I don’t even know where to start, so I’m just gonna say it straight.
I’m 28, engaged to my partner of 5 years (36M), and we’re expecting our first baby. It wasn’t planned, but he was over the moon when we found out. Told everyone, started reading baby books, turned his office into a nursery, gave me foot rubs every night, told me how lucky he was to have me.
And I believed him. I really thought I found my person. We met when I was a TA at the university he teaches at. He was respectful, funny, didn’t even flirt until the semester ended. Things moved slowly, naturally. I fell hard.
And now I feel like the last five years were a lie.
Last week, he left his laptop open on the kitchen counter while he was on a Zoom call in the next room. I wasn’t snooping—swear to God. I just wanted to find a recipe he’d pulled up earlier. But I noticed a Facebook tab open, and out of pure reflex, I clicked it.
It opened to a conversation with one of his old college buddies. From five years ago. Right around the time he proposed.
His friend says:
“So what, you gonna settle down with the TA?”
And this man (this man I was planning to marry) replies:
“Marina’s clearly not coming back. I’m tired of chasing someone who doesn’t want me. The TA’s solid. Smart, loyal… not really my type but she’s there. I’m not getting any younger.”
“She’s there.”
That’s what I was to him. Not the love of his life. Not his partner. Just the convenient, available option once his dream girl ghosted him.
I slammed the laptop shut, locked myself in our bedroom, and cried until my head hurt. When he realized something was wrong, I asked him point-blank:
“Did you ever love me? Or was I just your backup plan?”
The look on his face said everything. He started babbling about how that was years ago, how “things are different now,” how he does love me, he swears. But honestly?
I never changed. I’ve been all in from the start. And now, seven months pregnant, I feel like a fucking consolation prize.
I left. I’m staying with my sister in Tacoma. He keeps texting and calling, saying we have to talk, that he needs to explain. But I don’t know if there’s anything he could say that would fix how shattered I feel.
I don’t know what to do. Am I throwing away a good thing over something from the past? Or did I already throw away myself the second I let someone see me as “good enough”?
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seems fake to me. you’ve only been together 5 years, but now apparently he proposed 5 years ago?