Found suspicious texts on DPs phone

[Rcats1]

Morning.
Just want to pick all your brains about something, and get some outside perspective on whether I'm just being super paranoid, or if this is a cause for concern.

So, I've just had a baby a month ago. My first child to my dp who I've been with for 3 years. He has 2 kids from his previous marriage too.
To cut a long story short, at the beginning of our relationship, 7 months in to be exact, I found out he'd been cheating on me with a colleague and had been for several months (even on the nights when I was looking after his kids when he was "at work") anyway, we broke up for like a week before he grovelled and promised me the world and more, deleted all social media accounts and blocked the girl he was seeing and cut all ties... So I took him back, we moved in together and 2+ years later, he's still not on social media and I've had no cause for concern... Until...

He started a new job. Since I'd say about January time he keeps talking about a female colleague. Let's call her *Laura for the purpose of this thread. Every other day he'd be like "so me and Laura were talking today.. And.. Me and Laura did this... Or Laura this and that.." and then one day he said they were talking about her dating life drama and she said to him "why can't I just find someone like you?" to which he replied "you should just find someone older to date, someone who has kids and who you can settle down with" and my immediate thought was, why the hell would you tell her that? Someone like you, you mean??

I left it alone and didn't say anything but something didn't sit right with me at all. Anyway, he zonked out on the sofa last night and his phone was next to me and her name flashed up in a text, so I thought fuck this I'm opening it... And there were texts from a month ago (3 days after I'd given birth) to which she was asking how he was doing, he sent her a picture of the baby and she said congrats, she's beautiful bla bla but at the of the message put "I miss you :( xxx" and he said "i miss you too. Looking forward to seeing you when we're back at work xxx"
Then she said to keep texting her and checking in so she knew he was alright and he told her to do the same... There's been no other messages since then..but like.. Wtf?

He's done this before over 2 years ago and I'm thinking, is it going to happen again? Is this girl into him? Will he have another moment of weakness and cheat again.. Or does it sound like harmless banta? I haven't said anything to him yet as I don't know how to approach the subject.

Deleting=Deception

With his history of cheating and previous dodgy messaging with Laura, continuing to message/delete her is a huge red flag. A partner committed to restoring trust would not have blocked transparency. If the messages were strictly about work, he would have shown you instead of hiding them.

Is the whole chat history deleted between them?

@SandyY2K yeah he's deleted thier entire chat history. It had been there all through lockdown like I said half way down the list so I was thinking 'OK maybe I've got it wrong. If they'd been texting her name would have been at the top of the recent texts... But now it's completely gone.

I said to him if it's about work whilst your in work that's fine.. As the nature of the job means they have to call each other if there's a customer who's came back in to see them or paperwork needs sorting out etc.. Other colleagues of his do this which I've seen the call log/texts... So now I'm thinking it's 2 things: either they've text in work about work and he's deleted it to save arguments because he knows I don't trust her/him OR they're texting each other about something else... Either way as one poster said.. If it was innocent why not just leave the texts there and say "look, she did text or I've had to text her but it's strictly about work..here you can read it."

The thing is I've literally poured my heart out to him the past few weeks. I've been really distance with him, snappy, and just questioning everything to the point I felt like if I kept doing that id push him away even further, so I sat and wrote him a letter so it wouldn't just keep coming out everytime I had a glass of wine.. I left it by the kettle the nigjt before, he got up before me and read it and when I woke up he came to me and apologised and said "i really need to pull my finger out my arse I'm so sorry I make you feel like this I love you.."

... And then he goes and deletes there chat history when he's back at work. Like I said I'm just going to observe and keep observing. I absolutely don't want a life with a man I can't trust or have to keep questioning every time he leaves for work. I've told him this. I said its no way to live a life and no way to be in a relationship.

Sorry OP but it's all on borrowed time anyway - you don't trust him, you don't have fun with him, he's only keeping you sweet because his life would become so much more shit if you left - i.e who will watch over his kids on custody days when he's at work, the house will turn into a shit-tip because he'll be at work and nobody will be there to stay on top of things, his family won't like it because they're fond of you, what will he tell his kids about why you left?

Yes, it was your low self esteem that led to this and because you really fancied him and had a lush time that once, and there were slim pickings in the past, you wanted to bag him and this included being nice to your kids, it made it harder for him to dump you. Maybe you didn't realise this outright but subconsciously you probably did. Anyway, I think we've all been there with shitdick men and low self esteem at some point, I have no doubt in future that you will find someone more worthy of everything you are and everything you have to offer.

*Being nice to HIS kids.

Btw, if I'd been in your shoes I'd have been outta there the first time. I mean, God - you were nice to his kids, kids that are offspring from him and his ex and quite frankly are NOTHING to do with you, you know most women wouldn't even go there with a man with kids with a looney ex? So you were already more giving than most women there. Then you looked after the kids and the kids like/love you. Pretty amazing once again. Then he cheats after all that?! What?! That's all you ever need to know about a clueless scumbag right there.

There's something else that's really shit about this too. His kids are already from a broken home once. As if that wasn't bad enough already. And then pretty soon after this he was prepared to risk that happening all over again just so he could dip his wick with some cute piece from the office. Really think about that. There's no other conclusion to be had other than he's a shit. I don't care what anyone says, it is really not cool for kids to have new partners coming into the home and then suddenly one day leaving again. But yourself in their shoes, I guarantee you wouldn't have liked that when you were a kid. He was perfectly OK to take that risk just so he could get his end away. Disgusting.

Hmm. He seems to say all the right things, but why delete the chat history.

He could have just deleted the new messages...seems strange to delete the whole chat history.
If you can, I'd go and stay with your mum for a couple of weeks.

You deserve better opZ

Pube shaving = dick pix. Or shagging. I'm sure many have said it but it is literally never meaningless. Never. But you obviously think that talking to him will help and he will tell you the truth so unfortunately this is going to go on until you get proof. Which may be tricky as he's clearly being very careful.
He may even have an app on his phone that tells him when you look. Or Laura under the name Fred. Or another phone.the only think I can tell you is that he's cheating in one form or another.