Found out DP cheated on his ex…whilst she was pregnant

[StayOrLeave2123]

Name changed for this one.

I have recently found out that the reason my DP and his ex wife split up was because he cheated on her. To make things worse, she was pregnant at the time. It happened over 10 years ago and he has said he was completely ashamed and she didn’t deserve it…but I just can’t get it out of my head.

I’d would absolutely love to have DC at some point and hoped that would have been a possibility with DP. I feel like this has changed everything though. I can’t help but think about the possibility that he could do it again.

Is it easier to walk away than always have it on the back of my mind? I’m early 30s and after a string of shit relationships, I really thought this one would stick. What would you do in my position?

@downtonupton

Blimey - bloke did a shitty thing over 10 years ago to someone and the pitch forks are out.

if you believe that he is contrite, sorry and will never hurt you - then stay. He didn't cheat on you.

He fucked up and did a horrible thing to someone who didnt deserve it. But he is 10 years older, has been honest with you, been a good father, never given you reason to doubt him. So accept that he is sorry and move on.

If you can't get over it then save both of you a load of heartache and finish things. You will obsess and worry and never quite trust him and chip away at the relationship until you split

Personally I did some horrible things when I was younger and would not dream of doing them now. I did cheat on an ex - have not cheated on DH. But 10 years older and a better person.

@downtonupton of course it's easy to be sympathetic to the cheat if you've been a cheat yourself.

She certainly doesn't need to just "accept he's sorry and move on" like it's a minor incident. It's the most horrific of betrayals someone can inflict upon their spouse. Any normal woman would have their trust in him impacted and be considering what this means for their current relationship, especially if she's thinking of having a child herself with the same man.

At the very least I would expect the man to have taken the initiative to go to counselling to explore why he chose to do such a thing and have stayed single to work through HIS issues before selfishly getting into another relationship. A whole series of thoughts, intentions and deliberate actions preceded each and every time he was unfaithful while he was cheating. Part of taking full responsibility for the gravity his actions and wanting to try to ensure he doesn't do it again would have been him taking this initiative to fix himself. It's simply NOT enough for him to just be "sorry" for it as if it's a minor thing.

Most people go through bad times without choosing to do "horrible things" to the person they're supposed to love. OP has to weigh up that there are plenty of other men out there who haven't decided to lie to and cheat on their spouse and mother of their baby when she needed him the most, and break up the said child's family before they were even born.

@weddingdilemmma

He does say that she absolutely didn’t deserve it

Even just this statement is a red flag. You've mentioned a couple of times that he's said it. To me, nobody evert deserves it. So the fact that he's going on about how she didn't deserve it, suggests that in some scenarios cheating would be justified or "deserved"?

Agree. This sentence about "did not deserve" actually jumped out at me as soon as I read the original post, before I saw others had picked up on it too. I agree with the OP that he did not consciously mean this in a bad way but it's telling he even came out with the word "deserve" in such a situation. It's like he subconsciously thinks there are situations where cheating is more justified.

The most concerning thing is that despite what he's saying now, he clearly was able to justify in his head cheating on his pregnant wife while he was doing it, so his words would worry me that he'd be able to more easily justify other circumstances to cheat

@wishymore

I would never ever date someone who’s cheated. I did. I dated someone who’d cheated on his fiancée after 5 years together when they went through a rough patch. He treated her like crap and said oh she didn’t deserve it, I’ve changed, blah blah guess what? He did the EXACT same thing to me at the 5 year mark. The first time we hit issues that meant a dry spell in sex because I was poorly, he cheated. The issue with cheaters is why did he do it? She was pregnant, wasn’t getting sex, wasn’t numero unero..,didn’t like it so found attention elsewhere. Right now you shag him everytime you see him right? What happens if you don’t for months because you’ve got horrendous pregnancy sickness or you’re poorly or working away? A guy like this isn’t trustworthy because his ego and self esteem is tied up in sexual interest from females. Any female. Has he had a years worth of weekly therapy to unpick why he did it and work on it? What has he actually done to change his behaviour apart from hook up with you, a youngster who has no ties and lavishes him with sex and attention? It’s all about him right? Do you ever tell him no? Have you said no to sex when you see him? Just maybe things to think about.

This is such a perceptive post. @StayOrLeave2123 do enact what this poster has said about saying no and changing the dynamics of the relationship. Without sex and attention lavished on him and the relationship orientated towards him, his true colours will show.

@Mirrorxx

I don’t understand the part of how his ex didn’t deserve to be cheated on. Does anyone deserve to be cheated on?

Yep, some do! Some people are utter cunts and treat their partners in ways that are as bad, if not worse than cheating. Those people deserve it!!

I know a guy who emotionally abused his girlfriend terribly and used to say awful stuff to her about previous abuse she had suffered and made her feel completely worthless.
She was out one night and slept with someone. I would say her boyfriend deserved that!

Personally I don't have a problem with the words "she didn't deserve it". I would take that to mean there's no excuses and he's not putting any of the blame on her at all and that he takes responsibility for his own actions!

However, personally I couldn't stay in this relationship because I would be too paranoid about it happening to me.

It think you need to talk to him about it some more and think about how you feel about his responses. You need to understand if/how he has reflected on what happened and how his thinking patterns have changed. The thing which concerns me most is that it’s only been revealed to you 18months down the line when you are already established in a relationship.

I cheated on a significant partner 20 years ago. We should have split up long before that and I was very immature. I’ve not cheated since despite very difficult times in relationships. DP cheated on an ex in the past, again not since and I certainly trust him now as he does me. However we talked about this openly very, very early on. Eyes wide open for both of us from the start.

Not everyone is a serial cheater. Yes cheating on someone whilst pregnancy is particularly awful but he didn’t do this to you. Cheating is really common. All those who “would never date a cheat” don’t know if they have or not, they are reliant on what they are told.

You might feel that anxiety around this is not worth it, that it is too risky and you can no longer trust him. That’s absolutely ok. But decide based upon your understanding of him, yourself, your relationship and his account of what happened. But splitting up with him won’t necessarily mean that you never end up in a relationship with a cheater.

Grim. You will always wonder if he will do the same thing to you.

@SarahDarah Wow - I am glad I don't know half the people on this post - so unforgiving....

10 years ago man did shit thing to someone else
10 years later man can change, grow, know he has done wrong, apologies, feel guilt and regret
10 years ago he was young
10 years later he has gown and has said he is ashamed

I am not making excuses but OP knows him, we don't OP knows if there have been red flags. OP knows if it was a full blown affair (less forgivable) or a one night stand. OP knows her partner, OP will have a better understanding of his character.

Should their lives be uprooted for something that happened 10 years ago with someone else? This is all I was saying - I am not making excuses but I am getting annoyed with the knee jerk LTB, once a cheat aways a cheat comments.

user

"Yep, some do!
Some people are utter cunts and treat their partners in ways that are as bad, if not worse than cheating.
Those people deserve it!!"

The last thing we need on this thread is a cheater apologist.

Bad behaviour on the part of one party does not justify cheating by the other.
It might justify a visit to a solicitor to initiate a divorce, but there is never an reason/excuse/justification for cheating.

It begs the question " if things are so bad, why are they still there?"

I just can’t reconcile if it’s worth the forever wondering what if, if he isn’t home on time, or something stressful happens in our lives

Very wise of you, OP; instead of thinking about just this one (?) incident you're looking at the bigger picture

As for why he told you, it's a bit of insurance against you criticising if he does it again isn't it? After all he was "honest" and "told you what he was like" ...

He's warning you that when conditions aren't ideal in his relationship he looks for attention and sex elsewhere.

It depends what you expect from a long term relationship I guess?

@CheshireKitten123

user

"Yep, some do!
Some people are utter cunts and treat their partners in ways that are as bad, if not worse than cheating.
Those people deserve it!!"

The last thing we need on this thread is a cheater apologist.

Bad behaviour on the part of one party does not justify cheating by the other.
It might justify a visit to a solicitor to initiate a divorce, but there is never an reason/excuse/justification for cheating.

It begs the question " if things are so bad, why are they still there?"

There are of course 'reasons' why people cheat. Some reasons are the shittiest reasons of course like being selfish and greedy. Some are that someone was made to feel worthless and when someone else comes along and offers comfort they are so beaten down they take it...and lots of 'reasons' in between. Most behaviour doesn't just happen without 'reasons'.

I don't understand all this justifying stuff, bad behaviour doesn't justify cheating...there often wasn't anything really to justify the initial bad behaviour either...people generally don't sit down and ask themselves is the way they are treating their partner justified when they are treating them badly. In their heads at the time they must feel like it is if they keep doing it but perhaps later on when the issues in a relationship come to a head and need to be dealt with and they are forced to look at their behaviour then they will see that the reason they acted that way at the time or took out their anger/insecurity etc on their partner at the time was not actually anything to do with their partner at all.

The justifying argument implies that there is some kind of planned tit for tat behaviour and I don't think most people deal with relationship problems in that way, apart from sometimes in toxic relationships. Instead what often happens is the person who has been on the receiving end of the bad behaviour will internalise a lot of pain etc. and let it negatively affect them and how they feel about themselves. A person in an unhealthy relationship generally doesn't think or behave like someone in a healthy relationship.

As for why people stay when things are bad...many reasons, they feel so worthless and like no one will ever want them, they don't want to leave their kids, people are afraid of the unknown....

People don't always act in their own best interests or do the right thing for themselves, so of course they're not always going to do the 'right' thing when it comes to others.

@Aquamarine1029

What's that expression again...? Oh yeah, "Forewarned is Fair warned."

You've been warned.

The expression is "Forewarned is forearmed".

I couldn't ever trust a man who could do that to a pregnant woman. It's so utterly heartless. There is no need for it ever.

Once a cheat, always a cheat. Eventually the leopard will find some excuse to revert to its ways.
This is absolute rubbish. So a reformed drug addict will always go back to drugs, and an ex smoker will aways start to smoke again? We shouldn't be defined on one instance of something that happened 10 years ago. If you made a mistake at work, should you be sacked because once a mistake maker, always a mistake maker?
People are not spotty leopards.

@madisonbridges

Once a cheat, always a cheat. Eventually the leopard will find some excuse to revert to its ways. This is absolute rubbish. So a reformed drug addict will always go back to drugs, and an ex smoker will aways start to smoke again? We shouldn't be defined on one instance of something that happened 10 years ago. If you made a mistake at work, should you be sacked because once a mistake maker, always a mistake maker? People are not spotty leopards.

There is a difference in these scenarios.

People who come off drugs and/or have stopped smoking, will have applied some introspection and have understood why they did what they did and, what triggered it. In that way they have the ability not to do it again.
They understand what the payoff was that kept them repeating the negative behaviour. They also understand what the consequences are of continuing the behaviour.

A mistake at work is not in the same league as cheating

Cheating is not a 'mistake'. It is deliberate and involves conscious effort and planning

@CheshireKitten123
Smokers generally just decide enough is enough for various reasons and try to quit, take note of triggers and try to avoid temptation, there isn't serious introspection at all.

I would imagine some cheaters apply a lot of introspection and understand why they did what they did and learned about their own character flaws and worked on them.
For some perhaps that will have been at therapy and for others perhaps it comes with the passing of time and maturing etc.

Some others don't ever do that though of course!

What about the fact that he knowing risked STDs/STIs while he wife was pregnant with their child? She would have been making decisions about the birth based on her assumption she didn't have any risk of those.

There's this stingy gel they can put on baby's eyes if they think there is a chance of picking anything up (think clamydia?) on the way out. Have you ever seen newborn photos where the eyes are red- in some countries they use it routinely. In others only if the mother has a chance of it.

Is that what you want to risk and worry about in your own pregnancy?

I have been a cheater and don't cheat on my partner. I do believe people change. So there is no moral high ground argument from me.But to do what he did not just to her in that vulnerable time, to shit on her memories and risk her health is horrendous.

But to do all that and put his unborn child as risk shows a callousness that is unforgiveable.

Now, if you do leave him over this, please give a different reason as he will just learn to lie to the next unsuspecting woman.

@CheshireKitten123. How do you know he hasn't applied some introspection and has now understood why he did what he did and, what triggered it. In that way he will have the ability not to do it again?

Personally, I don't like cheating. Everyone can want to leave a relationship but you leave your old one before you start a new one. But just because a person failed to do that once, doesn't mean they're condemned or will choose to do that same thing ad infinitum. The wonderful thing about being human is you learn and grow. It's wrong to state that a person cannot change or that a person has to pay for an error of judgement for the rest of their lives.

Its a sad world if no-one is ever allowed to make a mistake.

Provided he is regretful and has worked on himself i wouldn't split over this no.

If he’d been honest and told you this history early on, presumably you would have seriously considered not continuing the relationship. Now you’re in love/invested in a potential future - including DC - he’s told you. As PPs say, why?

Best case scenario is that he wanted to stop lying to you about it, regrets it etc. But waited until he felt confident you wouldn’t leave.

A worse one, as PPs say, is that he’s warning you what could happen if your relationship - with him and his family - isn’t all ‘sweetness and light’.

Badmouthing his ex (she ‘kept him away from family’, didn’t get on with them etc) isn’t great either.

Thanks for all of your comments. I’ve read each and every one over the last few days.

I’ve not seen him this week, partially due to work but partially because I just don’t feel I want to. Your comments have highlighted other, little red flags that I’ve probably ignored because I’ve wanted this to work I suppose. I think this is one red flag too far though.

I know what I have to do and think it will probably all come to a head this weekend. Happy bloody Christmas!

Good luck OP. It is shitty timing but I can't help thinking that you'll never be able to trust him.

@StayOrLeave2123 It's good that you've recognised other red flags that you ignored, good luck with this weekend.

Bravo OP. Your future self will thank you for this.

Good for you OP you know your worth. I wish more women did. You will absolutely be happy again soon