u/HumbleRedditAccount

Hello RPW. I'm coming to hopefully get some advice from the community I value.

My husband and I are married for almost 3 years, together for 10. He went to his family's side of the country for a few days to attend some family events - since I'm studying and these events overlap with my exams, I stayed at home while he went there on his own.

As it happens, when I was doing some house chores, I noticed a piece of paper that caught my attention which turned out to be his - very messy and cryptic - some sort of diary entry from a few years ago when we were engaged but not yet married. Without going too much into the details, it looks like on one of the trips with his former university club, he met a girl. While some of the entries in this diary are hard to decrypt and understand without context, it's pretty clear that something had happened. He wrote about how the smell of her hair made him crazy, how they swam together, how they hugged, how they woke up early to see the sunrise, how he was telling her that he admires her and maybe in a different life things would turn out differently... (he told her that he's engaged and she told him she has a boyfriend). Though I'm not 100% sure about it, it seems that they kissed too and I wouldn't be surprised if they went even further. He wrote about how he couldn't help but stare at her and how beautiful she was, how they exchanged snaps, how he accompanied her to the airport, cried in the bathroom for 10 minutes after she left and followed her flight on flightradar. My husband's native language is different than mine and his handwriting style is very illegible, so I couldn't understand everything, but what I got makes it pretty clear that he violated my trust. A lot.

What hurt me the most was how many elements of what I thought are just the inner humor and "language" of our relationship he shared with her. They promised that it's not the last time they see each other and I have no idea what happened later.

Now, we have since gotten married, moved countries and are now just looking to start building our house. This has never come up and I didn't have any reasons to suspect something like this has ever happened. I have no idea if they met ever since or are in touch.

It took all the power I had to finish reading and translating this entry and to stay calm - not blow up on him through the phone, not share this with any of my close ones nor reach out for booze or cigarettes to calm myself down. If there's any good side to this situation, it really showed me how much I learnt to process and deal with strong emotions, which is something I've been working hard on for the past couple of years.

He's coming back tomorrow and I'm not sure how to take it from there and I would appreciate the sub's advice on how to confront him and how to proceed. I could look into his phone, which I never did, but know the code to unlock it - I feel repulsed to do it though. I tried to find her on social media based on the breadcrumbs I found in the diary entry, but without success.

I love him and until yesterday I really thought our relationship - although had bumps, but which relationship of 10+ years doesn't - is great. He's my best friend, my rock, someone whom I truly envisioned my forever with. We just bought a land together and were looking to start building our house and trying to conceive. I want to make this relationship work, but I'm so hurt.

I don't want to spiral into any more negative thoughts and assume too much before confronting him, so for now I would truly appreciate some advice on how to confront him when he's back. Thank you RPW.

Cannot setup WhatsApp

Found evidence of my husband cheating (?) with another woman a few years ago. Need some help on how to proceed from here.