My partner and I have been dating since December 2023. I have known him for 7 years and he had been trying to date me for 6 of those years. I never dated him because he was always with multiple women and didn’t seem like the type of guy to settle down. We had been good friends and slept together during that time though.

In December our relationship boundaries were pretty blurred. We were at a party and this guy was trying to sleep with me. He said in front of him and me we weren’t monogamous when he asked us. I was really struggling with addiction at this time and not thinking clearly. Having had threesomes and stuff like that with him in the past I thought maybe that was what my partner wanted. And so I initiated one. My partner didn’t not partake but in a more sober head space I can see he wasn’t very interested.

This turned in to a huge fight and he said now I have to do something to hurt you back. And I started crying about how I didn’t mean to hurt him, I thought it would make him happy. He said he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.

In January I went to treatment/detox, we talked everyday. I snuck to see him in the alley by my treatment facility often to hangout with him, I slept with him probably once a week. And at the end of February I decided to leave treatment when he was visiting me knowing it was his birthday that weekend. I found out that weekend after spending hundred of dollars on him for his birthday at the air bnb he had been cheating on me with multiple different women online. (He said he never slept with anyone but I will never know for sure) I woke him up crying and he got really mad at me for ruining his birthday and waking him up like that. He promised me it’d just be us that weekend he invited friends over after that and left without me. They came back an hour or so later. And a couple hours later. After that we left and stayed with my parents.

We fought a lot. I just couldn’t get over anything. He continue to message with a bunch of women him and I don’t know on Snapchat, platonically but was aware it made me anxious. I started doing the same as a if you’re doing it I’ll do it. I don’t really care to talk to people I don’t know and so it was never something I’d have done normally. In March I had starting messaging a guy I had been seeing mostly sexually for 4ish years. Nothing like the messages he sent while cheating on me but definitely intentionally flirty. And I’d really only save those messages so he’d see them. I now realize I just didn’t feel strong enough to leave. And needed him to do it for me. He did find out about the messages, we talked about it he didn’t leave, I didn’t leave. At the end of April he messaged a girl telling her we are in an open relationship, recieved photos from her said he wanted to sleep with her. He talked about us wanting to get pregnant (this wasn’t true, she just had kids) etc etc. he told me that everytime he did something it was to basically get even.

This killed me.

I just couldn’t leave in May we found out I was pregnant. I’ve been so emotional. He’s been working really hard to grow and become a better partner. And he has and he’s been the man of my dreams the majority of time. Everyday I think about it, every day I feel the need to check his phone. I’m 20 weeks pregnant and it kills me that our baby was basically used as a ploy to cheat on me without him knowing. I thought about an abortion but I just couldn’t do it. But the baby is a hard reminder, it will be so loved but I struggle to forgive him. It’s hard to think about him cheating on me pregnant even if he didn’t know.

I feel like I can’t let him go most places without me or I’m gonna have an anxiety attack. I don’t want him adding most women on social media, him watching porn daily and for hours if I’m gone makes me feel sick. Him basically telling me he would cheat on me if he didn’t watch it early in our relationship makes me sick(whether he meant this or not). He naturally leans towards polyamory. He has had to change a lot of who he is and it makes me feel bad but I don’t know what to do. He doesn’t have privacy and that makes me feel bad about myself and how he is treated in our relationship. It’s hard to have him around certain people.

I don’t want to control him, but there isn’t any way I feel safe right now. I have PTSD and honestly this feels so similar. It’s all I think about. It’s what I see all the time. I dream about it.

We have been really happy the majority of the time. I love him more than anything. I want to be with him. He wants to be with me. I want our kid to have a 2 parent home. I want him to be able to be with our newborn as much as possible when they are born.

I just don’t know if I will ever feel safe enough in our relationship. I don’t know how to give him more space and freedom and I want to. I’m struggling to trust him. I wondering if this feeling will ever go away. I’m wondering if this could ever be a healthy relationship for either of us?

Any advice is appreciated