I was with my ex for almost three years. When we first met everything was great. I fell for him hard, we got along great, I finally thought I found my person. About six months in, he got a text from a random number that I saw when I looked over at his phone, and it was a picture of a child. I confronted him, and he told me the number was his ex, and that was her kid.

He sat me down and explained to me that him and his ex were in an on again off again relationship, she ended up getting pregnant, and he had hoped the child was his, so he stayed, signed the birth certificate and raised him for a year. He told me he found out who the father really was, showed me this guys FACEBOOK page, really just had an answer for everything. He said after him and his ex split, he had wanted to continue seeing the child, but him and his ex didn’t get along so he slowly stopped seeing him. I asked if he was paying child support, he said no, she never asked him to. I asked if he was still on the birth certificate, he said yes.

I believed him at this point. Even felt bad for him. He was really convincing, and his story was believable. After a while, it slowly started eating at me that maybe he was lying. I made a Facebook and looked up his, looked at pictures of the kid. I was constantly comparing pictures to my ex and also the guy he had told me was actually the father. I was spiraling into anxiety over it, seeing so many of my ex’s features in the child. I finally told him I was worried and he comforted me. Told me he would get a paternity test done and try to get off the birth certificate if that would make me feel better. I said it would, and I wouldn’t want to move further in our relationship until I knew for sure. He seemed fine with it.

In the 2 years that followed, the situation devolved slowly. He told me he was making progress but never had any proof or anything to show. No lawyer I could talk to with him, documents I could see, nothing. He started getting angry when I asked about it. This is when the emotional abuse started to get really bad. He convinced me I was the problem, yelled, manipulated, gaslit, all of it. I was in constant anxiety. I developed a stomach disorder and lost 30lbs, my hair started falling out, I stopped seeing friends, I could barely get out of bed. It was all I could think about.

Anyway, I broke up with him two months ago when I decided to look up any pending court cases he had myself and I certainly found one, but it wasn’t for what he told me it was. It was years of court dates every few months over delinquent child support. Even during this time, he maintained it was not his child, but since he was on the birth certificate, he still had to pay. He apologized for lying about the child support, but by this point I could see the emotional abuse for what it was, and I still decided to end things.

Last night, he randomly admitted to me that it was his son. He told me he has been in therapy and he is trying to confront himself for all the wrong he has done because he has been miserable for years and can’t keep living this way. He apologized profusely, said he was completely in the wrong, I was a great person and he took the cowards way out because he was dealing with a lot of trauma. He told me he is seeing his son again and that he wanted me to know he is working on himself. And that he understands if I never want to talk to him again, but he still loves me and if I decided otherwise he would do anything to make things right.

I can’t even find words to explain how I’m feeling. I really haven’t even processed it yet. Was just hoping to share and that someone might comment, I guess.