I (29 F) am 8 months pregnant with my (M 51) boyfriend and he has been texting and meeting with his ex without my knowing. How do I move forward?
This is my first post ever on Reddit. I really need the support during this time of my life. I don't feel like I have anyone to talk to and get clarity on this situation.
I (29 F) am 8 months pregnant with my (M 51) boyfriend.we have been together for 2 years. I have been more happy with him than anyone in my whole life and he has made me feel more special and seen than anyone I've ever been with. When I became pregnant, it wasn't planned but he agreed to support me with whatever choice I made. Since being pregnant with him and feeling more hormonal than usual at this time, I have been having growing suspicions about what he is doing or seeing on his phone.
(Back Story) Him and I have been arguing much more lately because I feel like he hasn't been spending much time with me getting things ready for our son to be born. We don't live together yet. I live in an apartment with my daughter who is 5 from a previous relationship and he has a daughter who is 15 from a previous relationship and he lives in a trailer with her in town close to where I live. We have been slowly trying to bring our family together as a unit but I don't feel like he has been putting in much if any effort to make it happen. He spends one week on with his daughter and one week off from her to be with me at my house and it feels like all tasks have fallen onto my shoulders to bring our families together and because of this I have been complaining that he hasn't been putting in effort to bring our family together before our baby to be born and to help me set things up for the baby as well.
A few weeks ago we had a big argument about all of this and I finally gained the courage to ask to see his phone. At first he was hesitant but gave it to me. I ended up finding porn on his Reddit. Which he has told me when we first got together that he never watched porn and we both agreed that was something we wouldn't have in our relationship. So he lied about that for 2 years. But the worst part was that in his messages he was talking to an ex he never told me about. He has told me about all his past exes over the years and I didn't have a problem with him being friends with one of them which was his most recent ex. They had a good relationship that ended mutually because he didn't want kids with her and felt their relationship wasn't passionate enough.
Him and the ex I didn't know about talked a few times a month and called each other either early morning or late at night and sometimes a few times a week. It was kind of inconsistent but it kind of felt intimate. Nothing sexual that I could see. But he had met up with her and her kids a few times since him and I were together and I had no idea about it. They exchange texts like "I love you so very much❤️❤️❤️" and "I miss you so very much!" A lot, as well as him sending her a lot of cute selfie pictures from his past dating app of himself that I don't even own on my phone of him, which broke my heart a lot. He sent her pictures of poems he wrote (he is a writer) that I haven't even seen before. And they have exchanged photos of each other when they used to date 20 years ago and romanticize the time they had spent together then.
He was very defensive about it when I expressed concern and he told me that I was jealous and insecure.
I also had found that he was talking to a young woman about my age that he knew her when she was very young and was his friend's daughter at the time when he lived in Idaho. He claims she reached out to him years later and expressed her gratitude for him helping raise her. But she calls him "baby" (he says that's how she normally talks to everyone apparently) and says "I love you" to him and calls him at least once a week. He admitted that she can be flirtatious but that it is "harmless". I told him he should have boundaries with her and he claimed he didn't want to hurt her feelings.
I am sorry for the long post, but at the end of all of this when I expressed my discomfort in him talking to his ex the way he did and met up with her he was extremely defensive and claimed I was crazy and psycho because she is married with kids and he dated her 20 years ago and has no feelings for her. He told me that I was psycho and crazy for having these concerns and for asking to see his phone.
I feel very vulnerable at this time being 8 months pregnant and at the very end of my pregnancy. I just wish to have some clarity because a part of me cannot believe this is happening.