Sorry this is long..

My boyfriend 31 m and I 28 f, have been together for almost 4 years. To set the scene, we moved in together into our own place about 7 months in. He has a child(4) that moved in with us half the time. 2 months of us living together, his personality changed, he started acting weird, and distant, cold if you will towards me. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, and just continued on until I found out.

Fast forward 4 months. He’s in the bath showing me something on his phone, he worked long days, so was very tired and out of it. This was my chance. My chance to snoop, as I have never wanted to be someone who goes through their partners phone, nor did I have any reasoning to. He gave me his phone, on iPhone you can swipe up and see several applications that are still open. I see messenger open, with a chat to a female that I’m unaware of. I looked through, the last message he said to her was.. “can I have mates rates” which was a reply to her saying she needs to do OF to make some money. This girl was an ex of his. We fought over it. I cried, he cried. I begged to see his phone, and he refused. He left for work, and we continued on. Said it wouldn’t happen again, and i was taking it all wrong. I looked through his iPad that evening and a saw several chats to other girls, all flirting and sexually messaging, even to his kids mum, where she would slag me off, and he’d allow it. On his birthday, 2 months prior to this, he told me he was working, so I should go to work too as his birthday isn’t special, when he conveniently got the evening off, and was secretly out with the kids mum and his child… all hidden from me. I remembered back to being at work that evening of his birthday, and him telling me he was at his mums. He was at his mums, with her and their child, after going out for dinner and to the cinema. he said it wouldn’t happen again.

2 Years went by, and I forgave but did not forget. Things didn’t get easier per se, but I learned to deal with it. I had turned a blind eye, as, he was treating me well. However I have only just recently realised, he doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t show me affection unless I have to beg for it. He shows no interest in me, I only show it towards him. He has in the last 6 months gone through bad grief from a family member dying, so i understood he wasn’t overly loving.

This year on My birthday, in feb, same week as half term. His child was with us, as I have changed my job and life around to support his child being around more. A few messages were sent back and forth between us about my birthday and where his child would be on this day. I was happy to have his child there, as I do every other day of the year, however I did not want to do the swapping over in the morning as it meant waking up early, when I wanted to sleep in on my birthday, the only day a year a person should have to do what they please, as I’m used to getting up and do the school run 4 times a week. These messages, he was clearly not happy with what or how I had written them. We didn’t speak for multiple days, and then sorted it out the night before my birthday. My brain could not rest. When he was asleep, I went through his phone. I found, going through fb to the messenger part, when years ago after the first incident he said he had deleted messenger and removed that from his life. He was messaging a girl from work, someone I didn’t know, had sent screenshots from our personal private messages, and was actively slagging me off.

The response from her, was as follows. Please bare in mind, I don’t know her, she does not know me, and does not know the ins and out of our relationship, or how I am treated everyday or previously by him, nor how I treat him.

He says.. “it’s going to kick off” She responds with “what has she done xxx” Screenshot is sent from our messages

“Ohhhhh fuckkk offf!!! Shessss a (c word) mate!!! For the love of god bin that (f’ing) red flag off!!! Wanna kick her in the (c word)!!! Xxx”

He basically agrees, says I use stuff as a bargaining chip, which I don’t believe I do, and says I have hidden all my massive red flags very well..

I brought this up to him. Said I had been on his phone and seen all of this. Asked him why he thought it was okay to treat me like this, and he turned it all back on me saying there were reasons he did this. And was basically my fault he did this.

So the question is.. if you were to read on your partners phone they were slagging you off, when you know you’re not perfect but have done all you could, loved the other person, cared, been there for them for nearly 4 years, taken in his child, and just wanted him to respect one of your boundaries, considering your life practically surrounds them and their child+his ex. Aita for having a boundary, and should have just willing gone along with what he said even if I didn’t agree to keep the peace? Or is his he, and I should move on?