AIBU to mind my partner sharing our private issues with his ex?

52 replies

WednesdaysChildStillSmiles · 03/10/2026 19:26

Hi all, long time reader, first-time poster here.
I am currently nearly six months pregnant.
I[m quite upset today at something that happened and I would love some perspectives on if I am overreacting.

I am 40 and my partner is 43.
We have been together for 4.5 years and this pregnancy is planned and very much wanted.
I trust him completely and have never had any suspicions that he could be cheating, so this is not about that.

Recently an ex from many years ago got back in touch with him as she was going through a really bad time, including someone dying who my partner had known back in the day.
I did not have a problem with this as I personally am not jealous with exes, I couldn't imagine feeling anything towards any ex of mine as I feel once it's over, it's deader than dead.
He felt bad for her and she really needed someone to talk to and I encouraged him to be kind to her while keeping an appropriate distance.
I have not met this person and do feel terrible for the very sad year she has had.

They have been keeping in touch mostly through text over the last few months on and off, with long periods of silence. Never in person.
Recently, I was quite upset with my partner for mentioning something small to her, when he shared some negative aspect of his life connected to us.
I told him that was crossing a line, to be opening up about personal things with us.
He agreed at the time once I had pointed it out.

She has recently updated with him some good news, and they ended up chatting on the phone which he said "turned into a therapy session".
I enquired if she was still needing to talk about the death, or the other terrible losses she has suffered this year, if that was what he meant by "therapy".
He said well, they both listed their woes.

I asked him what "woes" in his life he was sharing with her, he avoided the question and I had to ask him numerous times. And he eventually told me he had told her something extremely personal and difficult in our relationship.
I was immediately very upset and angry. He straight away went for the strawman of there's no interest between them, etc., which I know and that was not my problem.
I am so hurt and disgusted that he is sharing deeply upsetting things that I think are only for us to talk about (except maybe sometimes his friends who were there since the beginning and know the whole story).
I had no problem with him helping someone through a difficult time but am I being unreasonable to think that he should not be sharing our personal problems with her? "Listing his woes" in a "therapy" session?
I can't imagine sharing personal stuff like that with anyone, never mind a friend of the opposite sex, furthermore an ex!

I understand that people need to talk about things affecting them, but he already has 3 friends to whom he can talk, and meanwhile I have no friends whatsoever and no one to share anything with.
Am I being unreasonable in this case?
Thanks for reading if you got this far.

OP posts:

MMUmum · 05/10/2026 19:37

WednesdaysChildStillSmiles · 03/10/2026 22:07

Thanks so much everyone for the input.
Seeing as a few people have asked, I will try to summarise what the topic was, while attempting to keep things anonymous.

Before he and I got together, I had had a fling thing with someone.
I told him about it before we got together (we had known each other for over a year previously) and he had a very bad reaction about it (because we had nearly gotten together before this fling thing, but didn[t due to him pushing me away and putting it off. We actually had not even seen each other in person then.)
Because of this, I minimised the truth about how long it had gone on and how many times I had seen this guy.
I straight up lied, and I know I shouldn[t have.
I fully accept I was wrong for that and unfortunately, I did not come clean until he found out last year it had gone on for longer than I said.

(I must reiterate that it was over before we started. I did keep in contact with this guy for a few months through text because I had completely broken his heart with a sudden ending of things and I felt very bad for him.)

When he found out, he asked me to be completely honest and tell him everything, which I have done to the best of my ability.
He got the backup of my WhatsApp and read through every single message that he been sent during this fling, photos sent and everything.
(Again, this was months before we started.)
Since then, he repeatedly grills me about things that I am still keeping from him that he "knows" I[m lying about since he has seen it in our WhatsApp messages.
I[m not lying anymore, but of course there are details I do not remember.
He does not believe me when I say I don[t remember how many times we did a specific sexual thing, for example, or something I said about the fling guys body.
Honestly I don[t know how I could be expected to remember 5 years later.

(Must add that I was going through an extremely traumatic time at the time. I was in the process of finding out I was losing everything, my apartment, everything I had worked for for years due to fraud committed by an ex. Extremely long messy story. My memory of that whole time is just a mess, I was back and forth to police, lawyer, court, and very sad and scared. I[m shocked by how little I remember of those months overall as usually my memory is very good. I was also drinking a lot to try to cope.)

Anyway, he berates me every now and again about how he can[t trust me because he knows I[m still lying.
He thinks he has the "evidence" but the way he puts 2 and 2 together to make 100 is unnerving. The few things he does tell me he suspects, I have easily been able to point out how that[s not true, not possible, and point out the simple reality.
There are things that he gets convinced of, like that I had two phones and two WhatsApps years ago, which is not true at all. One of our phones at home vibrated in a strange way that sounded like it was in the next room and he suspected me of having a secret phone for ages until it happened again and was clearly his phone.
He is certain that I met up with people off Tinder, again, that never happened.
All this to say he has convinced himself that he can[t trust me.
(Again, I fully accept I was wrong for not coming clean about the fling guy details from the beginning. I have nothing else to hide.)
So he was moaning to this ex of his about the trouble of not being able to regain trust basically and the background of that.

The whole thing devastates me, especially that he still feels this way, so I am very upset to have that dirty laundry aired with her.

Why oh why are you having a child with this man? You know don't you that this questioning will never stop, because his mind is tortured with your past relationship, and the more you tell him the more he will work things into a narrative that means he can never trust you, so the grilling will go on and on

Yogabearmous · 05/10/2026 19:41

If my DH did this I would go nuclear, so he should be grateful you are so calm.

this new therapy friendship is in dangerous territory now, as they are becoming emotional buddies. He needs to wish her well and let her pay to speak to a professional.

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