Hi all, thank you for clicking on this and I hope to share a bit of my story with you. I've been with my boyfriend, Z, for about 3 years, and met him on grindr(a gay dating app). Sometime in the first year I found him using grindr secretly but he claimed it was just for business and networking, and since he was a starving artist and some of his collectors were gay, I bought it.

At first the relationship was closed, but given that our sex drives were very mismatched (he had very low libido, almost asexual, and I had high) and due to this and the previous incident, after discussing, we decided to open up the relationship at the about the 1.5 year mark. I have been meeting guys on hookups but it was never anything more than for sexual gratification. Our relationship has been great so far aside from finances (he is a starving artist so I pay for his food, which I'm comfortable with doing) and the sexual intimacy part, we do plenty of cuddling and are very sweet with one another. We are both not out yet, he often posts cute lovey-dovey stories of us in his instagram close friends list, while I don't post about us. My close friends and sister know about him, and I have met his parents twice, so overall the relationship is good.

However, I'd just found out now that he is currently going on a trip with another boy in another city of a foreign country. He was in that foreign country for his exhibitions and I'd just had a 3 week trip with him in that country and surrounding areas. The funny thing was, I'd literally met that other boy before and found him cute, I'd even encouraged Z to try things with the other boy to see if that'd reignite Z's sexual desires but he resolutely told me that he was asexual and did not want to.

Just the other day I was video-calling Z, and I asked him if he is actually going to the city with that other boy, given that the trip was a bit out of the ordinary, and he vehemently denied it, claiming he was going alone.

Now that I've found out the truth, I feel very conflicted and unsure of what to believe or even feel. For my past hookups, it was always a "dont ask dont tell" sort of thing with Z, where I don't tell him of my hookups with other guys, but it was known in the relationship that I was having them. This time though, he blatantly lied to my face about going on this trip with the other guy. My conflicted feelings come from the empathy and understanding that I have, given that I've literally being in his shoes before when I'm hooking up with other guys. I am currently at a crossroads in life, due to having a mid-career switch, finding jobs and facing the possibility of immigrating to another country AGAIN and not really considering a breakup at this point. Z also told me he'd follow me to whichever country I decide to immigrate to for my future job, and has said multiple times about wanting to marry me. Perhaps this following paragraph from Vogue summarises part of my reluctance:

This distance, or lack of it, was something we lost when we opened up our relationship. And for a while that felt really complicated, really scary, perhaps too great a cost for the benefit of sex with others. Like a kind of end. Which, in a way, it was. You see, you realise that there are elements of your extramarital escapades that are just too painful to share with each other. Details that bring about totally irrational, unhelpful or unproductive responses in you or your partner.

Was he, like myself in the aftermath of previous hookups, trying to spare my feelings? Could my previous omissions about hookups count as lying too? Which'd mean I was just reaping what I'd sowed. But I'm not sure if this trip and his blatant lie has crossed the line? He is currently sleeping due to time zone differences, and I plan to video call and confront him later today. Would really appreciate your thoughts and advice on this!