I can’t tell if I am being manipulated

TW: talks about non-consensual sex.
My partner and I have been together for a short time— we met over a year ago, started dating, I moved in and found out I was pregnant two months after meeting him. I see how it was irresponsible of me to let it all occur so quickly but I am here now and need advice on this messy dynamic involving cheating. We have a three month old daughter we love dearly.

In the beginning of our relationship, he went on a trip and was drunk and took a girl back to his hotel room. He didn’t tell me about this until I was seven months pregnant and he felt obligated to because the girl accused him of sexual assault and he needed to go into the station to get his DNA swabbed. I forgave him. He showed remorse then but now when I bring it up, he takes no accountability for cheating because he "felt" like he wasn’t in a relationship with me. We lived together and I was pregnant, and he made me think we were on good terms, I genuinely thought we were solid. But according to him, he was having doubts about me because I am "awkward" with him, I show no affection first and I am a more reserved person so he thought it was okay to pursue other girls behind my back.

This part is important because he blames me for his homelessness and claims I can’t give him grief for being romantically involved with another girl when I "left him behind" and she offered him a place to stay. His homelessness started when he was threatened with eviction in May of last year for not paying rent (he signed the lease thinking that he would receive rental assistance to cover it). We decided to move out and applied to a new apartment thinking that we would secure it but ran into some issues when he submitted fake bank statements. I had to move back in with my mom and he had to sleep in his car or crash at a friend’s place. He tried to convince me to apply elsewhere but I thought it wouldn’t be a good idea anymore. I didn’t qualify for most of the luxury apartments he wanted to live in if it were only me applying and he didn’t have the credit nor any verifiable income for us to get approved together. He took it as me letting him be homeless and since then, he’s accused me of being the reason he is still homeless. He has a narrative that his life is ruined because of me, that I was a terrible girlfriend at the time because I let him sleep in his car some nights. That I had savings so I should have gotten us a place because I was in a better financial position than he was. I had offered to pay for a room so he can live with other roommates and he refused. To appease him, I applied to apartments even though I felt cornered into doing so but I was denied. I didn’t want him to sleep in his car so for about two months, I spent over $3000 on hotel rooms for us. He still hated me because I couldn’t get us an apartment and because he felt I didn’t care about him enough. I personally feel like I did care, I spent my money, time, and energy on him and I would neglect my own health while pregnant but I can’t make him see that. We then just decided that it would be a good idea for me to get university family housing; couples with a dependent qualified for an apartment at my university. So he agreed to save money and crash at a friend’s place for the rest of the summer until school started in the fall for me. Unfortunately, I had to defer school for a year because I ended up getting diagnosed with mild preeclampsia and was in and out of the hospital. We lost the apartment so we have both been staying at my mom’s place. I got accepted for a different apartment three weeks before my due date but I realize it is not a good idea to sign, it was super expensive and an hour away from my family, it made me anxious and I backed out. He had just told me about the cheating and potential sexual assault case, I felt like I couldn’t trust him financially (what if he ends up in jail) and I didn’t feel comfortable paying the entire rent on my own. Till this day, we argue a lot because he thinks I don’t try hard enough to secure a place for us. I truly did want to live with him and am hopeful that I can move out of my mom’s small place but there is always trouble following him…

I have always felt like he talks to girls on Instagram, always felt like he acts inappropriately. There’s been instances where he gets defensive when I ask who a certain girl that appears on his DMs is and later see they no longer follow each other. It’s like he blocks the girls and deletes the evidence. He eyes other women and admits to that, saying that I don’t meet his needs and that I don’t take care of myself so he has a right to admire other girls’ beauty. During the summer, he even followed two sex workers.

Last week, the wife of one of his best friends called me and said she found a tinder account on her husband’s phone that supposedly belongs to her husband AND my partner. The bio says something like "Very very discreet, We are two male bestfriends!!!! We are both straight but we understand each other energy and can satisfy girls together…" She sent me screenshots between her husband and other tinder girls, describing him and my partner, trying to arrange a time for a threesome. I confront my partner and he denies everything, tells me to block his friend’s wife. He sounded strange and I didn’t believe him. He goes to work and assured me he was never behind this tinder account. He said he knew about it and his friend jokingly said they were going to look for girls to have a threesome with but he told his friend to keep him out of it. I call his friend’s wife again and ask her for more details and I randomly felt the need to ask her about a girl my partner used to follow on Instagram. She tells me, "I am so so sorry but he was seeing her and spending nights with her last summer while you were pregnant."

My heart sank when I found out. I had a gut feeling that something was going on with this specific girl. I had asked him about it months before and he had just said it was someone who would sell him edibles. I called him and he at first said he crashed on her couch for three nights. Then he says he slept on her bed and they cuddled, but nothing else. That she liked him. How he was able to open up to her. How she showed him actual love and gave him hugs and made him breakfast, gave him weed, how she was once homeless too so she knew how he felt. She knew about me, how I was pregnant but he said she didn’t see me as his girlfriend. He said that he felt like he had no girlfriend at the time in July because I was okay with him occasionally sleeping in his car or crashing at his friend’s place. That this girl offered him a home. How he hated me at the time and how he complained about me to everyone. He does not feel bad for making me think we were still in a relationship in July. He lied to me telling me he was always at his other friend’s place but he was actually at her place instead. He never brought her up to me. There was a week that he was distant and mean to me in July, I assume it was because he was orchestrating fights with me so that he can spend time with her. I am going through our messages and there was no indication of us ever breaking up. But he says otherwise. That he is a free soul and can do whatever he wants. This is actually the first time I hear that we were apparently not together in July. He said he made it seem like we were together because he was scared I would block him and not let him see the baby; I thought we were together but having issues (him calling me names and ignoring me). He would still take me out and introduce me as his girlfriend, he would still call me babe. I remember having an anatomy scan during that week and going alone. He was with her that day. He doesn’t feel bad about this because he thinks I should be grateful that he ultimately chose me over her even after I supposedly didn’t care about him and made him homeless. He says he is still so much better than me as a person because he would have never let me sleep in my car if I were the one kicked out of my apartment. How if I truly loved him, I would be happy that he wasn’t sleeping in his car when he stayed at her place.

I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t want to be a bad person.

32 comments posted: Friday, March 3rd, 2023