He had told me about that party and that she was there, but when I asked if they had talked he blew up at me and said that he completely avoided her and that she completely avoided him. He said at the time that he was sick of me constantly accusing him of things that he wasn't doing, and that he had absolutely zero contact with her.

Last night I confronted him about what I was told. He said that he doesn't recall ever saying that he had broken up with me, and that he did say hi to her at the party and gave her a small hug, but it but it definitely wasn't a long drawn out hug like described. I asked him why he had told me before that they had zero contact with each other, and he said that he didn't think a quick hi and a small hug was significant enough to mention. The conversation turned once again to him saying that I was viewing things through a lens of insecurity and poor self-esteem, and that it was very frustrating for him to constantly be accused of lying, when he just wasn't telling me every single little detail about his personal life.

I tried to explain over and over that I didn't think a quick hi and a small hug was a huge deal, but I was upset that he didn't tell me before and was so adamant that there was absolutely zero contact between them. I was beginning to believe that the sex that they had at the beginning of our relationship really was a mistake, that he really did just forget to clarify the terms of our relationship and also tell me about fucking her. This information pretty much confirms to me that she is the narcissistic catty person that I thought she was, and that there is still something going on between them he’s not being honest with me about.

The conversation ended when he said he needed space to process, and that it was very painful for him to constantly have to deal with me bringing up the same situation over and over again while calling him a liar. He insists that at no point has he lied, that our problems are coming from communication issues and me needing way more information than what is normally necessary.

I know that my self-esteem isn’t the highest, especially after everything that’s happened. I have a hard time accepting compliments, and I know that I am not absolutely ugly but I also know that I am far from the most beautiful. Not only that but I am Black, N is Asian and C is white. I’ve heard him talking about how growing up as an Asian American man, being seen as a potential sexual partner to a white girl felt like the ultimate goal for him for a long time. I know that he has never dated a black girl seriously before, and all of the ex’s he’s talked about are Asian or white. Something that really hurts me is the idea that she is able to give him a sense of validation that I will never be able to give him.

As pathetic as it is, outside of this our relationship feels amazing. I want to know he loves me as much as I love him. I don’t want to think of him as a liar, but several times now he has told me one thing just for me to find out that what he has told me is not the whole truth. I want to be able to let things like this go, but I feel heartbroken. The fact that he is so angry with me and so confident that he has never lied despite all of the inconsistencies is seriously making me doubt my reactions.

His version of events is that I already knew that their relationship had been sexual, we didn’t clarify enough at the beginning of our relationship what the parameters were, and that having sex with her was just a continuation of what I already knew about. He didn’t try to hide it from me, it just happened when I was out of town and he forgot to bring it up when I got back. Since it didn’t go anywhere past that and they became completely platonic friends after that point, there was no point in bringing it up. The situation at the party he says has been blown out of proportion, and that when he told me they had no contact he doesn’t feel like that was a lie, since the only interaction they had was a quick hello and a brief hug, which he considered insignificant. He repeatedly said that he does not recall ever saying that we broke up, and that it doesn’t make sense that people heard that. His theory is that he may have mentioned to someone else that we were having a tough time, and maybe people are just running with that.

Is it possible to get over feeling like I’ve been cheated on? Most infidelity advice I can find online says that the cheating partner has to try to build back up trust, but since my boyfriend does not feel like he actually cheated on me he is unwilling to do most of the things that are recommended. I’m open to any perspectives. I’m at a total loss of what to do and I don’t trust my own mind anymore. Every time I try to talk things out I feel like I make it worse.

tl; dr: my boyfriend fucked the girl he told me not to worry about, while I want to believe that he didn’t mean to lie to me I still feel like he lied to me. How do people get over feeling like they’ve been cheated on, especially when their partner does not feel like they cheated?