Found out about a year old infidelity.

[lllaurennn]

I’m feeling stuck on how to move forward with this. Our history is: we dated 4 years, got married and had our first daughter just over a year later. He left immediately after our first was born and admitted to cheating the entire relationship. After that, we somehow pulled it all together, but in the end, I divorced him 5 years later. I never felt suspicious of cheating in those years, but he had money troubles/substance abuse issues/and we argued a lot about his lack of participation in our family/home care. Two years after our divorce, we started dating again. Surprise, we had a divorce-baby! On her first birthday, I found a lot of things that were **all the thumbs down**.. We had a hard convo about how I wasn’t going to hang around for those things, so he really needed to make a decision on what he wanted. It was icy for weeks, but it was Christmas and I didn’t want to disturb things like crazy for the girls. Then exactly two months after that day, he told me he wanted to leave and framed it as me not loving him and that he has to get his life together. He needs to be on his own to do that; yada yada. Six.. weeks.. later.. he said it was all a misunderstanding and he didn’t want to break up, but that he could tell I wasn’t into it. Not the case at all, but I didn’t want to breakup, so if this was his attempt at fixing it, fine. 
Since then we have gotten along great. He’s here for us, he’s an active parent and active around the house. We feel like buddies again, which it hasn’t felt that way since we had our first daughter.

And then yesterday D: We work at the same company but far away from each other (I have never even seen him at work). I took our phones to my office to charge and my coworkers were surprised by this. Convos about trust and whatnot ensued. They all agreed that they had gone through their bf/husbands phones and I ensured them that his phone was just him and his friends, if he even saved his texts at all. So I opened it to be like “Look! Flirting with Jon, Adam, Kyle.” and was actually surprised to see a lot of those “Hey, call me 2nite.” type bot texts :/ And why did he let his text app fill up with them?? I scrolled down and saw a familiar, painful name. I opened it but already knew when I saw her name that I was actively hurting my own feelings. 
 

He had text messaged her over a year ago, a month before he broke up with me. They talk about being single, being lonely, she picks him up from a gas station down the street from our house.. eventually I can tell her texts aren’t flirty anymore and then one night he asks her how her date went the night before. That’s the same week he basically came back to me 😓

I. Am. So. Sad. I. Saw. This. 

One coworker said I suspected it or wouldn’t have looked, but for the love of god, those texts have been sitting there for 13 months. I would have never opened them in front of people had I thought something like that would be in there. 

So now.. how do I get this conversation started? Every time I open my mouth, I choke. I want to tell him this hurts but I don’t want to go backwards. I just feel stupid.

 

 

 

[S2B]

Decide what your plan is for the future is and inform him.

that plan shouldn’t include him. 

[JTSW]

He is never going to change.

You need this man out of your life for good. 

[MsJayne]

How horrible and humiliating for you. This would make me feel that I was second choice, and that's too hard to live with even for the sake of children. Even though you're so hurt by it, it's actually good that you found out, it's karma's way of exposing him and allowing you the opportunity to choose what you want rather than being manipulated. If you confront him I'll put $50 on it that he'll lie about it, probably he'll concoct some garbage that paints him like the wronged saint who foolishly fell for a homewrecker. What happens when the next attractive woman comes along and he decides, again, that you don't love him and he needs to get himself together? 

[BaileyB]

Honestly, I wouldn’t waste my emotional energy by having a conversation with the man. I would only talk about coparenting - the relationship is done. It should have been done a long, long time ago… you have given this man way too many chances. 

If you want to talk about your feelings, I think you would be better served to find yourself a counsellor. 

[Wiseman2]

On 2/2/2023 at 9:10 PM, lllaurennn said:

 He’s here for us, he’s an active parent and active around the house. We feel like buddies again, which it hasn’t felt that way since we had our first daughter.

Unfortunately you'll have to weigh his proclivities against whether you want to be a happy family or happy single parent. Unfortunately you're divorced for a reason but some of those reasons may have been dormant rather than ever resolved.

[salparadise]

23 hours ago, lllaurennn said:

He left immediately after our first was born and admitted to cheating the entire relationship. [...] money troubles/substance abuse issues/and we argued a lot about his lack of participation in our family/home care. Two years after our divorce, we started dating again. Surprise, we had a divorce-baby! [...] He had text messaged her over a year ago, a month before he broke up with me. They talk about being single, being lonely, she picks him up from a gas station down the street from our house

I'm wondering what he's got that keeps you coming back. He must be doing something right for you to keep taking him back even while knowing what you do about his propensities.

And just out of curiosity, why did you have to take his phone to your office to charge it? And doesn't he keep it locked?

[Will am I]

I'd like to highlight three things from the opening post:

* substance abuse

* serial cheating

* framing marital problems (caused at least in part by the infidelity) as "you don't love me"

The conclusion is that you're dealing with an immature and selfish person with very poor empathic skills. Not marriage material.