Keeping things a secret from a partner

[Chocolatepoodle]

I feel silly that I am writing this but it has hurt my feelings and I can't talk about it with anyone .I absolutely adore and love my boyfriend.We have been together for years and live together and have two girls . When he first asked me out he said it was something he never does and was shy and I was the first person he had liked and asked out after his former long term girlfriend who he lived with for 10 years and it made me feel special he had never done this before. He is so sweet to me and we're so happy . About 3 months ago his sister was chatting and told me he had asked out and tried to start a relationship with a girl before me that was a friend of his former partner and she was upset about him asking as she's loyal to her friend and turned him down and has avoided anything to do with him again and won't speak to him.But still sends presents in the post to his daughter at birthdays and Christmas but never comes he see his daughter since that ,it was about a month before me .I felt hurt he hadn't told me before and had kept it a secret for over two years and that I had to hear it from someone else.I asked him about it and he explained the situation which I accept and understand.But it's hurt my feelings that he lied to me for so long .I had asked him about this girl before and he said nothing had ever happened between them as I thought it was strange she stopped seeing his daughter as she was like a Aunty to her before and it did knock my confidence that he had feelings for another woman just before me .I love him to bits but I wish he would have been honest from the start its not the asking someone else out part that hurts it's denying it to my face on afew occasions and keeping it from me for so long .This women does have very similar features and looks to his former partner which did hurt me .I know I am being silly and I love him but it still makes me feel a bit sad and I need to stop it and move on .Any help or comments on the situation would be appreciated

Its a bit hard to understand your post but it seems you are anxious about an old flame in your partners past ?

I don’t want to sound harsh but you seem very insecure.

It’s a storm in a teacup. He was perfectly entitled to see anyone he wished before he took up with you.
Relax & enjoy what you have with him now and what you have to look forward to. Yesterday is history.

It seems you are really fishing for something to be unhappy about. Why?
You have been together for 4 years - and seem to be happy together. And have small kids?

Everything you are talking about was before he met you. His relationship of 10 years, with a child involved, fell apart.

Who knows how deeply affected he was. And who even knows what it meant that he ‘asked out’ a friend at that time. He may have been in pain, grasping at straws, hoping it would make it feel better. Or maybe he was trying to make ex want him back. So many scenarios there.

In your head you are making it a much better deal and somehow comparing that to him meeting you - a total stranger at the time. Those are completely different situations. It takes a lot of a shy person to approach a stranger, ask out and start a whole relationship.
There is no lying that you need to get over. And there wasn’t anything he needed to come clean about.

Are you prone to irrational insecurity? Anything going on in your life to make you feel this way?