Previous affair discovered
I (30M) discovered that my 8 years girlfriend (28F) has cheated on me all through the first year of our relationship.
I have the bad habit to check her phone from time to time. It started several years ago with me suspecting her of being dishonest about her doings while she was on Erasmus in a foreign country. There was a guy she was pretty close with, and during her exchange I asked her if there was anything and shared my jealousy. I didn't want to be comforted but the truth. At this time she assured me that there was nothing, not even some attraction between them. But I couldn't shake the uneasiness I was feeling. My GF and the guy (23M at the time), was doing all sorts of activities, going to watch sunsets, doing sports, going to the beach or watching movies during the evening.
So I checked her phone when she came back from that exchange. "I really want to fvck one of my friend".
I found this message in a conversation with her two best friends. I confronted her about who this friend was. It happened to be the guy that made me insecure all this time.
I mostly felt betrayed because of the lie, not because she felt attraction to another guy. Also because I realized that I will never have a truthful answer about what happened. Since then we moved on.
The cheating that happened was with her previous sxxfriend. She dated a guy (28M) before we got together. I've learned about him two years into the relationship, because she asked me if it was okay if he spent the night at her place. I wasn't comfortable at that time, but I thanked her for coming to me. She told me that he was just a friend since with been together and nothing else. She kept seeing him occasionally for a drink. The only issue I had with this is the labeling of their relationship. She kept saying, "a friend", but he was more than a friend from my POV because they used to fvck. It was an issue every time she met him until she admitted that even though they were friends now, I couldn't see him as her other male friends. Whom she didn't have sxx with.
This is it for the long context explanation. A few days ago I went through her phone, and saw that she was still talking to the "previous sxxfriend". With some morbid curiosity I scrolled through the text, there was nothing special in the text just two friends talking. However I couldn't explain why I checked messages from 6-7 years ago. And saw that she was still flirting with him at that time. I've discovered that she kept seeing him romantically for the first year of our relationship. And she kept asking him "when do we see each other" even after. And this until he talked to her about me. He learned through a common friend that she had a boyfriend. And she stopped asking him to see him.
I feel greatly betrayed and confused. It has been so long since it happened, she is not the same woman and I'm not the same man. But still, all those lies. I don't know what to do. Do I confront her, do I break up, can I keep on with our relationship without saying anything ? If she did it once did it happen again after with someone else ?
Thank you for reading through my rambling and for your advice. Please excuse my poor writing, english is my secondary language.