I am in tears and literally don’t know what to do. I was a heavy smoker for years and quit this year, so I had concerns about my fertility. My (32F) boyfriend (31M) of more than 7 years were shocked, but mostly excited to find out that I was pregnant. I had been smoking weed pretty actively still but for the past almost week since finding out, I’ve gone cold turkey and It’s been hard.
Today, he fell asleep midday and I had a nagging feeling, and went through his phone. There’s been uneven-ness in our relationship at various times, and I’m hella insecure (I started seeing a therapist recently). A recent-ish situation I got upset over was him jerking to porn when I was either around but asleep, or about to get home, etc. While I am by no means anti-porn, I was honest with him about how it made me feel and in setting boundaries around the “when” of it. I also acknowledged that I probably wasn’t meeting his needs in terms of how active our sex lives were or have been (certainly there have been many dry spells due to stress, busy schedule, personal self-esteem issues in both our parts, etc). I started seeing a therapist to start working through some of this, I was cautiously optimistic. And I was sure this was my person, that we could face anything, and that this pregnancy was a beautiful thing.
So when I looked on his phone today (obviously I must have had doubts, though I didn’t expect this and don’t really know what I expected from that), I discovered that he has been messaging girls on Reddit since 2023, so to my knowledge, for the last couple years. This has happened with many Reddit users, though he would often stop when they would shockingly try to move the chat over to OF). He at first argued that because he had been anonymous so he “lied to himself” in thinking it was okay. He’s been messaging girls with dirty talk back and forth, and receiving pics from some. He’s also been lying about his age, has pretended to these girls to have family & kids, etc. Shit that is just catfishy (but I guess mutually so?) and I really don’t get it.
He tells me (now that he has been caught ofc) that he will never do it again but I can’t believe anything he says. I don’t know what to do about my condition, the relationship, or anything really, and I’m really scared that I can’t get through this without relapsing into cigs or weed. I’m so hurt and I don’t want to hurt this baby but I am so weak and heartbroken.
I have virtually no support system outside my parents (just have grown distant from peer folks or my most valued friends are geographically far now). If I tell my parents, we could never bounce back. I’m not sure I want to, but I don’t want any outside pressures beyond this pregnancy informing my decisions.
Any guidance on the relationship issue, or tobacco and weed addiction resources, will be so appreciated.
I need help and I am so scared about the future.