D-Day#2 maybe? 10 years later

I don’t even know where to start. I guess I’ll start with the beginning. my H (m/mid 40’s) and I (f/late 30s) met in the summer of 2004. We started seeing each other while he was still dating someone else. I told him I was going to study abroad in early 2005 and I didn’t want to be in a relationship. He eventually broke up with his girlfriend a month later. While I was studying abroad we talked often and ended up moving in together when I got back late summer of 2005. I graduated college a few years later and we got married and bought a place together.

In 2011 we had our first child and in early 2012 I suspected he was having an EA. I was also pregnant with our second child. I had our second child in May 2012 and days before I went back to work I confronted him about the affair. He finally broke down and admitted to it and it ended up being physical and had started about 6 months earlier. So D-Day#1 was early June 2012. I really don’t remember much about the months that followed. (I do remember spending lots of time on this site and was thankful to find others who were going through it.) I had two kids under two and was just trying to make it through the days. We decided to R. He stopped drinking (has been sober since) and we went to couples therapy. He also went to individual therapy and I went to individual therapy.

After a few years things seemed so much better and we decided to have another child. We ended up moving cross country about six years ago shortly after the birth of our third child. In 2019, I had a 4th child (we are done having kids BTW). So fast forward to now, my husband got a new phone and I had to send back his old phone. Of course I got a little curious and checked his text messages as well as his Facebook messenger messages. Unfortunately, I felt like some of the messages with a certain woman were strange/inappropriate. He went away for the weekend for a tournament and he deleted the messages that appeared to be inappropriate. HUGE red flag, right?!? So now I am not sure what to do. The biggest part of me wants to continue investigating further and try to figure out what might be happening with this other woman. I know I should confront him, but I’m worried he will lie and make it harder to track if he is having an affair. My H has always been a bit of a flirt and I’m okay with that, but now I can’t help but suspect that something more is going on. We have a good relationship (date nights/good sex life) and he’s mostly a great dad to our kids, but does have some anger issues at times. I’ve been back in therapy due to losing my dad a few years ago and have been struggling with depression. This is not an excuse for my H to have an affair but just something that I could see him blaming it on. Best case is he crossed the line with some inappropriate texts (which is still awful and creates huge trust issues, etc) and worst case he’s having an affair in which case I know should result in divorce given his previous affair. Help! I don’t know what to do next.

24 comments posted: Thursday, August 25th, 2022