Hello Dr. Buckingham,
I just read a few of your articles and thought God must’ve sent me in your direction. I am currently dealing with infidelity in my relationship and am having a hard time getting through it.
Here’s my story:
I’ve been dating my now fiancé for 2 1/2 years now. We became exclusive a year ago. I just recently found out that he had been cheating on me throughout our whole relationship (exclusive and dating). Not only had he been cheating but he fathered a child who will soon be a year old. He never told me about this, she reached out to me recently, she also told me that she believes she is currently pregnant by him as well. Well I just had a child by him and we recently became engaged. I’m completely heart broken and shattered. He came clean, apologized and swears he does not love her, care for her or want to be with her. He has never seen the child, which she confirmed and he only continued to have sex with her because she threatened to make his life miserable. He went to see a counselor, we then went to counseling together but stopped because I recently had our child. We have been trying to work things out since. (I found all of this out the end of August 2015). He vowed to never see her again and to be truthful and honest from now on.
So here we are still working on us 3 months later and bam, now I just recently found out he’s been flirting with a woman (and other women) via social media throughout this whole ordeal. This one particular woman was one of the women he was seeing while we were dating. I am so hurt and confused all over again. I confronted him, he admitted he flirts but only because she had low self esteem and he was trying to make her feel better about herself smdh. He’s had no recent physical contact with her but he has gone out with her in the past and he claims they never had sex. I knew he was a flirt because that’s how we started talking but I didn’t think he flirted with others especially once we became serious. I love him, I know he loves me but I now have all of this constantly on my mind. I want to work it out for the sake of our child but I have no trust for him at all. I can’t live with this feeling of not being good enough, him possibly having 2 kids on the side, and now emotional infidelity via social media. I’m so confused and hurt, I don’t know what to do. What would you suggest? Can he be trusted in the future? Should I Give My Fiancé his Ring Back and Move On?
Sleepless in Charm City