Toddler mom, partner of serial cheater

Hi everyone -

I’m new here and looking for strength and advice. Buckle up for a crazy ride.

I met my (currently ex) fiancé (will refer to him as partner from here on out) on a dating app in late 2019. We started off casually dating, but it was clear we were both interested in developing a monogamous long term relationship with the right person. We became exclusive towards the end of 2019.

Fast forward to 2021, we have a loving relationship, have moved in together, are not married, but intending to be married one day and were now facing a surprise pregnancy. We considered whether to go forward with the pregnancy heavily (at the time, I was freezing my eggs with the intent of having kids years later). We discussed at length and even made several detailed pros/cons lists. My partner was thrilled… all of his friends were starting their families and he was happy to join in. I would say he wanted to move forward with the pregnancy more than I did (I felt I was still establishing my career, etc), but ultimately we decided to move ahead and it was the best decision we ever made.

Later in 2021, we got engaged. No rush to be married.

Fast forward again to 2023, we are still leading a happy life and we are loving parents to a toddler. We balance each other well. All of my friends want a partner like the one I have. He’s supportive, a great dad, successful, etc. We are now actively planning a wedding for the end of 2024.

In mid December of 2023, everything is destroyed. A good friend reaches out about a dating app profile, sure it’s a mistake. It wasn’t. I confronted him about it right away and he immediately came up with a BS lie about how it was already on his phone/was just curious. I immediately looked through his phone, which revealed that he had been on a sex forward dating app for months, exchanging nudes with women. I kicked him out of the apartment. After a week of no contact, we decided to go to MC to figure out what to do. At this point, his story was that for about 6 months on and off, he was on this sex forward app, soliciting and sending nudes to women. Purely virtual. The story came out in bits and pieces, but after a few days, that is what he promised was the full truth. I’m terms of help, he was seeing his regular therapist (which he was already seeing for years, not for sex related issues) and on top of that was seeing a new individual sex therapist and our MC. He was committed to fixing things and gave me access to accounts, location, etc. At this stage, I thought we could work on things and very slowly started opening the door.

After a few weeks, I asked him to see his phone again. I recovered all deleted messages and went through them. This revealed even more. He had essentially be dishonest our entire relationship. He didn’t delete the dating app once we were exclusive.. only after about 2 months. He then replaced that app with the sex forward app and was sexting women on and off from 2020-2023. Based on the evidence (which aligns with his story now), he met with 2 women. He didn’t have sex with either, but intended to. Otherwise, the cheating was virtual in nature.

As of now, he is fully out of our shared home and does not have contact with our child.

I am feeling such mixed emotions. I never wanted to be a single parent and never envisioned it. He is very clearly remorseful and is doing anything and everything I ask of him (for example, he switched from iPhone to android so I can utilize tracking apps, he is the one that suggested therapy, he gave me a comprehensive report, he never invalidates my feelings and is prepared to discuss at any time of day, he is starting a 12 step program).

I don’t foresee us getting back together anytime soon, if at all. There is a part of me that wants to work through things for our child.

Please weigh in. Would love to hear if anyone has had a similar experience and was successful.

My biggest fear is agreeing to work on this and then 2-5-10 years down the line im faced with the same issue and kicking my younger self for not leaving now.

11 comments posted: Saturday, January 6th, 2024