Let us set the scene, I was 15 weeks into a planned pregnancy with my boyfriend of 6 years. Our journey to this point had certainly been rocky, okay it was more like boulders than rocks. We had separated and swiftly got back together. We had argued and we had healed.
It was a day like any other, I had opened my laptop absentmindedly and on the screen was my partner’s email. Normally this would be no big deal, I would simply click back off.
This time, the conversation from two days prior weighed heavy on my mind. I had been applying for jobs and asked for his email password. Something I had done hundreds of times before now without issue. This time he refused. When I persevered I had been met with anger, stating he didn’t want me to be applying for jobs on his behalf. Red flags popped up all over my mind but in the interest of keeping the peace, I dropped the subject.
That was, until his email sat, luring me in like presents under the Christmas tree. I shouldn’t have looked, I know that it is a breach of privacy. But I am glad I did.
His email had an abundance of notifications from an active Tinder Gold membership. Now that I had evidence of something sinister going on, I put my detective hat on and went a deep dive.
Every account was hacked, every password changed and ultimately I gained access to every social media account he had. Again, this was a massive breach of privacy but the cocktail of pregnancy hormones and betrayal took over my rationale brain that day.
For most of my search, I found nothing concrete, no evidence that he had completed the deed and broke our promise of exclusivity. What I did find however was a lot of messages.
He had been messaging women with plans to meet and had been receiving some NFSW pictures. As far as I could see they were never executed and I certainly would have found the evidence that day. The messages had abruptly stopped at the same time we had found out I was expecting. Instead of bringing me comfort, it brought me more devastation. Knowing that he wanted to be with me because I was having his baby was not the life I had imagined for myself.
At that stage in my life, the flirtatious messages would have been enough for me. However seeing the person you are trying so hard to build a life with, making plans to meet up and enjoying pictures of other women was devastating. Some may not class it as cheating, but I certainly do.
We split up and spent the duration of my pregnancy apart. Of course, he didn’t want that, he begged and pleaded with me to forgive him but for me, it was too late. He had broken my trust and ruined my hopes for the happy family I had always dreamt of.
That isn’t where our story ends though.
…
The rest of my pregnancy he spent on a downward spiral, his days would be spent working long hours and his nights spent filled with booze. We would have lost touch if it wasn’t for my rollercoaster pregnancy. We had agreed beforehand that our split would never negatively impact our unborn child.
When she was born he moved back in for a while, I needed the help and he was happy to provide it. He wasn’t yet finished his bachelor lifestyle and the arrival of my daughter had sparked a new hope for us to be a family.
The dynamic certainly wasn’t healthy. I wanted us to be together and he wanted his freedom. That was probably half the problem, instead of viewing me as his partner, he viewed me as the chain, binding him to a life he wasn’t ready for. So we stayed separated.
As our daughter grew up, so did he. It felt like an entire lifetime but in the space of a year, I watched a man that I originally felt sorry for grow into a man I was proud to know. His nights out turned into soft play trips. The time spent on his phone turned into time spent reading his daughter’s books. The money spent on alcohol turned into money to help build our house into a home.
…
Still, there was mistrust, a feeling of betrayal lingered and although he had proved himself as a father, proving himself as a partner was going to take a lot more. The steps he had taken so far were certainly steps in the right direction.
The next few months involved a lot of talking, I mean A LOT of talking. We discussed what went wrong before and how we could avoid that happening again, on both of our parts. The thing is, he wasn’t the only one to blame for what happened between us. Sure I never cheated. I never even thought about it. I did however have my laundry list of toxic traits that helped get us to a point that neither was happy with.
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t blame myself for what happened. It would be a lie to say that I was blameless though.
Now we are at a point where we can consider trying to build a relationship again. Instead of diving into the deep end of a relationship we have chosen to take things slow, we ensure that we talk regularly and openly and allow ourselves to be vulnerable when we do.
Even if I had never seen those messages, I think we would have split up. At the time we were in different phases of our lives. He wanted to be young and I wanted to settle down. The problem was that we both went to the extremes of our vision. I had stopped spending any time with my friends and he spent all of his time with his friends. We both needed to reassess and realign our actions with what we truly wanted.
For the first time since opening that laptop, I feel that we have a genuine chance. In hindsight I can look back and appreciate that he was never a bad person and certainly never wanted to hurt me, instead, he needed time to grow up and whilst he did it in the wrong way, I don’t blame him for that. The choices he made whilst painful, gave both of us a chance to re-evaluate what we wanted and how to get there.
His betrayal allowed me to see that I could do it alone. That I am strong enough. It allowed me to learn to love myself without him and reconnect to the things that I enjoy.
And now I think we are both ready. Ready to try again.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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