My boyfriend and I broke up for a week, but he slept with someone a few days after our break up?

My boyfriend and I have been dating for 8 months and have argued in the past, but nothing worth a break up.

My father is an alcoholic and sometimes gets violent when he’s drunk. He slapped me across the face and shoved me to the ground Friday evening (June 14th) while I was getting ready to go out with my boyfriend. I postponed my date for a couple hours because I was crying, my face was red where I got slapped, and I didn’t want my boyfriend to see me like that. He knew about my father’s problems though.

Around 9pm, I went to my boyfriend’s house and we made dinner. He surprised me with my favorite dessert, we watched a movie, and made love. After making love, we cuddled and he noticed some of my bruises. He knew they were from my father because it’s not the first time he’s attacked me. It was the third time this month. My boyfriend got angry and wanted to call the cops. I told him no. He got up and said we were going to drive over to my father’s apartment and he was going to talk to him. I said no and he said that the violence has to stop. I told him I can’t control my father’s behavior and my boyfriend said the only way to control him was to give him an ultimatum. I said no because I know he’ll pick alcohol over me.

My boyfriend said the violence was making him crazy and so was me “enabling” my father. He told me he can’t have this in his life anymore because knowing what’s going on and not being able to stop it is too much for him. He said he was worried something would happen to me or that he’d do something we’d both regret (calling the cops for example). I asked if he was asking me to choose him or my father and he told me he didn’t want me to lose my father, but he can’t have this drama in his life.

I tried to convince him why he shouldn’t worry about me (practically begged him to not end the relationship), but he wouldn’t change his mind. While I was getting ready to leave, he told me that he wanted to be friends. I said no and he said if I ever changed my mind or needed anything or a place to stay, to call him. I said no again and left.

I was pulling into the parking lot in my father’s apartment when my (ex) boyfriend called me and told me he had just gotten off the phone with his friend and he made a mistake. He told me that when he watched me leave, he wanted to stop me. He apologized and asked me to come back. I said no.

It was a long week and I couldn’t get him out of my head. I decided he was right and told my father that we can either go to family therapy or I was going to move out. I was too scared to tell him to choose between me and drinking because I knew what his response would be, but I knew I could talk him into family therapy. I thought about calling my (ex) boyfriend for a few days and finally did to thank him for giving me the push I needed. I was secretly hoping he’d ask me to come back and was very happy when he did.

We talked about how our weeks had been. I told him that I was depressed about our breakup and he said he was too. He said he had to tell me something that he wanted me to hear from him first (we have mutual friends who introduced us). He told me that he slept with someone Tuesday (June 18th) and again the next day, but that it meant nothing. He told me he was embarrassed to admit it was a rebound thing and he thought we weren’t going to make up. He said he felt guilty and that he thought of me while he was sleeping with her. He told me that nothing is better than sex with someone you care about and that the casual sex he had with the other girl felt “wrong”. He said he ended the sexual relationship with the girl on Thursday, but admitted he stills texts her “every now and then”. They’ve been friends for a few months.

When he first told me, I was mad for like two seconds. I feel like he and I broke up and whatever happened while we were broken up is not really my business. My friends told me that the message he sent was more important and that by sleeping with another girl so quickly, he never cared about me in the first place. A few of them are a little biased though because they never approved of my relationship with my boyfriend because we slept together on our second date and there is a 19 year age gap between us (he’s 39, I’m 20).

My aunt (who approved of our relationship and liked him before I told her he slept with another girl) told me that she can’t get past him sleeping with someone else so quickly after the break up and can’t imagine how I could. Whenever I think about him with another girl, I get jealous, but I remind myself that he wasn’t my boyfriend and we both thought our relationship was done. My aunt thinks he is a pig.

I still love him and don’t want to break up again, but do you think my friends and aunt are right?

Sorry that I wrote a novel, but thanks for reading it!