'My BF violated my trust with a female coworker to spite me. Should I end things?' UPDATED 2X

"Extremely hurtful things were said to me during an argument with my (32f) boyfriend (35m) and I don’t know how to handle it."

We have been together for almost 2 years. We got into an argument last night, the details of which are not as important as how badly it escalated. Though I will share for context if needed.

What would have been a fight an average couple has likely had at some point eventually became a screaming match on his part, with our house being trashed and me being called the worst things a man could ever say to a woman. Amongst worse things I can’t say here, I was called a piece of crap, moron, idiot, a drunk (because I had had a drink earlier on in the argument to calm my adrenaline).

I again want to add that I respectfully asked for space when anger started to show and that only worsened it. nothing was broken in the house except pieces of me mentally, those words cut hard and I laid there in complete disbelief that someone who claimed to love me could seemingly hate everything about me SO much.

Every word that came out of his mouth was said with such hatred and disgust. He even said at one point he wanted nothing to do with me or our baby and to get out of his life.

He has since apologized and said he did not mean any of those things, but whether he did or not they absolutely mean something to me. I get that people say hurtful things when they’re upset, anyone can admit that. but I have never been called such horrible things.. his comment about the baby hurts the most. We have never fought this bad before.

I’m realizing that this is a huge red flag, to be called such vile things. And why? Where did it come from except to make me feel low and worthless? I have never cheated nor disrespected our relationship, and have never been a promiscuous woman.

I do have options.. either I stay here for the sake of our baby and to keep me from getting an eviction because he won’t key the apartment if I go, and he won’t leave for me to stay. I can go with family, but they are out of state, and with an eviction on my record it would be very difficult to get on my feet again..

I have destroyed my credit during this relationship and the cost of living makes it difficult to get an apartment by myself as it is.

Mentally, I feel very stuck.. part of me is hurt enough to walk out and not care about the consequences financially, but then if my baby has no contact with his father there is huge mom guilt to look forward to, uncertainty to face, grieving to do, possible regret...

I don’t know if a relationship can be repaired after something like this either though or if it just gets worse from here. I feel like I will remember this forever, even if I tried to stay and work it out. I don’t know if the hurt will ever go away. If anyone has any good advice here, I would really appreciate the unbiased opinions. If you were in my shoes, how would you handle this?

TL;DR - extremely hurtful things were said to me during an argument with my boyfriend, and I don’t know if I should stay or go at this point.

This is what people had to say to OP:

ExpressingThoughts said:

This incident sounds terrible in itself, and I suspect he is more mentally cruel in other ways you aren't noticing. It's better to raise a child as a single parent than subject them to mistreatment.

OP responded:

You are probably right. Definitely something I need to be thinking about as well.

[deleted] said:

You leave for the sake of your baby, not stay. You really want your kid growing up in fear? Because that is exactly what will happen. Start figuring out ways to gtfo, and don't worry about your credit. Credit can always be rebuilt. Your broken self & your broken kid, not so much.

chelssssss said:

Notice how you worded this - “hurtful things were said to me” not “my boyfriend said hurtful things to me”. To me this says that you’re making excuses for him to detach yourself from the impact of his actions. Is this the first time something like this happened?

OP responded:

I see what you mean and didn’t realize it. It’s a hard thing to accept when you think you love someone but there are big issues like this.. To this degree, the harsh things that were said- yes it’s the first time.

In past arguments we’ve had he’s admitted to purposely saying hurtful things but not having control over it in the moment- his way of putting it is “I feel hurt so I want to hurt back”.

He’s been honest about having deep insecurities and that’s usually where his comments come from with me- that I “never loved him” and I’m “just looking for a way out” when we are trying to talk through something instead of dealing with whatever the issue is at the time.

Not to minimize those past instances either, just this time it felt much more like verbal cruelty to belittle me than someone making a mistake out of hurt.

A month and a half later, OP shared this post:

"My (32f) boyfriend (35m) violated my trust with a female coworker to spite me."

We have had fights about a particular coworker because they were spending a lot of time texting and FaceTiming outside of work. He is her boss and they work very closely together. The last fight we had, it was agreed that he’d keep things professional from now on, because the communication was excessive and I was not comfortable with it.

I want to add, I am not a jealous person- he has plenty of female friends that I don’t think twice about or complain about. but I have specific reasons why their friendship outside of work made me uncomfortable. She is the only one I’ve asked him to limit contact with.

Today, I found out he had spent the last couple of weeks talking to he on the phone outside of work for long periods of time. I calmly asked him about it and what was going on/why it was happening again after we agreed to set boundaries.

His response was that we were fighting and he did it to purposely hurt me. He spent large amounts of time on the phone with another woman to make me feel hurt because we were fighting.

I feel like my trust has been completely violated, they spent time on the phone at late night hours (we all work graveyard but still) this was happening while they were both off and I was at work none the wiser. Not once, but multiple nights over the last couple of weeks. I feel humiliated.

I am feeling like this is a dealbreaker for me. This seems really inappropriate and immature, like he went running to another woman for comfort, a woman he knows very well I am not comfortable with.

I guess I am just looking for some feedback as to whether I’m overreacting or this is just really shitty of him and I have a right to be upset.. any answers are appreciated. What do you think? What should I do about this? Is it a violation of our relationship, enough to consider breaking up?

TL;DR - my (32f) boyfriend (35m) has been talking to a female coworker outside of work to spite me/hurt me because we were fighting and I’m wondering if I should end things

Two days later, OP shared this update:

So as I mentioned, once we were both home from work I told him we need to talk. The conversation went like this:

By this time he thought I had “gotten over it by now” and said he “thought we were moving past this”. I will say, this is a trend with him, never wanting to spend much time listening and working through issues.

I said this is a huge dealbreaker for me in itself, the fact that it is not important to you to resolve issues with your partner and that my feelings around serious issues annoy you, are not considered, or flat out don’t seem to matter.

And to speak of dealbreakers; you seem to be very comfortable with disrespecting me- whether it’s speaking to me in a derogatory manner or thinking you have the right to freely do things that cross common sense boundaries in a relationship. I should not be viewed or treated like someone who is beneath you, or expected to adopt a shut-up-and-take-it approach in accepting whatever treatment I get.

The conversation took a sharp left, with me being questioned as to why I “look for things to be unhappy about” and “constantly criticize” him. If you refer back to my last two posts, I’d hardly call that a woman who is nagging or criticizing a man out of thin air. I am responding to very serious instances of disrespect. He also accused me of cheating with several people I haven’t spoken to since we’ve been together.

Any number I still have in my phone that belongs to a male, means I’m saving it with bad intentions or already cheating with them. Side note, I changed my number after getting with him and very few people have it.

He got his best friends involved and they “all agreed” that it was weird that I have such a huge problem with this female coworker- that it seems as if I have a “guilty conscience” because I must be the one who’s cheating, and that’s why I’m trying so hard to make his communication with this coworker seem wrong.

What? Am I living in the freaking twilight zone?

So not only is there no accountability most of the time for anything he’s done, I’m at fault for any problems going on in our relationship for having any kind of emotion, and I’m suspicious for calling him out on things that I’m not comfortable with.

The rest of the conversation was spent with him antagonizing me, repeating over and over that “I’ve been caught” and that he’s a better person for having overlooked this until now because he “actually loves me”. Barf. Needless to say, I ended the relationship. I’m going to focus on being a mother now.

Thank you to all who took the time to read and comment. I am very grateful to every single one of you. You all gave me much needed comfort and reassurance in a pretty distressing time. Bless you 🤍 TL;DR - I (32f) broke up with my bf (35m) after he violated my trust with a female coworker