Accepting I am with a cheater

I had believed it for some time, however I have to now know that I have to accept it. And those are two different things. So my 'boyfriend' has been telling me, or trying to tell me, that he has gone back to being a bodyguard for bad people. His words. People who are drug dealers, strippers, in brothels. There were a few videos he sent me in the past, but he was always alone in the videos. I had a guess that he wasn't working in those videos. I would say that it didn't look like a brothel or a drug dealers house. However, I am not around those people or places, never have been. So I didn't have any proof or evidence that it was anything more than he was saying it was. However, he recently sent me four videos. He claimed that those videos were proof that he wasn't doing anything wrong, that it was proof that he was being honest and transparent. They were all in an apartment, a nice apartment, seemingly alone with a woman. The first was of him, his back was to a woman who was standing at a counter, so her back was to him. He moved the camera down, and the girl was standing there in a sweater in her underwear, so her ass was totally out. The second was him in the hallway, then he shows her doing her makeup. The third she was bending over to do something for her little dog. He took a video of her ass, she had pants on now, but moved his hand like he thought about smacking it. The fourth was them walking down the stairs of the hallway to go walk her dog.

Now I do understand that I am not a criminal or stripper. And that I don't fully know about that world. However, the fact that he seems to forget so easily is that I am a smart girl. I, frankly, am a lot smarter than he is. So I know that there is almost no way that he isn't doing that girl. It made me accept the reality that he is cheating. It is something that I have known, but I guess there was always a small piece of myself that let myself believe him when he said that he won't do that.

Regardless, of knowing that he is cheating. Those videos are not okay. One, for a man that claims to be 'married'. And two, for someone that his claiming that he is just working. As taking videos of your clients ass is not professional. That is not okay. He was trying to make me pay for this parking ticket that he got, I am guessing when he was with her. I don't understand how I have to pay for him to cheat on me.

This has done an interesting thing for me. I am actually sad. I wasn't really expecting that to be honest. This shouldn't be a shock for me. It's not like I haven't been thinking this the entire time. The last few days, since he sent me these videos, I have found myself so sad. I'm not sure why I feel like this. I shouldn't.

The question is what do I do now. I know that our relationship cannot continue. At the very least, not how it has been. Am I strong enough to fully walk away, and deal with whatever circumstances that happen? Am I prepared to be the reason why my daughter doesn't see her father anymore? Will she even care, though? I doubt it. The other day as we were walking home, there was some garbage on the ground of a cigarette pack. She said that if you smoke then you die, then said that he dad smokes so he is going to die. When I asked her if that would make her sad, her response was no because she had one parent, me, who she liked and was nice, so she won't be sad. I'm not sure if that statement is depressing or freeing. It could go either way.

If I don't leave, then what I stay? Why is this treatment okay with me? Why am I accepting it? I am okay with being single, but I don't want to be depressed and single. Why is it that leaving seems like such a overwhelming, and terrifying notion. We don't even live together anymore. I know that I can do it on my own. There is no reason for me to be so scared to say the words that it's move, that I'm done.

-T