Now obviously this is my one side of this, so there is nuance to it and I will of course be biased..

We’ve been together 6 years, but about 3 weeks ago my (f26) boyfriend (m25) started chatting on Reddit, he said it was just a friend group, nothing to worry about. He starts spending allll day on Reddit, messaging whilst laying in bed next to me and even starting to learn Italian (something he’d never even expressed interest in before).

I obviously became worried as I’ve been cheated on before and expressed issue with this, that he was putting in too much effort into this that needed to be put on our relationship. After I said this, he spent all night on Reddit telling this girl how awful I was, and in the morning, broke up with me. I was confused and hurt.

He came back after a day, and I asked him if he had been talking on Reddit prior to breaking up with me, he said what did it matter. At this point, I didn’t know there was a girl at all. He comes back (we lived together so I couldn’t stop him/change locks etc) and I told him not to come back, but he did anyway. All that first night, he’s on his phone. A few days go past and I ask him if he’s talking to a girl, he said yes they had been private messaging for about a week (he had only told me there was group chats and explicitly said no privates) I was hurt, but I thought it was harmless enough as he’s never given me reason before to worry.

We have some sort of discussion about flirting and if flirty jokes count, I say I think they do. He says he’s probs been flirting with this girl and lets me read their messages.. there was ALOT of flirting, including intimate, very private details being shared, a lot of support and sexual undertones. Sending each other pics and asking for compliments, sharing private jokes and he was extremely desperate to speak to her, to the point that she used an alt account to message him bcos she couldn’t access her main account for a day. This was setting off a lot of red flags for me, and what made it worse is that he seemed to think it was all fine, friendly banter.

I told him this was not okay, this was a boundary and I wasn’t comfortable with him making very intimate relationships with other women or flirting in any way, jokes/sexual jokes included. I asked him to respond with very short responses and keep the conversation very basic.

He said okay, he didn’t want to hurt me, and he cared more about me. For about 5 days he didn’t go on Reddit, but repeatedly asked if he was allowed to go on there bcos he was “confused”. I repeated what I said, that I didn’t really want him talking to that particular girl, and if he did for it to be very minimal.

Today he spent about 4 hours laying in bed, when he could have been spending time with me (he’s been moaning we haven’t been spending enough time together) and he was messaging this girl. He came in and told me, and said they had been talking about music (his biggest passion and hobby). I reiterated what I had said and he said he had interpreted it as not sharing personal details, but allowed big, long conversations about hobbies and passions. He also hinted that they had been messaging this whole time just not “properly”.

I am hurt and I told him I want him to ghost her, bcos he should care more about repeatedly hurting my feelings, rather than some random girl. He seems VERY hesitant and resistant to stopping talking to her and I feel like I can’t trust him at all. He’s offered me to go through his phone but I don’t want to.

Do you have any advice for how I can handle this/ do you think it’s okay for someone to have deep, intimate friendships with people of the opposite gender?