'Boyfriend wants me to admit to cheating, but I didn’t cheat. How do I move forward?' MAJOR UPDATE

"Boyfriend (27M) wants me (24F) to admit to cheating, but I didn’t cheat."

He thinks I cheated. I didn’t. He says that he’ll forgive me if I admit to what he thinks I did. I tell him I can’t admit to something I haven’t done without losing my integrity. He just thinks I’m doubling down on the lie, and that I’m unable to ”step up to the plate” and own up to the ”fact” that I cheated.

I don’t even know what to do in this situation. I’ve never been treated like this before and I guess I just don’t understand the psychology here. Does he actually think I cheated? Would things be ok if I ”admitted” to the lie? Because why would you want to be with someone who cheated on you? Or what’s actually going on here?

The comments quickly came rolling in.

solidgun1 wrote:

Don't be with people that can't be trusted and will play these mind games. Trust me, there are better and more perfect relationships for you out there. If someone did this to me, I would leave as if they have to ask, then the relationship is over.

Riverat627 wrote:

Unfortunately relationship is over he clearly wants you to admit to something deep down he knows you didn’t do to hold it over you. Sit him down with “I have not and would not ever cheat on you but if you cannot accept this truth then our relationship is over as of this moment” watch how quickly his tone will change.

WhoooAmEye wrote:

He's cheating.

OP responded:

I guess I don’t totally get why a cheater would turn it around and project on their partner. I’ve heard this is common but don’t understand why it happens.

Outrageous-Algae6821 responded:

Because when his truth comes out he gets to say “well you did it.” It’s very common for the guilty to point the finger first.

Famous_Specialist_44 wrote:

Leave. This will never end. On his d**th bed his lasts words will be that you made his life miserable because you never confessed.

OP responded:

Yikes. Yeah he was saying crazy stuff like that’s a really heavy thing to carry on your conscience for the rest of your life, so why don’t you just admit to it? I told him I feel guilty about nothing because I didn’t do it.

mooseplainer wrote:

Nine out of ten times when someone baselessly accuses their partner of cheating, it's because they are themself having an affair. Has anything else he's done felt off? Usually this kind of manipulation isn't a one off thing. In any event, even if he is that one in ten, I'd leave anyway because he has shown he doesn't trust you.

You need to assume manipulation is the point, the idea is to condition you to see things his way by default. And once you make an ultimatum like that, the relationship is over anyway. He already ended it. So I'd just go along with it if I were me, tell him he's welcome to believe whatever nonsense he'd like, and just distance yourself from him.

OP responded:

Definitely not a one off thing. See my other comment for examples but… He has come at me with baseless accusations over the course of our relationship, and they’ve sort of ramped up in frequency lately. He just went on a trip and these accusations seemed to get worse before and after he was away. And yeah, I agree with everything you said there. Thank you.

Two days later, OP shared an update.

My boyfriend accused me of cheating. I never cheated. He said he would forgive me if I “admitted” to it, and said our relationship would be over if I didn’t own up to the “lie." Thank you all for the clarity you provided regarding my last post. I, of course, refused to admit to doing something I hadn’t done. He kept doubling down on the fact that I was a liar and didn’t have the courage to own up to it.

The conversation didn’t go anywhere. As soon as he saw I was going to stand my ground, he lost the soft, loving angle (ie “I love what we had, it was so beautiful, some of the best moments in my life, and I’m willing to move past this because I love you so much”) and switched to a sort of locked-up, emotionless but aggressive insistence on my error.

I got frustrated trying to defend myself against a brick wall, said fuck you, and he told me to get lost. We broke up and I’m moving out. This morning he aggressively asked me how the apartment search was going.

I told him to back the f#$ off, give me time (I had literally moved in three weeks ago), and that I think he was cheating on me the whole time. He denied it and then was like “it’s not cheating because we aren’t in a relationship anymore.” And that he didn’t cheat because he’s a true person, not to put the blame on him because it’s all on me, and that I’m “psychotic” and a f#$ked up, gnarly person.

It was kind of tough to really get everything out there and get a read on him because he just had like this intense blank look on his face and he just shut down the conversation. I honestly still don’t know what to think - if he actually thinks I cheated or not, if he thinks I’m actually that kind of person, or if he’s just insecure.

But either way it doesn’t matter. I’m done and over that kind of treatment and will never let anything get this far again. There were so many red flags I ignored along the way because I adored the guy and now I’m being punished for it. I overlooked stuff like him following a bunch of p*rn accounts on instagram (thought every guy probably does this to some degree).

He threatened to go f someone else when I suggested I might go to India for a male friend’s wedding (he apologized and said he will treat me how he would want to be treated), read me a list of relationship ideals for himself and the first on the list was “don’t have s*xual relations with another woman” and in my mind I’m like I think that’s a given.

No clue if he actually cheated but I hadn’t ever considered it before. It sucks, I loved him, but you can’t fix broken and I’m going to find someone one day that actually loves and believes me. Did I dodge some ab#sive thing I wonder?

The comments kept coming.

theupside2024 wrote:

Cheaters think everyone cheats. If he’s throwing unfounded accusations at you it’s probably because he is the one who is cheating.

itcheyness wrote:

Cheaters don't necessarily think everyone cheats, they convince themselves that everybody cheats as a way to rationalize their selfish decisions to themselves.

TroublesomeTurnip wrote:

Who cares what he thinks? He's a jerk and I hope you can remove yourself from his drama soon.

OP responded:

Me too. He can think what he wants.

mooseplainer wrote:

I’m glad to see you took everyone’s advice. I don’t address everything he said, but I’ll just say he’s full of s#$t. Even if he isn’t actually cheating, it doesn’t matter, the relationship was hurting you. You don’t need confirmation, you don’t need to understand his reasoning, to that path lies madness. You can accept he was a shitty partner whose actions actively hurt you and that’s enough.

I will say that sh#$ty relationships are a lot harder to get over than healthy ones. Healthy ones tend to end when they reach their natural expiration date, theirs no animosity or unresolved issues. You’ll probably be wondering for a while what you could have done differently and I’m gonna tell you now absolutely nothing. He would never be satisfied.

In that thread, I suggested staying single for a bit and reflecting on your relationships. Unfortunately, cycles of ab#se are a thing, people tend to leave one abusive relationship and enter another, and part of that is they try and move on really fast. You gotta take time and think hard about what red flags you might have missed in the beginning, what patterns you overlooked.

Then when you’re ready, you’re better equipped to recognize the signs much earlier, like before getting together. Of course you can do that and still experience more ab#se down the road, ab#se is hard to spot even when you know what to look for, but you gotta do what you can to protect yourself. You’re doing the right thing!

OP responded:

Thank you again for your thorough thoughts. You’re 100% right there. Honestly most of my past partners have been pretty damn good and this is the first one I’ve really experienced that was toxic in such a significant, one-sided way.

I definitely will be taking a break from dating for a while and maybe men in general haha (I’m bi). I think it’s getting pretty clear in hindsight everything I felt weird about but tried to overlook it.

pookapotomus2 wrote:

He’s cheating. This is all psychotic projection

Rich-Ad-4654 wrote:

“It’s not cheating because we’re not in a relationship anymore”

Which is it, sir? You WERE cheating but now (technically) aren’t? Or did you already have s#$ with someone else within a very short timeframe of our relationship ending?

OP responded:

I guess I sort of assumed he just said that to piss me off.