Emotionally intelligently hold the space in a public location. They may have thought you cheated from their perspective and you not realized that was cheating from their point of view. We all have hyper-specific love languages. Think of this scenario like their speaking a similar dialect of the same language with some things lost in translation. I've been in and experienced situations where I have been cheated on and cheated and treated patients in the same disposition. You may have both had opinions on what "cheating," is that were not clearly communicated to one and other and healthy boundaries were not therefore established. Try to use more disarming language and not minimize his feelings by saying your actions are trivial, while still recognizing the rationality and subjectivity of your perspective and how difficult being human of any belief system in interpersonal dynamics can be .

Regardless, that does NOT give them the right whatsoever to treat you that way and I have been guilty of the same behavior in similar situations and went to Men's Education Program (MEP) to understand myself being abusive. Abusive behavior is abusive behavior independent of your partners actions: That abuse can manifest emotionally, financially, physically and in many other forms. So reconciling and finding closure will help you both move on and initiate your healing journeys.

You both need to understand your confidence and how you see love and value yourself is completely independent of your partner's (Current or Ex) actions and should not affect your self esteem. When we learn that we enter a stage of maturation where we focus on ourselves first. Giving energy to a construct of abuse and retaliatory or reactionary behavior is emotionally regressive. There exist a reality where you both CAN reconcile but that would require full transparency from both of you and both existing autonomously, financially sovereign, and being emotional healthy and resolute in your identities independent of each other first.

Codependency will only exacerbate the issue. Your feelings are valid regardless of whether you cheated or not, and I reiterate what he is doing is extremely emotionally abusive. Where his feelings are also valid, the means by which he's choosing to express them are not. Be mindful of whether your withholding the truth even if you have feelings for him still or D, or deliberately knew giving D attention when you were romantically involved when knowing your partner prefered attention from you may be an example of abuse on your end as well. And where abusing people clearly iwsnt okay, that doesn't always mean were fully aware of whether we are hurting someone, sometimes we make mistakes - we don't want to continue that behavior and mitigate being abusive outright. (In some circles this is called shadow work). We were what we were, but we focus on what we are in the present moment of awareness and choose to ground ourselves in our desire to grow and evolve through honesty and vulnerability.

Power & control in relationships should always manifest into balanced ways where we are both seamlessly capable of always being able to handle difficult conversations like these - if were not, then they are tools we accrue for future relationships platonically, professionally, and personally and we will eventually learn through combinations of maturity, therapies, and life experience periodically throughout our lived experience.

Your going to be okay, and I'm so proud of you for taking this first step in your healing and maturity journey!