Me and my boyfriend met in May 2021 and became official in July 2021. Before me, he had a child from another relationship which ended in November 2020. About 6 or 7 months into us dating, an old friend messaged me and we’d fallen out and not spoken in about a year. We fell out because he had feelings for me that I didn’t reciprocate. I told my boyfriend that he’d messaged, and my boyfriend said he felt uncomfortable with it because he had feelings, so I blocked the guy straight away out of respect for my boyfriend.
About a year ago, I got a horrible gut feeling that he was cheating. Against my better judgement, I went on his phone to have a look. I found out that he had in fact been messaging another girl. He had never met her in person, but they began talking in 2020 as friends. I had a look through the messages and I found out she told him she liked him right around the time he met me, in fact I think it was within the same week. He had told her he wasn't ready for a relationship. The whole time we were together he never mentioned her. I also saw that he had continued messaging her the entire time we had been together which at that point was just under a year. I was never mentioned at all. As far as she was concerned, he was still single. As stupid as it might sound, I felt like I’d been cheated on, but he apologised, saying that he hadn’t seen it from my side before, and he blocked her. I told him if it ever happened again, we were done. Last night, the horrible gut feeling came back. I feel so bad for doing it, but I checked his phone thinking I was being paranoid and there’d be nothing to worry about, but I found out he’d been texting another girl. However this time it wasn’t just some girl he’d met online and never met in person, there were photos of her sitting on his lap, and messages of him being her food and being very flirty. And to make it worse there were topless photos of him. This was all from March 2021 so before we met. I feel like I’m overreacting, but he has always been adamant that he never even spoke to any girls in that way between him and his ex breaking up and us meeting. So now I know he lied about that. There was also a photo of a rock she’d given him when they went out for a walk. The message showed that they’d gone for a walk in the town I was living in when we met just 2 months after this walk. That alone doesn’t sound weird, except the town is an hour away from where he was living, and it’s a tiny town that is basically just one small high street. When we met and he came up there to meet me, he acted as if he’d never really been there and has always maintained that before me, he didn’t go there. So lie number 2. None of this would be too bad except that he’s started messaging her again. He sent her a photo of his daughter that I know was only taken last weekend because I was in bed when he took it and he showed me. But still no mention of this girl. The part that’s killing me the most is that, even if he says he didn’t realise how it would be from my side again, why isn’t he thinking about my feelings when he’s messaging girls that he has a past with, knowing how much it hurt me last time? I know I need to talk to him about it, but I can’t tell him I went on his phone again, so I don’t know what to do.