It makes me so upset that I only just came across this sub because the amount of heartbreak and psychological damage I have suffered not only in the last week but the last couple months has tipped me completely over the edge. I posted over on relationship/advice subs as well as r/legaladvice hoping for a crumb of empathy and maybe some words of advice for my situation but kept getting downvoted to oblivion. I’m going to try again here since I feel safer opening up to a community of women who won’t take any shit and who might actually have some useful insight. I’m not strictly requesting legal advice but I will touch on that a lot, so I hope I’m not breaking any rules by doing so. Any words of encouragement or support are welcome. I really have nothing left to lose by posting this so I’ll jump right in:

Almost two weeks ago I discovered my (21F) boyfriend of a year (20M) has routinely been lying, cheating, gaslighting, and emotional abusing me in the last six months of our relationship. This is a guy who sweet talked his way into my heart, made me feel like the I really could let my guard down and trust him, took my virginity, and was my first boyfriend. I have not still processed the extent of betrayal and pain he has caused, as it really is a LOT and I still feel so blindsided. I can’t believe the number of red flags I let slide. I can’t believe the number of times I ignored my intuition. The only reason I found out is because I woke up with a gut feeling, checked his twitter, and the first thing I see is a post of him and a whole other girlfriend. He exploited the fact that I don’t use social media, he betrayed my trust, and he has done some pretty illegal shit on top of it all. There are countless girls involved. Every sweet thing he’s ever told me, every gesture, every moment, every inside joke, every cute, little thing between us that I thought was “ours” has just turned out to be his formula on how to get girls. He’s quite literally my worst nightmare come to life. Rose-colored glasses really are a bitch. I don’t even know where to start, but I will try my best.

First, here are the facts: he has exposed myself and other young women to the risk of STDs repeatedly, and it’s finally caught up with him. So far I know of four girls who have tested positive for chlamydia after having sex with him, including myself. He has also gotten tested but has so far not reached out to any of us about the results. Additionally, he possesses explicit pictures and videos of myself and at least one other girl, which on its own I understand is not necessarily a crime since we did consent to them being taken. I know I was naive. I was stupid. I devalued myself. Never again. However, we do have him on video and through text confessing to sharing these videos with others without our consent. I don’t know if this would fall under “revenge porn” or something else. To our knowledge, nothing has been posted online, but he’s shown himself to be a manipulative, pathological liar and so we really can’t say whether that’s the truth or not. Finally, we have pictures and texts of him talking about his continuous drug use on the military base he works at and lives on. I know these are definitely grounds for severe punishment but some advice on how the military handles situations like these would be greatly appreciated. My fear is for them to handle things internally and the last thing I want is for him to not only bypass the consequences but for him to be able to continue doing this to even more young women. I am considering writing in an anonymous letter to his higher ups disclosing his unsavory behavior towards women (with all attached evidence), in addition to the drug use and total lack of respect for his country and the people he’s supposedly protecting. And here’s a kicker: he’s deployed two states away from me. Yes, I spent a year in a long distance relationship with a military guy. Yes, I am the biggest clown of 2020.

I endured a lot of emotional/psychological abuse in this relationship until the point of discovering what he’s been up to. I had a really blind faith in him right up until the very end, but every time I would confront him or call him out based on suspicion, somehow I ended up being the one apologizing and feeling guilty. I second-guessed and constantly doubted myself and my intuition. Every time he looked me in my eyes and said he loved me, that he could never hurt me, that he was absolutely incapable of it—only to turn around and do it all. How dare I question him? His loyalty to me? How could I even think he would do something like that? He, himself, was a victim of a cheating partner once upon a time, so why would he do that to someone else? I have been gaslighted and manipulated for months. I have been deprived of basic love, loyalty, and respect owed to one’s partner in any relationship. And I am in ongoing contact with two other women (18 and 19 years old) who my now ex has also exposed to chlamydia. I am seeking therapy for the psychological damage he’s caused. This detail seemed irrelevant to the other sub when I posted it, but I think it’s fair for me to at least acknowledge that this guy possesses a predatory pattern of behavior which nobody in his position of power should have. Each one of these girls, myself included, suffer from mental health issues (depression, anxiety, disordered eating) and it’s obvious now that he would purposely seek out girls like us who were unstable and vulnerable, who were sheltered, who were inexperienced, and he made us think we were his world. His behavior in recent months especially has shown him to be extremely self-serving, sexually coercive, and incapable of empathy. I can list off countless examples of how horrible his hygiene is, how sleazy he’s shown himself to be, how he left one of these girls waiting in the car while he went to see a “friend”, when in reality he was having sex with another girl, returned to the car, and proceeded to have sex with the one that was waiting. He took his other girlfriend out for a date on my birthday in December while I was in the deepest depression of my life. He spent our anniversary in bed with another girl. He flew home to see me for New Year’s after spending the entire Christmas with his other girlfriend, meeting her parents, and telling her he loved her after three weeks of knowing her. He even had sex with an old friend right before finally seeing me and spending a week with me. He kissed me goodbye at the airport, got on a plane, got picked up by his other girlfriend, and headed back to her place to spend the night with her. He was buying concert tickets for them girls, spent all his money on her for Valentine’s Day while I got NOTHING. Christmas presents I got for him he regifted to other girls. There truly is not one sentimental bone in his body. He was telling his friends he broke up with me months ago and how “psycho” I was for trying to get answers from them. He’s a master manipulator and knows exactly what I want to hear. That’s how he’s gotten away with this for sibling. And those are just a couple examples off the top of my head, but believe me when I say the lies and deceit truly are endless. I so desperately wish I could go back and slap myself straight across the face for even THINKING about settling for a guy so incapable of love, of empathy, of basic human kindness and decency, a guy who wasn’t even doing the bare minimum to keep me. Every time he hung up on me or I wouldn’t hear from him for days because of “work” he was really just with another girl. No matter how hard I tried to make it work, how hard I tried to get him to communicate, I still ended up feeling like I was the problem, like I was asking for too much. He was so devoid of personality that he would literally recycle jokes from each one of his girlfriends, would try to pass off songs we would send him as his own music taste, literally traced over a drawing one of us made and would show the others, pretending it was his own. The only reason his other girlfriend even gave him a chance was because he had a tattoo of her favorite statue, and you know who gave him that tattoo idea? Me! Us girls were basically dating each other! He has no depth and I’m so sorry I ever let myself believe he’s what I deserve. The fact that he could lock down not one, not two, but at least THREE separate women, all educated, beautiful, funny, and STUNNING in every way and at the same time be having hookups left and right—how on earth can he think he’s going to get away with it?

Now, this is where things get a bit tricky. After reaching out to the other girlfriend two weeks ago, she and I have been talking every single day. And when we discovered a third girl, we formed a “revenge squad” of sorts. We have a mission. And that mission is to make this guy suffer the consequences of his actions. Period. We have been told by all our family and friends to drop it, to move on, to just cut him out completely, but I personally cannot sleep at night knowing he could continue doing all these things to countless other young women. So over the last two weeks, we have managed to pull the strings behind the scenes, and my ex basically has no clue any of us are in contact. Other girlfriend got him drunk, managed to get him to unlock his phone, and she went through the entirety of his camera roll with him over the span of three days. What she discovered is truly sickening. He most definitely has a porn addiction and/or possibly a sex addiction. There were countless videos and pictures of girls, a lot of it downloaded porn, a lot of it screenshots of unassuming girls on Instagram, and a lot of it was homemade. Videos of me, videos of her, videos of so many girls having sex with him she couldn’t even count. She’s deleted them all but filmed herself doing it for evidence. And she found that he’s been sending these videos to people without our consent. He’s confessed to that on tape. To make things even more complicated, he came crawling back to me when she became too “psycho” for him to handle over the span of those three days. So she’s passed the baton and I’m the ring leader at the moment, getting as many answers from him as I can and screenshotting it all for evidence. We know when he’s lying to me and when he’s not, since we know what she saw in his phone. My goal is to make him believe I’m going to take him back because he is willing to give me his iCloud password if I do. If I have that, we have all the evidence to open a case. We’ve really been messing with him and he’s become pretty paranoid but still has no clue that we are all talking. I haven’t heard from him in a few days so he may just be cutting his losses and going dark on all of us at once. Ultimately, we are focused on trying to build a case to put a stop to his predatory behavior. I know a lot of people think it’s not even worth spending this much effort and time getting “back” at someone, but I fundamentally disagree. Without these girls, I would have been a sad, sorry sack who would be crying myself to sleep every night. I feel strong right now. I feel like I’m taking back my power. And honestly it’s his fault for choosing to slip up in the middle of a global pandemic where everyone is stuck at home. All we HAVE is time to plot. And if we don’t stop him, he will continue down this path of senselessness forever. If I can end his pattern of abuse, there are very few things that will stop me.

I tried not to forget any pertinent details, but I am extremely emotionally and mentally drained, so apologies in advance. It feels like there’s a lot of moving parts to this and after being beaten down by him for so long, it’s hard for me to even be able to objectively say whether I am blowing any of this out of proportion or not. We fully believe he deserves legal repercussions, including being discharged from the military. My main concern at the moment is making sure he hasn’t posted these graphic pictures and videos of us anywhere without our consent. Also, figuring out how many people/who he’s sent these videos to. My secondary concern is making sure he won’t be able to continue risking the sexual health of other young women. So if any of you have a clue, can we pursue any of this legally? Or at the very least, would these be enough reasons to get him discharged from service? And how would I go about trying to find videos of myself and these other girls online? Will we just never know? Do you think the best thing I can really do is to just move on? Should we eventually confront him all together in person? And, of course, if there’s any other action you believe I should take, please do let me know! Thanks in advance.