Old messages to another woman, I’m pregnant

[Lou1293]

Hi everyone

I’m currently 15 weeks pregnant with a very much wanted and planned baby.
I was using my husbands iPad today (with his consent) tried to log in to my Facebook and noticed another login called Dave (not his name) obviously with intrigue I clicked onto the messenger.

There are messages between him and another woman back in 2020 (before we married but very much in a serious relationship). They are along the lines of him wanting some fun, he isn’t single but wanting to leave ‘the Mrs’ as she’s not fun 😓

Nearly 3 years later - we are married, 1 miscarriage last year and now 15 weeks pregnant. He said he’s sorry and that it was a mistake.
There doesn’t appear to be messages to/from anyone else since.

I don’t know what to do. I love him but how do I trust him ever again when he promises it was a mistake and it hasn’t happened since and won’t again.
I’m embarrassed to talk to friends/family. I’ve asked him to leave the house to give me space to think about what I want. I feel so alone.

I'm sorry this happened to you. You'll get many differing opinions about what you should do but I think you've done the right thing in terms of giving yourself some breathing room to think. If things have been good between you since you got married and decided to have a child, I would move on from this. People make stupid decisions all the time and there's no guarantees this won't happen again but the very nature of choosing a life partner and starting a family is a big leap of faith. You're starting from a position of knowing that your partner isn't bulletproof and therefore already ahead of many others. Communication is key.

What’s his version of what happened following those messages?

Actively trying to have an affair isn’t a mistake. I’d need to have a lot more of an explanation for him trying to hook up with someone else beyond “it was a mistake”. Was he actually thinking his relationship with you was dead in the water at the time and has since changed his mind? Was he actually perfectly happy with you but fancied a shag with someone else?

What you want is to have back the relationship that you thought you had until this bombshell was dropped. But that relationship sadly doesn’t exist. You presumably thought you were on a happy, monogamous relationship whereas your husband was happy to (at best) attempt to shag another woman or perhaps actually has. That said I don’t doubt for a minute how impossible the thought of ending the marriage must be when you are pregnant with a much wanted baby.

Perhaps now isn’t the time to make any firm decisions. But unless he is utterly, utterly contrite and desperate to do anything in his power to save your marriage then I would proceed with extreme caution and have a back up plan for going it alone. Having a baby is absolutely wonderful but will also widen any existing cracks in a relationship.

I wish you the best OP

Hi OP, some really sound advice from other posters here. I think you’ve got to establish who this woman actually is- work colleague etc and why the messages stopped or did it move onto something else between them before you can be satisfied to forgive. I think you’ve got to be realistic that he may be using other social media to do this with other women in the past or present. I think it’s the active deception that bothers me like using a different name and that really suggests it’s likely to be a personality trait if his - a trait you were not aware of until now. Remember he didn’t tell you- you found out and he’s been comfortable living with this knowledge for a while. Whatever you decide have a period of separation to give space to your own feelings as a baby will create all sorts of resentment in relationships and place pressure on the cracks. I think alot of women would leave now and cut their losses whilst they are still in control otherwise you are investing in a relationship that isn’t actually what you were led to believe it was. Good luck OP x

Ps, arrange counselling for yourself to talk in private to someone about how your feeling and your situation if you don’t feel able or want to confide in friends xx

It’s a very strange situation, he had set up a fake profile under a different name and photo.
the messages appeared to fizzle out as the woman didn’t seem overly interested and never went past ‘I want some fun’. She lives 200+
miles away and he is friends with her on his real profile. Says he met her on a night out up north years ago (before we were together) and they’ve been friends on Facebook since 2014.

What I don’t understand and he can’t give an explanation to is why her and why a fake profile. He says it was just for a bit of entertainment and that he was probably just hoping for some dirty pictures (that don’t seemed to have happened). We were going through a pretty stressful time with lockdown and jobs. We had moved back into parents prior to buying our home but had to move out in lockdown into temporary accommodation due to our jobs (NHS & police). The cottage we were living in was awful and it generally wasn’t a very pleasant time of our lives. I don’t think anything physical has happened with her as we were in lockdown and it appears the messages just fizzled out after a couple of days.

What confuses me is if he has set up a fake profile, why say he’s in a relationship. Why not lie and say he’s single?! I’ve since been through ever message on Facebook, instagram, every social media site and emails and there is nothing else that would suggest infidelity.

I’m baffled, hurt and incredibly hormonal and struggling to know what to do next.

Sorry this is happening. I wouldn’t be able to get past the fact he thinks you’re no fun and wants to leave! Cruel. Difficult time but I’d leave x

It’s difficult because we’ve had 3 wonderful years since, really truly deeply happy. We got engaged in 2021 and had the most incredible wedding and honeymoon last year, got our puppy and are starting a family. This isn’t excusing him, these are facts.

I sway between thinking we can move past this, in time with the knowledge that one of the other posts said about knowing he isn’t bulletproof and whether I cut my losses now and go ahead on my own with my baby. Being pregnant complicates things. I suppose time is the only thing that will help things become clearer and how he responds.

Realistically OP, you're highly unlikely to leave right now, no matter what anyone advises on this thread or in real life. That's just a fact.

But sadly what's also a fact is that you'll never trust him the same way again. You can't un-know what you now know.

And trust me, babies put a strain on the strongest of relationships, so when you feel deep in the mire of the newborn/toddler days and your relationship is inevitably put under strain to a level it's not had to cope with before, won't you wonder every time he goes on a night out/weekend away or whatever, that he just might be tempted to do it again?

Was a cruel man he is, why didn't he leave if you were no fun in the first place, marriage and babies doesn't inject fun into men like this, if anything cheating men are more likely to cheat when babies arrive.
Trying to manipulate her into thinking he wants to leave you, obviously that was a big lie, you haven't done anything wrong, it's not because you weren't fun enough, he just enjoys it the thrill of cheating and possibly she wasn't single either if went under a different name. Not sure I could carry on loving a man that doesn't love you back in the way you deserve. I appreciate it's a difficult situation now being pregnant but you risk this all blowing up again in future.

I don't think this is the worst thing in the world. Incredibly upsetting to discover, stupid, baffling but harmless ultimately.

How has he been since you found out? Decent it sounds...no shouting, no denial, an apology, an explanation, given you space.

If we all left partners who made mistakes we'd all be single.

It's easy to write an outraged post...but let mine be the voice to say I think in the context of a long and happy relationship this is isolated, historic, minor and forgivable.

I think you've done the right thing by asking for some space to get your head around this.
Don't make any hasty decisions right now. Let it all sink in and process it and if you feel able, talk to him openly and frankly. All the best

@Lou1293
I'm so sorry you've found this it must be an awful shock.

I'm going against the grain here I'm afraid......

I was taught that if a man has the intention to cheat or does cheat and you forgive them, not only are you masking a problem but you're in effect saying "that's ok" and gives them an open invite to do it again.

It's also the level of lies like setting up another profile and attempting to hide it.

I personally think you deserve better than this and I'd leave him. It will always be in the back of your mind and you deserve better ❤️

Was he trying to catfish her? I wonder if she ever knew who he was. Either way he doesn't sound nice. I agree you will never completely trust him. He's showed you want he can be like.

don't think this is the worst thing in the world. Incredibly upsetting to discover, stupid, baffling but harmless ultimately
I wouldn't say it is ultimately harmless , the op is pregnant and questioning her future.

It's awful and very sorry for you OP. I want to give you hope though, as I myself went through my partner having a ONS and finding out much later. I wanted to leave him but he convinced me to stay. It was REALLY hard to trust him again, he had a lot of proving to do. But he was 100% committed to getting us through it, and I ha e to say it took about 2 years but the relationship was (I'm going to get grilled for this) actually better in the longrun.
Couples recover from affairs and full blown infidelity if they both want to, and the relationship can become much stronger and a better one for it. It's not easy though and I'm not trying to make light of what he's done.

It's a question of trust isn't it?

Is he going to do this every time things aren't rosy? There will be periods (especially in family life) where things feel mundane. That's life. And you need to consider if he is likely to do it again, given that you had zero idea.

Also, why has he kept the messages?

I don't have any advice on what you should do, but you should know that you're never going to forget about this and go back to being perfectly happy.

Honestly, wanting the excitement of sex is one stupid mistake, hard to get past. Putting me down to the other woman, insulting my personality and ultimately telling her how he really feels about you. That's another thing. I guess the question is, do you want to spend the rest if your relationship insecure and trying to impress him.

Sorry to hear this. Good idea to ask him to leave the house to give you some space. How long will he be away for? Just a day or longer?

You know it now, so it will be impossible to forget. The trust you had for him is broken and it will take a lot of hard work and years to possibly get it back.

It’s good that he has not denied it and has said sorry, but is that all he said?
He needs to do a lot more to prove that it didn’t go any further than the messages you saw and that he hasn’t also done the same with other people.
He needs to explain the details to you. Why did he do it?
Was he really bored and why?
Did he really feel that you were not any fun at the time?
Does he still feel the same way now?
You’ll continue to have more questions during the upcoming days, weeks, months, years if you don’t hash it all out now, so he’ll need to be open and receptive to that. Plus, with you being pregnant now your hormones will be changing constantly and you’ll be feeling even more vulnerable than ever.

Only you know him and your relationship, so you’ll know what your gut is really telling you.

Bottom line is - it would be easier to end it now if your weren’t pregnant. Ultimately, that is the tough decision that you’re faced with. If you decide to stay and try to work through this, be prepared that you may be a single parent if your marriage can’t get through this.

You’ll never get the trust back exactly how it was before, but was this a stupid one-off mistake on his part that didn’t go any further because he realised it was a bad move and he stopped it all right there and then with his last message to this woman OR is there more to his behaviour and you are just not aware of all of it? These type of questions will always pop up in your head from time to time years down the line, if you don’t ask all of these questions now and do a lot of digging.

I would walk if I didn’t have kids, but I would be open to couple counselling if I already had children and my partner/DH seemed generally sorry, remorseful, regretful and was prepared to put his all into the relationship going forward to prove how much he wanted the relationship survive.

The trust is gone, so both of you will need to be absolutely open and transparent concerning all aspects of your relationship and your social interactions with others going forward, if your relationship has any hope of working through this bombshell.

I really feel for anyone going through this whilst pregnant, especially when pregnant with their first child with a man that has done something like this. The unborn child is the ultimate sacrifice here.
How do you feel about being a single parent?
Are you considering ending the pregnancy?
Would you have a good support network around you if you continued with the pregnancy as a single parent?
Would you have to give up your job if you were to become a single parent?
Where would you and the child live?
Would you rather take the risk of starting again with someone new?

All rhetorical questions that you should be considering but no need to respond to on here, unless you want to. Take your time to think things through, although you don’t have much time re. any decisions in regard to your very much wanted pregnancy 💐