My boyfriend deceived me and claimed it was because he felt embarrassed.
I (34F) have been in a relationship with my boyfriend (31M) for nearly a year. We agreed to be exclusive about two months in, and he initially assured me he was not seeing anyone else. However, a few months later, I noticed a friend of his on social media who had viewed my content on TikTok, which raised some questions for me. He denied having any sort of relationship with her, claiming they were just Facebook friends. When I reached out to her, she confirmed she didn't know him in a romantic way. He later reassured me that he hadn’t been involved with anyone else during the past few months, aside from some casual dates that had gone nowhere. A few months down the line, during a disagreement, I pressed him to be honest about that girl, voicing that something didn't sit right with me. He eventually admitted they had been friends with benefits for a few months before we met. This prompted me to contact her again to ask why she had misled me. She then provided me with screenshots of his messages from when I first inquired, where he begged her to say they didn't know each other. The texts confirmed his story: they had spent the night together after our first date but never spoke again. She also expressed curiosity about their situation in her conversations with him. Later on, he confessed, after initially trying to dodge the truth, that there had been a couple more hookups before we started dating that he felt embarrassed to share. He often gets emotional whenever I bring it up, expressing remorse. Before his confession, I had asked him about the situation several times; he claimed he was embarrassed and thought I would judge him. Even during our initial confrontation, he shed tears while lying but still only confessed after I pressed for answers. While I have no reason to believe he has cheated on me since we've been together, this situation has understandably heightened my anxiety, especially given my previous traumatic divorce due to infidelity. I'm struggling to move past it and would appreciate an outsider's perspective on how much grace I should extend in this situation. We have been using Life360 for a while, maintain frequent communication throughout the day, and he voluntarily sought counseling after all of this came to light. I also have a young child who adores him, which adds to the seriousness of our relationship as we have discussed future plans, including marriage and children. What do you think I should do?