I (25F) moved to the US for my master’s program in January 2025. Before that, I worked for two years in my home country, where I met my boyfriend (25M). We joined the same company at the same time, lived in the same apartment, became close friends, and eventually started dating. It was the first relationship for both of us, and we were basically living together. We were very much in love, but I always planned to pursue my master’s abroad.
When I finally moved, my boyfriend didn’t come to see me off because he went on a trip with his friends. He only asked whether he should cancel the trip after he was already there. When I mentioned I was traveling with another student heading to the same university, he suddenly got very jealous.
Once I started school, he became increasingly controlling. He demanded I screen-share my chats with male classmates and got upset if I went to parties or socialized, even though I still made time to talk to him every day. One night I got very drunk at a party and didn’t tell him to avoid a fight, and we ended up having a huge argument. We fought often, and our usual pattern was to stop talking for a day or two and then reconcile.
During one of those fights, he told me he had downloaded a dating app and even bought a subscription during our previous argument. His explanation was that he wanted to “meet new people” since I was making friends. I was shocked, and we decided to take a break.
During that break, I felt very lonely and ended up hooking up with two different guys I met (one from school, one from a dating app). I eventually cut things off with them because I still had feelings for my ex. My ex and I started talking again and got back together.
Here’s the issue: he only knows that I went on one date with one guy during the break. He does not know about the hookups, and even hearing about the one date made him extremely upset. He recently pushed me to tell him the guy’s name, and now he’s got admitted to my university. I’m terrified he’ll somehow find out the truth.
If I tell him, he’ll break up with me and probably never trust anyone again. But if I don’t tell him, I feel like I’m hiding something major. At the same time, he was the one who downloaded a dating app first, and his controlling behavior was a big part of why things fell apart in the first place.
AITA for not telling my boyfriend the full truth about what I did while we were on a break
^^^^AUTOMOD **Thanks for posting! READ THIS COMMENT** – ***MAKE SURE TO CHECK ALL YOUR DMS***. **This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything.**
I (25F) moved to the US for my master’s program in January 2025. Before that, I worked for two years in my home country, where I met my boyfriend (25M). We joined the same company at the same time, lived in the same apartment, became close friends, and eventually started dating. It was the first relationship for both of us, and we were basically living together. We were very much in love, but I always planned to pursue my master’s abroad.
When I finally moved, my boyfriend didn’t come to see me off because he went on a trip with his friends. He only asked whether he should cancel the trip after he was already there. When I mentioned I was traveling with another student heading to the same university, he suddenly got very jealous.
Once I started school, he became increasingly controlling. He demanded I screen-share my chats with male classmates and got upset if I went to parties or socialized, even though I still made time to talk to him every day. One night I got very drunk at a party and didn’t tell him to avoid a fight, and we ended up having a huge argument. We fought often, and our usual pattern was to stop talking for a day or two and then reconcile.
During one of those fights, he told me he had downloaded a dating app and even bought a subscription during our previous argument. His explanation was that he wanted to “meet new people” since I was making friends. I was shocked, and we decided to take a break.
During that break, I felt very lonely and ended up hooking up with two different guys I met (one from school, one from a dating app). I eventually cut things off with them because I still had feelings for my ex. My ex and I started talking again and got back together.
Here’s the issue: he only knows that I went on one date with one guy during the break. He does not know about the hookups, and even hearing about the one date made him extremely upset. He recently pushed me to tell him the guy’s name, and now he’s got admitted to my university. I’m terrified he’ll somehow find out the truth.
If I tell him, he’ll break up with me and probably never trust anyone again. But if I don’t tell him, I feel like I’m hiding something major. At the same time, he was the one who downloaded a dating app first, and his controlling behavior was a big part of why things fell apart in the first place.
AITA for not telling my boyfriend the full truth about what I did while we were on a break
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Honey, it sounds like you fight constantly and he’s very controlling. You’re still in the early part of your relationship, where both parties are on good behavior. If he’s like this now, it’s likely to get a lot worse if your relationship keeps becoming more serious and harder to leave, like sharing a lease on an apartment, getting engaged, or getting married. Even just him coming to your school next year is going to make it much harder to leave him, which means it’s likely he’ll escalate his controlling behavior. Is this constant conflict really how you want to spend your life? Do you want to always have this secret (about the hookups) that you can’t tell him because you’re afraid of his reaction?
The only person you’d be TA to is yourself, if you stay in a relationship with this guy who you can’t be honest with because he’s controlling and abusive. NTA, but please make a better choice and let this relationship end before it becomes more confining and harder to escape.