Found out about cheating event 3 years later
My long term partner M35 broke up with me F25 suddenly after I was gone for a week on vacation. He said that he had been so busy and exhausted with work that he did not feel like he could be there for me in the way that I deserve deserved. we had been going through some stuff before that, but it still felt out of left field for me. so I asked him if there was someone else. He said yes, it was just a work flirtation, but he felt so guilty, that he just needed some time to get better. I said that if nothing actually happened then I’d be happy to work it out while staying together, but he insisted that we needed to take a break.
We were broken up from beginning of July and started seeing each other again mid October, I had reached out to him asking if he was doing all right, and we started going out from there. During our break up, we had both sought therapy, and spent three months dating unofficially and were back together for real in January, (6 months total)
I have felt like things have drastically improved in our relationship since getting back together. We have now been together almost six years (if you don’t exclude the break.) Last year we got engaged, had a baby in the summer, and bought a house together in the fall. Our wedding is weeks away.
I was doing some wedding preparation on his computer that he barely ever uses, and had to upload some photos. They uploaded to his camera roll that opened up to pictures from years ago. (Picture sent via text auto upload to his camera roll) and there was pictures of the girl I knew was the said work flirtation in a suggestive selfie. Something that definitely wouldn’t be sent if it was only a work thing. It was sent a week or so before him and I started seeing eachother again.
So I dug. It became clear that they had slept together and so I approached him about it when he got home. He seemed anxious, but almost relieved when I asked him to tell me the whole truth. He told me that the week that I was gone on vacation they had slept together. Before he had broken up with me. Which obviously hurts the most. And then the entire summer well we were broken up. They were seeing each other. He swore that they did not have sex after him and I started seeing each other again in the fall. But there were some dirty texts, and plans to get drinks that overlapped with the time him and I had started seeing each other again. But we were not officially dating or exclusive at that time.
I understand when you start a lie it becomes harder and harder to tell the truth the more that time passes. I am angry because I probably would not have been so graceful to him if I would have known the truth from the get go, and we may have never gotten back together. I can’t imagine a life without my son and a large part of me is glad I didn’t know. But I’m still so upset that he’s been living with this lie for the last three years when we’ve had so many major events happen together.
I will not be leaving him. I’m excited to marry him and I love him deeply, also not going to sacrifice my sons parents being together, and we genuinely have made so much growth over the last three years. I want to fully forgive him because unhealthy people make mistakes. I want this coming into the open to feel freeing. I want him and I to both be able to be a fully healed people.
But of course I’m having a very hard time not being hurt. I think it’s my right to be hurt, but I just need advice on what questions to ask to have closure on the situation without rehashing out things in a way that will only emotionally harm both of us more . What should I know, and what should I leave be? What do I ask to be able to move on and trust him again?
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**TL;DR;** : what questions to ask to stay together? Encouragements?