i’m fairly new to using reddit in the first place, but obvious burner as to not let my boyfriend find this post and know it’s about him. apologies for the long read, would appreciate if anyone heard me out!

my (f21) boyfriend (m21) and i made things “official” on march 7th, and it’s our one month today. we’d been seeing each other for a few months before then, but that’s when the label was put on/exclusivity locked in.

he has been everything i could ever ask for in a partner and more. he makes me feel things i thought i’d felt before until now. not a single red flag so far… until now.

we live in a pretty rural part of my state and there’s not much to do, so to have a little celebration for hitting our one month, my boyfriend and i went out for dinner (went great. flowers, card, etc.) and then we went up to his buddies’ place to watch the NCAA Final Championship game.

everything was fine until he started being really shady with his phone. i’m a pretty observant person because i’ve been through some cheating-related stuff in the past that kinda sends me into autopilot when it comes to that stuff (therapy in progress dw i’m fine). he would do things out of the norm, like flip his phone over randomly from being face up, even when nobody was moving and i didn’t think he got a notification. or he’d purposefully avoid using some apps whenever i’d be leaned on his shoulder or would swipe past a tiktok fast when i came to sit by him. all little instances, but instances that added up in my overthinking brain and i was itching to know if there was a reason why.

i suck at confrontation, let me be real, so i didn’t want to directly go for that in a social setting with his friends. i figured we could maybe wait until we got home to talk about it if i were to bring it up (he planned to stay the night at my place). i have some trauma with past partners deflecting when confronted, so that’s where the hesitance lies.

getting home, i barely had time to talk to him before he passed out in bed. i can’t blame him because he had an unusually long day and i knew even at his buddies’ place he was tired. so, figured i’d let the conversation lay to rest until the morning, and if i forget, if it was important enough, it’ll come back to me.

i laid awake in bed wondering and finally after about an hour of staring at the ceiling and ignoring my brain’s curious itch i couldn’t hold back anymore. i went through his phone, which is something i said i’d never do again after my last relationship ended with me doing that and being correct about my suspicions. i was either about to get my feelings hurt, or be relieved a bit, but either way i knew i was gonna feel bad about doing it like this.

to preface, he and i freely exchange phones. we have no problem sharing what we’re doing/watching, asking if we could each other’s phone for [random multitask], etc. that’s why his behavior is odd now.

some of y’all might argue, “going through his phone while only being together for a month… why?” to which i say good question; i’d rather get out of a situation i am increasingly suspicious of earlier than later, and if this helps, sure. not my favorite remedial method either.

i go to his phone and check his usual socials/apps like snap, insta, imessage, deleted folders, etc. however, just before i was about to put the phone down and feel relieved that i’d seen nothing that concerned me, when i got a random idea to check his email deleted folder.

i navigate there and i am immediately numb. shocked, especially shocked with this specific guy who i thought was so great, but not surprised because, like i said, finding out this way has happened before.

he had three emails in there, one was just a house listing thing (moving plans with buddies). the other two were the issues, their names were “CheatersFantasy” and “NakedLocals”. you can see in the attached picture that the CheatersFantasy email was sent to him on march 9th… two days after we called our relationship “official”. The NakedLocals one is from last wednesday (april 7th).

i obviously dug a little further and saw that he has accounts set up but only with minimal information, no pictures/bios/preferences, and no active private messages/matches. they did have separate usernames though but similar to ones he’s used elsewhere, so i would rule out any bot theories.

i really don’t know what to do here. i have so many thoughts spiraling through my head. do i confront him? do i just leave? am i overreacting and it’s only been a month, even though we both made it clear that we are exclusive?

please, i know you might tell me what my heart and mind doesn’t wanna hear, but help me get over this hill. he’s currently asleep next to me in bed and i fear if i were to bring it up he’d call me the asshole for having doubts and invading his privacy.

tldr : today i found out my boyfriend of one month has created/reactivated accounts on dating platforms curated for cheaters. AITAH?