I moved to the UK and cheated on my boyfriend

Right. First things first. You’re neither filthy nor dirty. Believe you are if you like but frankly this is the first part to tackle because it’s not helping you and it’s not true. 

What is true though is that you’re maybe confused about what you want from a relationship. Your letter speaks about wanting to be trusted, cherished and spoiled by someone who loves you and yet the allure of another guys remains powerful and has tipped over into hooking up together. Maybe that was fun and as you say part of the antidote to a strict upbringing which you no longer wanted to be bound by.  

Long distance relationships can work well. Sometimes though it can be hard to work out what you each want from each other and I’m wondering too whether for you, sex was not as pleasurable as it might have been given the emphasis you mention on penetration rather than foreplay.

It’s important to mention this because sometimes, particularly for women it can feel very difficult to ask for your needs to be met. First sexual encounters are unsurprisingly often disappointing because it takes time to learn about your own sexual and intimacy needs so that you can help a sexual partner to understand what they are too. These are as important for you as they are for which ever partner you may choose to have sex with but the key thing here is not to feel you have to do anything you don’t want to do.  

The advice I most want to offer to you though is this. From everything you say in your letter, whilst you ‘let loose’ as you say when you came to the UK, I think that you’re still judging yourself by old family ‘rules’. In there somewhere is a belief that if you do what you want to do, then you’re a bad person who doesn’t deserve to be loved and cherished.

Now, for the avoidance of all doubt, we all have family ‘rules’. Some are obvious like “we always eat at 6 pm”. Others are more difficult to pin down like “we approve of this behaviour, but not that behaviour”. Sometimes these rules are about really important and sensible things that keep children safe, encouraged and nurtured. Other times, they’re just unhelpful and make us feel bad about ourselves and it's occasionally those feelings we’re most in touch with as we grow up and become adults. 

Basically, I think you need to give yourself a break. I think you need some help and support to become your own person who has a right to sexual pleasure without feeling guilty. Lots of people experiment with different sexual partners. While sexual exclusivity is often something people expect in a committed relationship, some people have relationships where sex with others is all fine providing everyone has signed up to that arrangement and is happy with it.

From your letter I think you’re judging yourself by other people’ standards and you need to develop your own. I think too that you might want to question what your boyfriend was doing looking through your messages. That’s just not on and he has no right to do that or anything similar. Unfortunately when we feel guilty about something as you tell me you do in your letter, sometimes in an effort to make things better, we let people get away with things that they really shouldn’t be doing.  

So, to finish, it sounds like struggling with wanting to be in loving relationship but at the same the allure of other opportunities has felt too strong to resist. That suggests to me that maybe you’re still trying to work out or work through what you actually want and some counselling might help you look at all this and support you to reach the decisions that are right for you.

And my final word to you is this. Get a mirror, look in it and repeat many, many times that you are a truly wonderful human being who is still figuring things out which is normal and natural. Don’t let anyone make you feel you’re anything other than unique, loveable and worthwhile. Ever.