He cheated on me.
Hey guys, I have been reading through break up forms and no story has been quite similar to mine. I am in desperate need for advice because continuous solitude is only confusing me.
I am kurdish, Muslim and culturally not allowed to date. However, we date when we are sure we are going to marry this person and I was sure but I guess he wasn't.
For the sake of privacy, I'll refer to him as R.
R and I were talking for 1 year and a half before he pressured me to be his girlfriend. I was 14 and he was 16 when we first started talking. We've also known each other since childhood. After a year and a half of talking and me refusing to be his gf (bcos I was afraid of something like this) he just ignored me and started dating some random girl at school. He would purposely hold her hand and kiss her in front of me. I was so deeply hurt but convinced that he would come running back to me and I would be willing to forgive him with open arms. Of course, he realized he was an idiot and apologized for what he did, as the naive child as I was at 16, I forgave him and gave him the satisfaction of being his girlfriend. So I basically rewarded him for his bad behavior. Anyway, 6 wonderful months passed filled with love and bliss. We talked about our future and he was graduating high school with a few college acceptances and scholarship offers. (I forgot to mention he was a cif champ, a self-absorbed jock) July of 2012, R expressed that he could not afford college and decided to move to Texas with his family to take a break. He assured me that he would be back before my birthday to celebrate (January). The last month of summer was bittersweet. We spent every waking moment together then he was gone. 3 weeks passed after he left and no calls or texts. I knew something was wrong when finally he said he needed space. I gladly gave it to him bcos I knew he was immature and he was unable to sustain a healthy long distance relationship so I thought the best thing to do would to let him do whatever he wanted to. 9 months passed and we began to pick up where we left off. I just had a feeling everything would be ok but again, I was wrong. He stopped speaking to me once again in January of 2014, the time he came back home. Finally, a month later I woke up to a long text explaining that he cheated on me a week before he left for Texas and how he wasn't the person I thought he was. I refused to discuss it over text and we met and spoke about it in person. He explained that he was drunk and overwhelmed by the attention he was getting from all the girls at the party. But he didn't apologize he just kept repeating that it was haunting him and he just wanted me to know the truth. I felt like he wouldn't have cared if I walked away. I had no choice but to stay and make things work bcos I was so in love with him and I was kurdish. I knew he wasn't going to do it again but I just didn't feel secure in the relationship any longer. We continued to hang out every weekend like nothing happened, I couldn't let him touch me bcos I would just feel like crying. However, 3 weeks later I began to feel numb. I wasn't crying myself to sleep and I wasn't reminiscing over our memories. I felt numb and began thinking to myself for hours about how if I wasn't kurdish I would dump him in a heartbeat for disrespecting me like that. Once I started dreaming about my future without him, I knew it was over. I love him but I lost so much respect for him. I met up with him again today and told him that I needed time to think about everything just because I wanted to see him and feel again but I didn't. I need this time to see if I am making the right decision because I am not sure anymore. He texted me earlier asking what I meant by what I said and told me to break up with him if I wanted to "ASAP" bcos he didn't want to "waste our time." I was crushed. I feel like he's just ready to be done with me when I spent the last four years loving him unconditionally. So I ask you, is fate giving me a second opportunity to leave him or will I be throwing away a relationship that could potentially be salvaged? Please take into consideration that I am kurdish and a relationship like this has already tarnished my reputation (all we did was kiss, but he was my first, I wasn't his).