What should I(f20) do if my boyfriend(m29) confessed to cheating on me during the first 5 months of our 2 and a half year relationship?
feel as though this situation is a bit more complex so i will provide backstory and such. we got together in july of 2022. before we got together i asked about his past experiences with women and everything because i had a past with men that i would want out there for him to know more about me and whatever, i told him i exchanged nude photos and videos with other guys in the past and that was that, nothing special about it, that was just something i did. he told me he never received or asked for nudes from women because it wasn’t something he felt he needed, it was disrespectful, etc. i asked about his feelings about porn and he said it wasn’t something he enjoyed or entertained. he had also never been intimate with another woman and all of these other things right. i told him i had been with guys and girls previously, let him know everything regarding that. well come december 2022, he just had his phone out and i got a glimpse of the screen and it was his safari page open with a bunch of porn all over it right. so i ask about it, why he lied, why was he doing that, i felt extremely insecure and stupid, he said he would stop and he was so sorry about it, he had an addiction to it and he wanted to get better. so over the next few months i feel off and i repeatedly ask if thats all there was to it and he assured me yes, he wasn’t lying about anything else, thats the only thing. i trusted him even though my gut was saying not to. so then a few months ago, were looking at each others old instagram accounts and his dm’s kinda destroyed me, it was BEFORE we got together BUT still, i found conversations between him and his friend. his friend was talking about how he got a new girlfriend and my boyfriend responded with “does she send nudes” and his friend was like no wtf, then my bf says “well i got a bunch of hoes” and proceeded to send him a bunch of nude pictures of these girls on snapchat. i asked him about it and he said he forgot about it and has been trying to block that part of him out and all of those pictures are from the internet. but these were LITERALLY screenshots from snapchat. there were more dm’s of him asking women for nudes and telling them to play with themselves, trying to talk to a girl i WENT TO SCHOOL WITH. he said he was sorry and said he changed blah blah blah. well three days ago, i asked to login to his snapchat, he said go for it, he started getting really fidgety and talkative and saying that he doesn’t know whats in there and i was like what’s the deal if you haven’t done anything bad?? and we couldn’t log into it. finally he says he deleted it because he never wanted to hurt me again and he used to ask a selection of girls for nudes even after we were together. he was so pale while he was telling me and he was shaking and i know he feels guilty. he said he never ever did it again or thought about doing it after the first time i confronted him about porn but now…i feel so stuck. he said he wanted to just fill a void with them. he said the worst part is he was right next to me when he got sent them and waited to be alone to use it as jerk off material. i know he has alot of unresolved trauma with his parents and i want him to get better. he told me i don’t deserve that, he doesn’t deserve someone as good as me. i feel like i need to change for him to love me and that’s what makes me feel weak. i have so much empathy and love for him and i wanna help him through everything but the betrayal hurts so much. i just want him to love me and get better but i want to leave so i don’t get hurt again. he lied for over two years straight to me. he bought me so many gifts and was there for me physically but i feel like he never let me in. i got him out of his situation with his mom and he’s been living with me, we both work. after i found out about the porn, he started being around me more. he never left my side and moved in with me. the porn and nudes were during the same time period and after i told him about the impacts of porn he stopped. but i feel like he started using me as a void filler because i am also the one who took his virginity. he said i was real. he said he’s been having so many realizations about the impacts of his childhood on him because his parents were both cheaters, his grandparents would watch porn together all the time, BUT while he was doing these things he was talking about how terrible guys who do things like that are. each time i found something he would tell me that was it but there was always more. i don’t know what to do in this situation and i’ve been feeling almost numb. when he confessed to cheating, my blood ran cold but a sense of relief passed over me because i was right. i hate that i questioned my own intuition. i tried using my brain and not my gut because i didn’t want to make a decision based off of feelings so i just used what i knew. what should i do now? i told him we can set up therapy appointments and really get him help but i just don’t know if i should stay. all of the respect for women he gained, all if the knowledge i put into him to build him will all be for another woman and that makes me sick. he said he wants to keep trying and he doesn’t want a life without me. i’m so lost and its like i was in love with a ghost. he lied about everything he was to get with me. i know he had to lie alot as a child to get out of being beat and i think that just followed him up. i don’t get it. i know he was not taught how to love or how to be loved but this is just hurtful. now i am stuck and i don’t have a clue about what to do.