He cheated on me with his high school sweetheart

My partner of 6 years, and husband of 4 years, has been having an online affair with his highschool sweetheart. Their emotional and sexual affair lasted for 10 months before I discovered the messages and confronted him.

Never in my lifetime would I have guessed that my husband would have the capacity to cheat on me. He has always been an incredibly loyal and caring friend to everyone around him, and his closest friends think highly of him. In 2022, we got pregnant with twins, and started the intense and overwhelming journey of becoming parents- to two babies! The girls were born in August and spent two very difficult months in the hospital due to prematurity. We were both completely exhausted, spent all of our parental leave in the hospital, and had to both return to work shortly after bringing them home. By January of 2023, we hadn't slept through the night in months, and our twins still needed a lot of extra care beyond a typical newborn. I've learned, that sometime in January is when my husband's ex-gf reached out to him.

Things started friendly, and my husband thought it was harmless. However, he never mentioned their reconnection to me. Shortly after they started talking, he changed her name in his phone to the name of a male mutual friend of ours and their conversations became sexually explicit. During this time I was experiencing severe Post-partum depression and suicidal ideation. He was my rock. He supported me and carried me during the darkest days of early motherhood. He helped me get into individual therapy and cheered me on when I was making progress. He supported me when I decided to quit full-time work so I could be a stay-at-home mom. Meanwhile, his online affair continued on and off.

It started to feel odd how frequently he messaged his male friend... I asked him about it. Why are you chatting with him so often? You seem to talk constantly. He replied, "oh, he's going through a hard time." I accepted that, and even felt proud that my husband was supporting his struggling friend on top of everything we were facing.

Around that time we were constantly fighting, snapping at each other, and having conflicts. Over the smallest things! Like which flavors of baby food to alternate for the twins! I chalked it up to sleep depravity, and it seemed like most people experienced this to some degree when transitioning into parenthood. We even did a few sessions with my individual therapist together to try to work on our conflict resolution. Things seemed to improve.

The work we did gave me some confidence back in our relationship, but over time I started to get an off feeling about the amount of messages he would continue to exchange with his buddy... it just didn't make sense. He has lots of friends, this friend is a bit removed and more of an acquaintance. Finally, in October, I was sitting down in our living room watching him play with our twins. His phone was on the armrest next to me, and I saw a notification come in. I was done wondering, I opened the chat and my heart stopped. An endless thread of messages and explicit photos of her. I didn't take a close look at the pictures, but I could just tell from the initial glance who it was. His high school gf that he had dated for five years into college.

I took the time to read the most recent exchange which was especially devastating. She confessed that she had never been able to find another connection like what they had. That she would never have that again... she is also married. He responded and essentially said the same thing back to her. I looked up at my kids, and thought, was this our last day as a family? The twins had just started to get more independent. Things were looking up for us. But, has my husband been settling for me for the past six years? Is this all about to end?

I immediately called him over and asked him to look at his phone. He broke down crying/sobbing. Told me yes, it's been going on for a year. I asked who the girl was. He said an ex... I asked more specifically.. he told me yes it's his highschool gf.

Today it's been about 1 1/2 months since I discovered it. We are both in individual therapy and in couples therapy. We are both committed to attempting reconciliation. We both want to stay together and have a happy future. I'm just terrified. Terrified that he was able to lie to me for such a long period of time. That it all happened with his first love, the girl he lost his virginity to, the girl he thought he would marry at one point.

He's told me that he wasn't interested in seeing her in real life (we live across the country from her), and that it was just an online escape when he was experiencing his own depression during the difficult year. He just got affirmation and pleasure out of it, and he has no desire for a future with her. He would reach out to her when he was horny, and masturbate to thoughts of her in our shower. She was someone he could voice his frustrations to, and the difficulties of parenthood, and they would exchange sexy photos.

I want to believe that it was just an escape, that it was just her because it was convenient, but how can I possibly be confident in anything he says to me? I always took him at his word, I never pried into his personal phone or computer, and we have ALL of each other's passwords and credentials. It's devastating to know he rekindled something with such a significant ex-lover, it makes me feel that he was never over her. It's horrifying to know it lasted for 10 months. 10 months of lying next to me, sleeping with me, visiting my family, raising our children together, and underneath his calm demeanor this absolutely disgusting lie.

13 comments posted: Tuesday, December 12th, 2023