My partner and I have been together for 10years now. Back in July last year I found out he had cheated on me with a colleague (mostly emotional/texting from what I can gather but I'll never really know if it was physical or not). At the time we were expecting a baby and in the midst of selling the house. I felt trapped into making a decision to continue the house sale (there was no other option really contractually at the time, we had already exchanged) and hope to try to salvage the relationship once we had moved in. I was mostly just worried about putting a roof over the children's heads.
When caught, he didn't try to deny it. He did a bit of skirting around the issue by trying to focus on how I found out (reading a text on his phone) but at least did the decent thing by not trying to gaslight me that it didn't happen. At the time I thought this was to his credit, but as times gone on, the doubt about whether this was just in fact to stop me digging any further has crept in. He said he was struggling with stuff that was going on in our lives, wasn't sure why he did it, and was never going to act on it.
The time I can confirm he was cheating on me was a difficult time, there was a lot of drama around some medical stuff in my family, and stuff with the children, the aftermath I was having to deal with. I was not a fun person, and my life was consumed by having to deal with the issues with the kids. There were financial and practical ramifications and I had begged him to be more supportive of me (which stings even more now that I know he was focusing attention elsewhere). My partner did, try to support me practically at times, and I don't want to say he never did anything to help because that would be unfair. It was also the kind of situation where there's no instruction manual, and I did wonder at times if I was asking for too much from him.
There were other issues in our relationship that were more common, I felt I was carrying too much of the burden of caring for the children, unfair financial splits, and that he seemed to prioritise his job over all else. I'm not saying he does nothing in the house or childcare related, but it was/is not balanced out (I don't believe he actually knows enough about what I do for the family to know how unbalanced it is).
I do love him, he is funny, he does balance my more anxious nature, and as a stepparent goes, he does a lot for my children (although he does prefer one of them to the other - I think the feelings mutual so it's hard to put any blame on him being closer to one of them). He'd probably tell you I don't reassure him he's attractive enough, that he felt rejected by me and that he's trying and I don't give him enough credit for what he does.
But I'm struggling to move on. I can't forgive him, and despite wanting to work on it, I think I'm so resentful of some of the stuff that's happened that I have no patience for minor annoyances. I feel like I'm on the edge of keeping it together at all times, that little things tip me over. He made a tonne of promises to get me to continue with the house purchase (more time making an effort to go out and do couples things, counselling, legal cohabitation agreements etc) and none of them have come through. I don't trust him anymore anytime he's on his phone. I feel I can't truly rely on him emotionally, and I think it's making me into a person i don't want to be. I'm not going to pretend to be an easy person to live with all the time, I have my own trauma baggage and have probably half created this mess by martyring myself into making our relationship work.
I can't just move me and the kids out, i can't afford it and I don't want to cause them more trauma than some of them have already had. Is it actually possible to move on and stay in our relationship and work it out, or am I wasting my time and making myself a toxic person. I worry about dragging the kids and even hun down fighting for a relationship he can't actually save.