He says he loves me. I don’t know if he means it or if it’s just something he is feeding me to keep me hooked on him. You can never know what someone means, you know. Sometimes their actions tell you the truth about their intentions, but other times too they lie with their actions as well. So in the end, we can never truly know someone. That’s the way I feel about him right now. That I don’t know him enough.

I have been with him for one year now. Nonetheless, I was certain I knew him well before I went ahead to date him. Even when we started dating, I didn’t anticipate seeing anything about him that I had never seen before. That’s because I knew him like the back of my hand. At least that’s what he made me believe. Another thing I believed was that our relationship was perfect. We barely had problems. We were both faithful to each other and we understood the other person’s needs. It was on August 28th that the bubble of my belief popped and reality sunk in.

On that fateful day, I was going through his phone when I found some messages between him and a certain lady. From what I saw, he was cheating on me with her. “You are dating someone else?” I confronted him. He looked at me as if I was speaking a language he did not understand and ignored me completely. Every question I asked him about the messages, he pretended he could not hear me.

I was upset. I understood what I saw but I wanted him to tell me something. However, he refused so I had to find a way to calm myself down. When he saw that I was no longer angry, He came to me and said, “I am sorry I made you think I could ever cheat on you. Those messages meant nothing. They were just banter between friends. You know me and you know deeply I love you. So you should know that I will never do such a thing to you.” The moment he said this, I started to question myself and what I saw. I began to wonder when I became so cynical that I ever doubted my man. I let the whole thing with the messages go, and we moved ahead.

One night while we were both asleep he, received a phone call from this same girl I suspected he was having an affair with. It woke me up so I answered it. I said, “Hello, Pee is asleep.” And the girl on the other end asked me, “Who is this?” “I am Pee’s girlfriend,” I responded. Immediately after I said this, she hung up. I was not done talking so I took her number and texted her. I just told her to be careful not to go beyond friendship with my man.

The next day Pee got angry with me. “Babe, why did you pick up a call I received in the middle of the night and warned my female friend to stay away from me?” I tried to explain myself but it turned into a big argument. A relationship that did not use to have quarrels now has quarrels because of my boyfriend’s behaviour.

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Later in October, I found irrefutable proof that he had been secretly dating this girl all this while. Just to make sure that he would not gaslight me this time around, I caught him four consecutive times. I was so heartbroken and depressed. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t be my true self. I became a sad version of who I used to be. Joy became a ghost in our relationship.

Every single time I caught him he apologized. Once, I decided I was done with him. He went to confess his sins to my aunt and begged her to plead with me on his behalf. Recently he told me, “Ella, you are the only one I want. Besides, I haven’t asked you to leave me so what are you feeling insecure about?” He says he loves me. He asks if I don’t know him well enough to know when he is lying. Honestly, I thought I did. But now I know better than to believe everything he says.

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I have been trying to let him go but I can’t seem to win against my love and emotional attachment to him. I love Pee with everything in me. But currently, I don’t know if he is still with the girl or if they truly broke up. That’s what’s killing me. If I stay, I will never fully be at peace. I will keep looking over my shoulder wondering what he is hiding.

I’m scared that he will still be cheating on me in the future while I remain faithful to him. However, I can’t quiet the voice in my head that keeps telling me that all men cheat. So if I stay and he doesn’t change, I am doomed. But if I leave and meet another cheater, I would have left Pee for nothing better. This is why I am confused. What do I do?

—Ash

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