Still upset with DH for behaviour years ago.

[Tookseveralnamechanges]

Am I being unreasonable to still be upset? He treated me and my home like shit and kissed my friend. Something happened when he was away on a work trip but he swears it wasn't sex. He was messaging the gorl afterwards though, but he didnt after i found out. I was pregnant with our second at the time.
We broke up (he left me! ) for a few months and got back together when i had our baby. Conveniently he became interested again as soon as i stopped caring about him.

I was and still am incredibly hurt but the problem is he has been a model partner since the split. Wd have had our ups and downs but he generally puts me and the kids first now.
If i had met him after the break he would be the one. The amazing husband. Perfect life partner. But he wrecked it by fucking me over for the first few years of our relationship.

I dont really care if he only came back for the children, because i did too. And we have grown and worked hard to make things work well and have a nice life.

We are currently pregnant again, and in the process of looking for our first house to buy.
But i have this crippling fear that it is all too good to be true and he showed me his true colours years ago and has been hiding ever since.

I dont want to leave him because i love the man he is now, and we were really young when we met and quite young when i fell pregnant. He was my first ever boyfriend.
He says that he was young and stupid and he is embarrassed by his actions. We still talk about it sometimes but he can't tell me why he messed me around and treated me so appallingly.
He gave his parents rent and cleaned up after himself before we moved into together and had a baby. So its not like i went with a slob who needed to grow up. He regressed and became selfish when we moved in together. But i fell pregnant very quickly and so i was stuck.

If he treated me even half as badly as how he used to now i would up and leave immediately.

This was almost a decade ago. He has been on the straight and narrow.
He comes home from work nd will tidy up the kids bedroom before making dinner. He'll tell me to go to bed for a nap if i say i feel tired. He buys me treats from the shop or if he goes to a kfc for lunch at work he'll get me a wrap or something small and save it for me (kfc was my only non nausiating food in first trimester) and he even stands up for me if his family make digs. Which was a big source of tension pre split.
We go on days out and to the park most days as a family, unless hes working really late.
He hasnt been on a night out since last xmas and he has started saving.
All of this were on the list of things we argued about and he changed every single thing. I feel comfortable and happy with him 99% of the time but every now and then someone will cheat on tv or ill read a LTB thread on mumsnet and it will all come flooding back.

I was up last night until nearly 3am crying my eyes out. I messaged him and told him how i was feeling and he called and appologised (again) but it isnt enough. He said 'you do realise i am the same person i was then? I cant change anything i did back then even though i wish i could'

And it hit me like a tonne of bricks. There is nothing he can ever say that will stop the hurt. Nothing he can ever do that will stop me cryong randomly in the middlw of the night because i thought about it.

Has anyone ever 'got over' cheating and bad spousal behaviour? Does it ever stop hurting? Almost 10 years on and i still feel sad enough to cry for hours and hours. Not every night but maybe once or twice a year. And i am worried about feeling like it forever. Especially as we are soon to have another baby and a new home to deal with.

@Notodontidae
What a great analogy. He was very young, early 20s at the time. When you put it like that it os so obvious.
And thanks @bumpertobumper i do love a ted talk. Ill check her out when i get a free moment.

@brassbrass my thought exactly. Especially the not sure part lol!

You need to move on, and forgive him; or end the relationship. You can't keep punishing him.
Why are you having a third child with someone you have such resentment and uncertaintly towards?
I would suggest couples therapy, to try to work through these issues.

Are you really still punishing him and going on about it ten years later. I’m amazed you’re still together. It sounds like he’s tried to make it up to you. You need to either split or move on together. You’re going to push him away otherwise.

I dont know what caused him to do it how can i manage my own behaviour to ensure i dont push him to it again.

With kindnesses, this is very rigid thinking . Human beings are messy, emotional , complicated creatures. They sometimes ( often even) do things on impulse and looking for reasons is sometimes pointless.

Anyway you can't control people for your own sense of security. People are not controllable in that way.

Relationships are about trust but no one is 100% trustworthy, absolutely no one, and that is fine. You need to be happy in yourself, know that you will be fine without your DH if necessary but that you are choosing him every day for who he is now. That means you can not choose him.in future, if he breaks your trust again. You have that control., you just can't control his behaviour, nor.should.you want to. He is making his own choice to be with you every day. Focus on your choices not his.

You do need to let this go, because if you don't, it will eventually sabotage your relationship .

@SunshineCake i kust went back i must have missed it
Thats a good idea woth the peice of paper.
Im sorry i probably missed a few because when it refreshes

I dont know if its any help ,but you can contact the Samaritans for an appointment to discuss problems in private .Although not actual Counsellors they are trained to listen to all kinds of things ,including relationship problems and the service is free as well.

I didn't want you to miss it as I really feel for you and hoped it would help, Took.

I differ from many posters here.

He cheated on you and left you while pregnant. That's huge. That's a massive betrayal.

As a result you have a (totally understandable) lack of trust and a totally understandable resentment. In your case the lack of trust and worry seems to be paramount though. There's a bit of pain but not v much resentment and anger coming through.

In any case, to me it's like finding a roach or something similarly disgusting & off-putting in a lovely meal. You can pick the roach out and you can try to pretend it was never there, but you know it was and it's tainted the meal; no matter how otherwise lovely it is.

It's v understandable and natural that both your pregnancy and him working away has triggered your lack of trust and pain about this. You want an answer as to why he cheated and left + do you can understand it and reassure yourself that it won't happen again, but he can't (?) give you a real reason a d therefore you can't reassure yourself that what causes him to do it could not happen again.

In reality it probably was what other posters have already said - too much responsibility and commitment, too young and about being with someone, as you said yourself , who was not you, someone different (not that some people couldn't accept the circumstances, but clearly he wasn't one of the ones who could) .. and so theoretically he won't do it again. But then there was the fundamental lack of integrity in his actions and no wonder you are worried about that.

So, while I can see the merit in trying to work through it (you'll soon have 3 kids together, is that right?, He's been apparently a good partner since, you were both v young etc) ... I for one can fully understand if you weren't to; because what he did has deeply tainted your relationship, family and life. So if you feel you can't accept it, you'd be justified.

Fwiw you've had a lot on your plate in recent years with pregnancies, babies and young children so getting anxious, down, hormonal etc is understandable and naturally you've fixated on this betrayal .. I don't think you need counselling due to that (though may need it to help you decide to do what's best for you).

I know if I'm depressed/down or have pms I tend to fixate on the past quite a lot, and on what issues I have with my partner.

Oh and sorry for the levity but your thread keeps reminding me of that line in Run Fat Boy Run .. "You left her at the alter, pregnant. Women remember stuff like that".

I think (?)they got back together, but I for one wouldn't have had a warm fuzzy feeling about that, I'd have prefer he got his just desserts.

*preferred

*altar

It's OK to feel hurt about something that hurt you. And you've let him know how you feel. And he knows how you feel.

But it's now up to you to self soothe yourself because it has been many years.

I second the pp who recommended Esther perel, she has some great podcasts too on Spotify - where should we begin?

Anyway but of a novel but maybe you've tried to forgive the unforgivable and it's not working - no matter how much time, how many kids or how ok his behaviour appears to have been since you got back together. It's not your failure if you decide not to continue the relationship now or in the future.

Esther Perelnsoeaks very eloquently about why people cheat and all that : but when one person has cheated and the other hasnt, with all the resulting pain, low self esteem, resentment, lack of trust etc ... All the social, evolutionary, blah blah explanations and rationalisation in the world won't change the fact that the cheater has a fundamental lack of integrity and that they risked and degraded their relationship with their partner. Auedback together case I'd never the sane as the original vase (and people who say it's stronger; hmm it's fundamentally flawed). I always think people forgiving infidelity are like a performer saying "and for my next act I'm going to chew and swallow broken glass for X years". Why do it to yourself; they don't deserve you (or your family together if you have one).

*A glued back together vase is never the same as

Wow I actually missed that he kissed one of your friends too before cheating (to some extent) and leaving you while pregnant.

Was that before or after you already had your first child with him?

Cheating with someone's friend is an even more low-life-y/nasty than cheating with a stranger.

And I'd thought he cheated and left when you were both very young a d you were pregnant with your first child; you actually had a child already and you were pregnant with another .. I dunno, we can use youth and panic and foolishness all we like but that's some seriously low behaviour. I think your mistake was in getting back together with him at all. No wonder you're jumpy being pregnant for the first time since all that.

@Sandals19 yeah it freaking hurts. He has said that he looks back and says to himself 'get out! What are you doing?!'etc but at the time he was working away and probably thought id never find out.

The worst part was he didnt delete the messages. I use his phone and he uses mine. Always have done so i thi k he wanted me to find out.

We should have spoke properly and truthfully at the time but its too late.

He is great now, by the way. We are very much in love and he is hardly recognisable as the same person. I am probably more angry with myself for being a mug and crying in the street, down the phone and where ever else begging him to come back. What a mug. I should have stabbed a bloody wooden stake in his heart , the life sucking vampire he used to be.

Move on or leave. Carrying on this thought process for 10 years is insanity