I (31F) just married my husband (31M) a little over a month ago, and I just found something in his computer that is rattling me to my core.
For backstory:
We have been together for almost 8 years. Around year four, he had admitted to flirting and kissing a female coworker. The guilt was eating him up, and he decided to come clean to me. Even though I was grateful that he owned up to it, it completely obliterated the trust I once had. When I had questioned him about the girl, he had answered me by saying she was no longer in the picture because she had moved to a different state. He never gave me any more information about her other than that. I asked what she looked like, her name, etc., and he would always tell me that it didn’t matter because he would never talk to her again. After quite a few months of being distant, I decided to resume the relationship with him. I let him know that my trust was completely gone, so it was going to take some time for him to earn it back. He said he understood, and we continued on with our relationship. That summer, he had an internship in a very popular national park, so we spent our first few months of getting back together doing long distance. Once he returned, it felt like we were back to normal.
Fast forward to last year; some old friends of his got married, and we attended the wedding. Everything was going great until he introduced me to some old coworkers who were standing in a group huddle. As he was introducing them to me one by one, there was one girl who wouldn’t introduce herself and tried her best to look away. To her dismay, one of the other former coworkers introduced her to me. I smiled politely and said, “Nice to meet you,” and she looked at me like she was about to throw up. At about this time, the person who had introduced us mentions that she used to work with them until she moved out of state. It was in that moment I KNEW exactly who she was. It was one of those deep, gut feelings. The rest of the night, I could feel her staring me down but yet avoiding me at the same time. Before the end of the night, a GLORIOUS thing happened. The bride (who was also a former coworker of my husband and very drunk) came up to me and very loudly started to talk about women who don’t know how to find their own man and how karma would one day follow. She also kept saying how gorgeous I looked and kept pointing out my features that were completely opposite to the other girl (i.e., I’m really tall and athletic, and she is short and plump). It was very obvious that the bride was trying to call her out and embarrass her. I will forever be grateful for that bride. I didn’t know her that well, but she was a total girl’s girl. I had never mentioned any of this to my husband. It didn’t feel necessary because it had been a few years since the incident, and there were no signs that anything else ever happened. Why stir the pot, right?
So here I am tonight, downloading pictures from our photographer and drafting our thank-you cards. My laptop stopped working a few months ago, so I am using his. I saved the wedding photos into a folder. When I go to reopen it, I see a photo folder that’s titled “Friends.” I’m not sure why, but I clicked on it. The first picture I see is of a blonde girl sitting in a kayak on a lake that looks really familiar. It’s the national park where he spent his internship. In his kayak. Time stamped from his summer internship up there. It’s HER. WTF. I then kept clicking through the pictures, and I saw more pictures of her kayaking, fishing, hiking, and camping. I’m sitting here trying to reflect on my memories from that summer. I remember one particular week where he said that he had some friends coming to visit him. I didn’t hear from him much that week and just figured that he was busy with them. He told me that they went kayaking, fishing, hiking, and camping. I had asked him which friends, and he said that they were just some old friends from college. I never pressed him on it because I didn’t feel the need.
Guys, what the heck do I do?!!! He’s currently in bed sleeping, and I’m in our living room balling my eyes out because he has kept this from me for years. I am wondering if I should even stay with him now because what else has he lied about if he could keep this from me? The scariest part is that if we never went to that wedding, I would have never figured out who she was. So he could’ve easily lied about this girl’s pictures if I ever came across them in the future. It feels so calculated. How should I confront him?
