My wife and high school sweetheart (29F) cheated on me (29M) back in college, and she doesn’t know that I know
My wife and I are high school sweethearts. Very innocent and pure relationship, we were our first everythings, etc. We went to separate colleges, did long distance the whole time, had our ups and downs but overall were pretty steady.
We got engaged back in 2022, shortly thereafter we went on vacation together. I’m not sure why I did this, and I’m not proud of it, but I was drunk one night on vacation and I decided to go through her phone while she was asleep. I knew that she talked to this one guy a lot back in college, we’re talking like 2017ish. During that time he and her were doing a summer internship together out of state, and it was a very stressful time for me and her, definitely a rough patch in our relationship. In any event, I always had a feeling that she did something with him, and after scouring through her Facebook messages with him I unfortunately proved myself right. It was fragmented, but I know for sure they made out at least once, and she met up with him without me knowing at least a few times. The whole thing only lasted a summer, maybe a few months. I don’t really know how deep it went or how physical it got, and honestly I don’t think I wanna know. At the time it really ate me up and tore me apart. The next morning I tried to indirectly address it, I sat her down and just asked her if she’s ever been with anyone else while we were together, when she asked why I was bringing it up I just told her I wanted to just lay it all out on the table before we got married. Long story short she denied having ever cheated on me or anything, which was equally gut wrenching because she had lied to my face. I didn’t want to tell her that I went through her messages, I didn’t wanna press her any further because after all this was years ago. So I pushed it to the back of my mind and I let it go.
Fast forward and we’ve had the most amazing life together. We got married in 2024 and have since had two years of near perfect marriage. We’ve traveled together, lived together, and I can’t say I could be any happier in our relationship. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it from time to time.
Recently, for some reason, I started thinking about it more. I’ve found myself back in this viscous cycle where I ask myself theoretical questions and do mental gymnastics to figure out what her relationship with this guy was. For the past few days it’s been the last thing on my mind when I fall asleep and the first thing on my mind when I wake up. It feels pathetic.
I’ve wanted to confront her about it so badly, but it’s been almost 9 years at this point, and we’re such different people and have such a different relationship than we had before. Why would I ruin such an amazing era of our lives by bringing something up that she did when she was in college? I want so badly to just push it down again and forget it, But I just can’t get it off my mind.