Hi friends, unfortunately this is an online love story.

The story starts with me (19M) meeting my ex-gf zee (18F) online on minecraft. We really clicked, and later she started calling me “hubby” and we both expressed a good amount of love to each other. This relationship went on well, and she kept reassuring me that she’d never leave me and that I was perfect. I know she might have said all that out of love and wouldn’t have meant it that seriously, but she made sure to reassure me this way when I felt sad. We had plenty of downs in the relationship which we both improved on, but I think I was the happier one in the latter part of the relationship.

For the past few months, she had been talking to me less frequently. I understood that since both of us were busy with school. She also sent me less pics, and said she doesn’t like when I talk sexually even on a slight mention. I respected her wishes and stopped sexual talk altogether, although I did bring it up when she sent me a few sexual pics herself (I didn’t ask her to send them) but she felt disgusted by the kind of sexual pics I used to frequently send her. I expressed my sadness that she wasn’t as sexually engaged with me in conversation, but she said she felt different and I definitely respected that. For the last month she barely talked to me, only sending a couple messages a day and replying after hours. When I asked her why, she said she was depressed and often cried. I tried to help her but she didn’t really say anything except give some love and thank you’s, and I gave her space to heal. She didn’t call me sweet names anymore or show love from her side, and I thought that was just a consequence of her struggles.

Fast forward to a few days ago, when I saw a notification to change my discord username. I wanted to change it to “zee stole my heart”, but decided to see what she would have had as her username (keep in mind we talked on snap not there so I had no idea what it would be). I found a weird, new name under her account with one of those anime pics where the girl is showing half a heart. I just brushed it off as a pic and thought it was cool, but then I decided to search for her username on google. It led me to a minecraft profile where I saw the caption: “zay has my heart <3” (that’s not me)

My heart was crushed. After some stalking I found this zay guy on discord and messaged him where he said he was zee’s irl bf since a month. At that point zee must have found out, because she started spam calling me to talk.

"are you cheating on me?

“no wym”

“why’d you text me “I do love you” when I asked you for some love”

“I love you as a friend.”

She claimed that she was trying to be friends with me and had said that months ago, but I know clearly that she never said “it’s over”, “I’m not your gf anymore”, “we’re breaking up” or something similar, so I never considered the relationship to be over. She said she never brought that up because she knew it would hurt me, so apparently I was thinking she’s in a relationship with me for all that while. She had even sent me some spicy pics just over a month ago, although she once said months ago that she wanted to be friends. She didn’t use romantic terms with me but I had thought that it was just a consequence of the depression she was going through and hadn’t pushed her regarding it.

I wished the zay guy all the best and got to closure talk with zee, where she mentioned she was leaving me for talking about her body. Now, I’m definitely the AH for that one, but that was a year ago and since then I had practically stopped mentioning her body features in conversation. I asked her this and she said that she’s sad about how I was earlier. Still she said the other guy was more emotionally caring and that she kept crying because of how I had treated her. She had also expressed that she was ok with me seeing the pics I had of her, knowing well that many of those were wildly sexual (she even sent a :( when I said I’d delete them). I got excessively rude towards her, and also called her a cheater for not explicitly telling me when she quit the relationship while I thought we were still together, to which she called me an AH saying she’d never cheat on anyone.

Here’s the part where I’m the most confused Reddit. In the past month, I sent her a message everyday with a pet name for her like “baby”, “baby girl”, “love” or “cutie baby” among others. She wouldn’t always give a loving message back, but often she just replied “yes” or “what” when I sent those. She would also say she loves me at times, but she never mentioned that she had a bf or implied that she was uncomfortable being called those names. So I don’t understand if I’m just a dumb clueless guy or whether what she did was actually along the lines of cheating. I feel like the very harsh heartbreak I’ve been feeling may have been just because of my stupidity when in reality she wasn’t even my “gf” at that point.

What do you guys think?

AITA here?

I’m willing to provide any additional info as needed. Thank you for reading, and I came here because you guys give great reality checks.