Am I cheater or did I make a mistake? And how can I move forward?

This incident happened a year or two ago. I’m sorry if I can’t give a proper timeline, it was pretty much a blur to me by this point. I've tried to shelf this memory as much as I can.

I was extremely drunk and decided to take one of my supposedly “really drunk” male “friends” home (I’m female). Note that I put quotations, because it turned out he wasn’t as drunk as he pretended and he was a no-good friend. Anyway, at the time, I was in a long distance relationship, going on 3 years, and we were studying in different universities which made it extremely hard to see each other often, but it never changed how much I loved my partner.

I am usually just a very sociable drunk. Never do I get the urge to do anything sexual. I am very chill and laid back, and can be surrounded by a lot of guys and just sit there with no intents or urge to sleep with any of them. That drunken night though I felt particularly lonely and longed for my boyfriend’s presence. I even cried on the way home while carrying my drunk friend who was acting like he couldn’t walk straight.

I don’t remember too much, but enough to keep me guilty to this day. When we came home, he crashed on my bed and started to cuddle me as I was trying to sleep. Eventually it escalated to sex but halfway through, I realized what was going on and snapped out of it and asked him to stop. I remembered really looking at his face and thought “you’re not my boyfriend” and instantly wanted it all to stop.

He kept insisting we keep going, and he kept forcing himself in but I kept pushing him away from me and he asked me over and over “what do you want to do??” And I kept saying “I want to sleep.” I remember him telling me stuff like “it’s okay. We can keep doing this. And no one has to know about it.” But I kept pushing him away and telling him it’s not right and we shouldn’t, and that I wanted to sleep. So i pretty much blue-balled him because I didn’t give him the chance to “finish.” I remember passing out right away as soon as he finally left me alone.

I woke up around 3 or 4 AM and what happened finally really sunk in. I texted my boyfriend right away and told him everything. I instantly regretted what I did and told my boyfriend what happened right away through text. I remember bawling my eyes out while flooding my boyfriend with paragraph after paragraph, and the guy beside me on the bed tried to calm me down. He said not to tell my boyfriend, but he was too late, because I had already texted my boyfriend everything by that point. The guy even laughed a bit, like it was a funny, silly, childish issue I was getting so upset about. I asked him to sleep on the floor while I anxiously waited for my boyfriend to respond even though the sun hasn't risen yet. I eventually kicked the guy out and stayed locked in my room.

The whole thing crushed my boyfriend of course, but with all the kindness he could summon, he chalked it up to me making a mistake and forgave me. My boyfriend and I are still together to date, and happily live together now. We have now been together for 4 years. I love him more and more each day, nothing of the like ever happened again. We’re very happy, we hardly fight, there are no trust issues. Yet every now and then I find myself reflecting on what happened and I can’t help but blame myself.

I don’t know if I should see myself as a cheater as cheating is something I strongly opposed all my life. I can’t believe to have done the same deeds a cheater would, and I hate myself everyday for even becoming that person. I feel like a hypocrite and have a hard time living with myself because of that. It’s caused me to have panic attacks at night occasionally when my boyfriend is fast asleep. When the incident was still fresh, I used to cry about it every other night, and 2 years later, though I’ve gotten a bit better, I still wallow in the guilt and the anger and the hate towards myself.

My boyfriend and I don’t talk about it anymore. It’s past that he thinks doesn’t need reopening, but he has made it firm that it was not something I intended to do, and we should move forward and focus on enjoying our lives together. But like I said I find myself crying when I'm alone because I remember what happened and how I must have hurt him. I cry over the thought that I hurt my boyfriend because I love him dearly. He didn’t deserve any of that. I feel absolutely horrible and I feel that he deserves better than me.

Not to mention, the guy I had the incident with went around and told people the next day that I slept with him and that I wasn’t any good, but it was consensual. He told everyone that I was in on it and that we had been planning to have sex all this time and it finally happened (not true). It ruined my reputation with our group of friends in school, and I was left to fend for myself. When I confronted him about the crap he was saying, and told him “I didn’t even let you finish!” He responded with a “we didn’t finish because you were hurting me. You didn’t feel good,” I know for sure it’s not true what he’s saying. But it hurts me that people see me in the lies he has told them.

So I ask you all, am I a cheater? Or is my boyfriend correct in saying it was just a mistake? I feel that perhaps his viewpoint in this is flawed with his love for me, and that I should deservingly be labeled as a monster. I see people argue about cheaters and say “cheating is a choice and not a mistake,” and I feel heavy when I see those words. I don’t like what happened, I don’t want it to ever happen again, I don’t want to hurt my boyfriend like that ever again. I don’t even have a celebrity male crush, or get googly eyed on the “hot” guys my female friends fangirl about on facebook, nor do I feel any temptation to philander. I find myself dreaming about men trying to get sexual with me and me saying "No!" and my boyfriend popping into my head in my dreams sending a flood of conscience.

I am very happy and content with my relationship. I don't look at other men. I don't even get googly eyed over the guys on TV that some women go head over heels for. Part of me feels like I’m not a cheater. But also I take those criticizing words such as "cheaters will always be cheaters" or "that was a choice, not a mistake," since I feel like I deserve to be bashed and attacked because part of me thinks I’m a cheater and I deserve to be eternally punished. I want fo find closure for myself. I want to know if I made a mistake or if I’m a cheater. So what am I? And how do I move on from here?