Two weeks ago I discovered my (possibly soon to be ex) partner of seven years had put himself on FB dating, setting up a profile using the same photo he used on another dating site seven years ago through which we met.
I discovered this looking through his phone which he had left running on YouTube and fallen asleep. I know I shouldn’t have been looking but something about his behaviour had got my senses heightened.
He had been having conversations with around 5 women (all younger than me). Nothing overtly flirty just asking them what they like to do and telling them they looked nice. No suggestions of meeting up and this went on for a 2 week period then stopped.
I absolutely hit the wall. The bottom fell out of my life and for the last two weeks I have been in autopilot, struggling in every area of my life and having lost 3 kg as I think I was in complete and utter shock. I confronted him seconds after I saw this and he minimised it saying he had been ‘bored’ and was ‘curious’ but I simply cannot get rid of my anger. We talked and talked about it and I cried and raged, he said he was very sorry and wished he had deleted it after the two week period when he was on it and I would never have known. That is NOT the point I said, it was the fact that you even contemplated doing it. He had only six weeks ago (when he was on that site) that he was really happy with our relationship. So what was he doing?? He did say at one point that he looked and realised he wanted what he had at home so stopped looking.
I booked us into Couples Counselling and we had an hour long session last weekend. That was really helpful actually as it gave us a safe space to talk and I was able to vent all my anger. He cried and the (male) counsellor highlighted the fact that my partner had stopped after two weeks and wasn’t planning to take it any further.
My partner is now impatient, in fact he was inpatient 24 hours after the discovery saying I needed to ‘get over it’. Just a few days after I checked his business emails and saw he had reinstalled an old TikTok account and I checked this and there were 100’s of semi-naked young girls added. I made him delete this and promise never to go on that site again. We had this in the past and I told him how much I hated that kind of behaviour so he deleted it, but obviously wanted to set it up again. Why the f*ck?? I’m a fairly attractive clever woman (so I’m told) who takes care of herself and is kind and thoughtful so why is this happening to me?
My dilemma now is that during one of our rows I opened up the exact same App and did a profile myself, right in front of him, and said ‘see how you like it if I look at other blokes’. Strangely enough a really good-looing guy popped up and in my fury and upset I started a conversation with him. I know two wrongs don’t make a right but I’m so angry with my partner who hasn’t really pulled out all the stops to assure me/love me and says he just wants life back to normal that this is helping me as it’s validation from someone else. The other guy has been very sweet, attentive and seems very genuine and has ENERGY, something lacking in my partner as conversation is hard work these days, and he wants to meet up. I’ve told him I’m very recently broken up (not entirely untrue) and he wants to meet. Part of me knows this is wrong but part of me is so tempted to see if I can find someone better and give up this stupid partner I’m with. I know I would find it a real wrench giving up 7 years of a shared life where we’ve had some really good times, but I think I owe it to myself to at least be ‘curious’ myself. My partner despite this blip has been really good in many ways meaning it’s a very difficult decision, we've had some fantastic time and both now want the relationship to get back to how it was but the trust has gone and I’m not sure I’m getting what I want from this relationship or whether we can get it back. I feel so very sad.
What do I do? Am I being unreasonable to see this other guy?