Me and my ex boyfriend had been together just over a year and half before I found out I was pregnant. We'd always said we never wanted children, but after some discussion we agreed we both wanted to have the baby.
Things were going great until I went to visit him when I was about 14 weeks pregnant. On my last day there he lent me his jacket and I found an empty condom wrapper inside the pocket. I confronted him and he said it was just an old one from before we were together. Obviously I knew it was a lie but I couldn't bring myself to press further as I knew the implications.
So I dropped it, went back home and spent the entire evening crying. The next day I confronted him on video call and he just went silent before finally saying he had cheated on me. That was all though, no other information he just sat there with his head in his hands not even looking at me. He also had the cheek to say he knew this would cause trust issues in our relationship. I shut him down and told him it was over and that was that. I also made it very clear I wouldn't stand in the way of his and the baby's relationship despite what had happened.
A week or so later he texts me to tell me about the night it happened. Alleging that is was after we'd had a drunken argument about his friend cheating of all things and he'd stormed off from my house. I had my doubts because that argument had been over 5 months ago and the jacket with the condom in it had been at my house long after that night, before he took it back with him. But he was adamant and stuck by that story and also swore it was the only time that he'd cheated on me so I stupidly believed him.
2 weeks after we broke up he went away with work to Germany and we agreed to meet up to talk in person when he got back. Fast forward to meeting up a month later for the first time and he was nothing but horrible telling me he wasn't going to sit around and cry about the situation whilst I was there in tears or how he wouldn't let what had happened define him. I also brought up him liking an Andrew Tate video that basically said men should be allowed to have sex with whoever they want and their wives should be totally accepting of that and he just literally laughed in my face.
A couple weeks later we had our 20 week baby scan. After the scan he told me that he could provide for the baby financially but not emotionally. Then for the rest of my pregnancy I didn't hear much from him at all. I tried to contact him after my first appointment with my midwife in my hometown but he refused to call me and even turned his phone off so I couldn't contact him. When I challenged him about this he said he was just trying to enjoy the last of his summer leave.
I saw him once in person when I was about 8 months pregnant arranged by his Mum. He came to my Mum's house where I was staying and she cornered him outside. She told me that he said he never wanted to get back with me and that if we did he'd just do the same thing again. When I confronted him about this he started crying and saying he'd never say or do that. After this contact was minimal right up until the day the baby was born.
After the birth he stayed for a couple of weeks and I stupidly thought maybe I could get over what had happened because I so badly wanted us to be a family. That was until I worked out that he'd had a new girlfriend that he'd met in Germany not 2 weeks after we'd broken up and had been with her pretty much the whole time I'd been pregnant. Turns out he'd taken her away on holiday and that's why he wouldn't answer the phone after my midwife appointment. The fact that he'd cried to me about what my Mum said as well being in new relationship felt like such a slap in the face. Again I confronted him about it and he finally came clean saying he didn't tell me as he didn't want to add more to my plate. I know ultimately I can't be annoyed by it as I was the one who broke up with him but obviously I was still very upset.
Anyway fast forward nearly 4 months after the baby was born and by this point we were talking a lot more and our relationship was a lot better. Cut to two weeks ago when he finally decided to reveal that he had cheated on me 4 times over the course of our relationship and that the condom was in fact from the night I let him stay in my flat whilst I went on holiday and he brought a guy back and had sex with him in my bed whilst my flatmates were in. I had practically been begging for this information from the start and he withheld it all up until now.
He swears that it was just sex with all of them but he had one of the girls on Instagram and would pop up to her stories. He tried to blame being drunk on his behaviour and swore he regretted it all. With a little pushing I managed to get him to admit that he didn't regret any of his actions and he cheated just because he could. He finally decided to tell me all this because he's found religion and wants to be 100% truthful. He swears he's stopped drinking and completely changed.
Now I don't even know what to do. I'd finally begun to forgive him and I wanted to be able to do things with the baby as a family even if we weren't together. I think what upsets me most of all is that he withheld all of this from me when I told him I was pregnant. He let me think our child was going to be brought up in a stable loving family just to save face. How do I even come back from this disrespect and what am I supposed to do moving forward