Hello, this is a throwaway account for obvious reasons.

So my boyfriend (21M) and I (20F) have been together for almost 6 months. In the way of a relationship, I understand this isn’t a long time. We have lots of similar interests, same sense of humour, and he treats me brilliantly. With the exception of me catching him in a somewhat trivial lie several times.

Now, when we first started dating, we set up boundaries as any couple would. I personally have no tolerance for exes or past flings being on bf’s social media, with the exception of if they have kids together / a valid reason. I also put out the boundary that I will absolutely not stand for being lied to, which should go without saying. My current bf does not have kids, and agreed with me that he has no tolerance for exes either. I assured him I didn’t have anyone like that on my socials, and so did he. Note: at this point, we hadn’t added each other on Facebook/insta etc. We were just starting out and used Snapchat and texting.

A week or two later, I added him on Facebook and noticed an ex was in his friends list. I assumed I got the names wrong since he assured me he didn’t have anyone. That same night I had a convo reinstating that I don’t tolerate exes on social etc etc and he again promised he didn’t have anyone. After said conversation he quickly went to his phone and was on it for a few minutes but I didn’t think anything of it. Next day, I’d checked his friends list again to show myself I was just overthinking it, only to find the girl I thought was an ex had been removed. I confronted him about it, and he apologised profusely saying he didn’t realise she was on there and that he didn’t use Facebook much. I forgave him for it and we moved on.

Now, just recently I was on his Snapchat taking silly photos when I noticed he had messaged a girl whom I’d met before and he’d told me she used to be his best friend but they’re no longer close. He told me nothing had happened between them, and I believed him. However I did something I shouldn’t have, and I read some older messages between the two from before we were together. I found messages him saying he loves her(and her saying it back, calling him pet names), asking her to stay the night at his, calling her a cutie/other pet names, there were like 6 x’s after every single message, he had been with her to meet her parents, inviting her out on ‘dates’ (note: the word date was not used in the message, but it was invitation to do date-y stuff), and much more which I can’t remember off the top of my head.

I’m at a loss, I know I shouldn’t have looked as it was wrong but my gut was telling me something wasn’t right, which evidently it’s not. Note: I didn’t go through any other part of his phone as for the most part I trust him, this is the only thing I had a bad feeling about.

What should I do moving forward? Do I tell him I snooped and what I found? How do I confront him? Is this even salvageable at this point?