Hi Meredith,

I’m 26 and my boyfriend of almost two years broke up with me because he said he can’t trust me. He was unfaithful to me twice. I caught him with evidence. As always, he denied he ever did anything wrong. I forgave him both times. He wasn’t a bad man in the sense that he mistreated me. He just always made the wrong decisions, only being 24. I love him and always tried to see the positive. He loves my two-year-old daughter.

Over a recent weekend, though, he had some beers at my house and went right to sleep. I’ve always had my doubts about him cheating on me again, so I unlocked his phone. I saw many pictures of the girl he cheated on me with the second time. He only had one picture of me, his girlfriend. I also found a lot of other flirtatious conversations with other women on his messenger and WhatsApp. I deleted all the pictures he had of that girl, as well as some others. The next day, when he opened his phone and realized I had gotten into it, he was very upset, but we spent the day doing errands.

I was feeling very sad and down, because once more I felt let down by him. Later that night, I went out with my mother and daughter, and he stayed at my house claiming he wasn’t feeling well. I got home around 10 p.m. and he was already sleeping. The next morning he leaves around 6 a.m. and just says “BYE.” A day later he texted me saying we should break up because we don’t trust each other. I never broke up with him and he failed me more than once. It just hurts so much for him to break up with me – just because I went through his phone.

I feel terrible because I do love him. What should I do?

– Heartbroken after the Holidays