I feel like I emotionally cheated
Hi everyone. I have had something weighing on my mind lately. I am 30 this year and I am a female. I am currently in a relationship with my boyfriend of 12 years. I do feel like I have emotionally cheated on him and it has been killing me the past few months. My boyfriend of 12 years was going through a very bad depressive episode during the Covid pandemic. And I was his main caretaker. He was taking a part time degree at that point of time and it go so bad where I had to finish his assignments for him. There were days where I had to help him get out of bed, convince him to eat… etc. Our sexual life also suffered badly.
During that time, I tried to initiate intimacy to make him feel better, however he rejected my advances. I had just gotten out of the hospital due to my auto immune condition and I had lost a lot of weight. I also was sexually abused when I was a child so I do have very bad body image issues.
So on the day he rejected me, I actually sent some explicit photos to an artist on social media to draw me. It started out as completely innocent and I just wanted someone to draw me and appreciate my body as I felt so bad and lonely. I made sure to keep myself as safe as possible and sent the photos. The artist drew me beautifully and I was so happy with the drawing.
However, after that the artist who drew me started to flirt with me. Initially I was too distraught to realise what was going on. And I do admit that I did flirt back with him. I believe this lasted less than 5 occasions. After which, I felt that it was so wrong, I blocked him, told him off and deleted all the messages. Now I just have no idea whether to tell my bf about it or whether it is something that I can just move on. I don’t know the artist in person or even which part of the world he is from.
Sometime early last year, I attempted suicide as I live a very stressful lifestyle. My bf and I run a company together where I do most of the work, however I do have a lot of pressure on me as I have salaries to pay and employees to look after. My suicide attempt nearly costed me my relationship and I am so worried.
I am not too sure if I am over thinking or whether I need to tell him what I have done.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and any input is appreciated.
I agree with PineTreeTree - nothing good can come of you telling your bf that you had a few online chats with some unknown person in some unknown place. You were hurt and you reached out to someone to talk to so you could feel better about yourself. You didn't think it was right, so you stopped. End of story.
Take care of yourself and let the drama of the past stay in the past.
@sociableTalker5400,
there is cheating and there is cheating. Where I draw the line is when someone gets a deeper emotional connection with someone else instead of your partner.
Seems you didn't cross the line, and you were aware of that line and stopped in time.
In your case I think it's best to give yourself credits for how you dealt with it and leave it at that.