'I accused my BF of cheating only to find out he secretly has a dead husband.' UPDATED

"TIFU by accusing my boyfriend of cheating on me with his dead husband."

My boyfriend (32 M) and I (31 F) have been dating for 8 months now, and he's honestly one of the best boyfriends I've had. He is super kind and considerate, and has helped me through some dark moments I was going through when we met. We currently don't live together but things have been going really well. We hardly fight and if one of us has a problem, it's easy for me to feel like I can approach him.

About a month ago though I got a text from a friend of mine with a picture of my boyfriend eating ice cream with a woman I didn't recognize. He was supposed to be at work, and my friend (she works in the same area as the ice cream store) saw him there instead. I'm a little bit of a paranoid person because a previous partner has cheated on me before, so of course the alarm bells start ringing immediately.

I talked myself through it and decided it was most likely a friend, and forgot about it. Fast forward to Friday, I got an early day from work (remote) and wanted to surprise my boyfriend at work and take him out during his lunch break. When I got to his office though, the receptionist said he was out of office for a few days and wouldn't be back until Monday.

I tried not to freak out but I did a bit, and drove to his place. He was there and let me in, and it was just him. He told me he wasn't feeling too well and called out for a couple days, and he was sorry he forgot to tell me. I stayed over and we got takeout, and eventually we both fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up around 3 AM needing to use the washroom and saw his phone, and unfortunately curiosity got the better of me. I knew his password by catching it a few times when he entered it, not on purpose. His text messages seemed normal besides 2 conversations, one to a group chat with a bunch of people I didn't know, and one to a man named Jay (fake name).

The group chat stood out because the people in it talked to my boyfriend as if they were family, inviting him to vacations and outings, etc. but I knew they weren't his family because I had met them before. One person in the chat named Kristin also talked about how much their ice cream date meant to her, so I assumed she was probably the woman from last month.

The texts to Jay were sparce and one sided, with my boyfriend sending random "I love you" and "I miss you" messages every now and then. I probably should've realized then what was happening but being the dumbass I am, took it as him having a partner and me being the side piece.

I woke him up immediately and showed him the phone, asking who the fuck Jay and these other people were. He looked so furious, I knew then and there I fucked up real bad. He's usually very stoic and collected, but the moment he saw the unlocked phone he got up and snatched it. He opened the photos app and pulled up a picture of him and a man together. "This is Jay, my husband. He killed himself 5 years ago."

He then explained to me that every year on Jay's bday, their wedding anniversary, and Jay's death anniversary, he and sometimes Jay's family members would do things Jay liked to do. On his birthday, which was last month, my boyfriend and Jay's older sister Kristin got ice cream at his favorite ice cream place.

He had taken a few days off this week because this week was when he committed suicide, and they all planned on visiting his grave. I had known my boyfriend was bi, but I had zero idea about Jay or his family. After he was done explaining everything, he calmly asked me to leave and not to contact him until he contacted me first.

I love this man so much, and I don't want to lose him. But I just accused him of cheating on me with his late husband. I have no idea where to even go from here.

TL;DR My boyfriend did some weird things over the course of a month and I ended up accusing him of cheating; turns out he was just honoring his late husband's memory with his family.

Edit:

I wanted to make an edit to cover some things because getting back to everyone would take a long time:

1.) Did I ask him about past relationships? No, both of us met at a work event (both in graphic design) and took things slow, neither of us were really even looking for a relationship.

It was clear to me from the beginning that he was a private person and wasn't big on discussing vulnerable past stuff, and he never brought the past up either. I didn't think he'd have a whole deceased husband so I never really tried to dig into past relationships he had.

2.) I know looking through his phone was 100% wrong, there's no denying that

3.) I am currently seeking out a therapist

4.) He has not reached out yet

Commenters are weighing in on this bizarre situation:

WhiteLama said:

Am I crazy in thinking that it’s okay to ask the person you refer to as boyfriend/girlfriend who the person they had ice cream with was? Like if I was in this scenario, I’d just ask “Hey, my friend Becky saw you eating ice cream today with someone and I don’t want to make some crazy assumption, so I’d just like to check if we’re all good.”

zDistinction said:

You started this off saying you felt very comfortable approaching him about things and instead of approaching him expressing how you felt when a friend saw him with a woman getting ice cream you broke a major privacy boundary to someone you clearly know to be a very private person…

TheMikman97 said:

I knew his password by catching it a few times when he entered it, not on purpose. "Uh huh. Sure."

terrorpaw said:

I think it's weird to date someone that long and never once mention that you were previously married.

OP responded:

I would normally, but he was very closed off at first in our relationship. He's a very private person and takes a little bit to open up about vulnerable topics

JealousBed1807 said:

As most other people have said, you definitely owe him a sincere and heartfelt apology for going through his phone. At the same time, it strikes me as odd that he would keep such a massive part of his past history and current emotional life from you.

8 months isn’t forever but it seems like a long enough relationship to at least share this part of his history with you. It sounds like he is (understandably) still grieving and if he contacts you again, perhaps this whole episode can be an opportunity for you to let him know that you are there for him to support him in his grief.

Metallbran88 said:

You definitely messed up, but…why wouldn’t he just tell you about this?

Two weeks later, she shared this update:

We haven't broken up. He called me about two days after I made my initial post, ready to talk. I brought up some of the points a few people had about it being a little unfair that he kept the knowledge of his late husband from me after so long, and he agreed. He admitted that he was just scared that by telling me, that he was forgetting Jay.

He acknowledged that it was an unhealthy way of thinking about it and that he didn't mean to make it seem like he didn't care. Of course I also apologized a million times, for snooping through his phone and not coming to him earlier about seeing him with Jay's sister when it happened. We both agreed we had started this relationship too fast, especially for people who both weren't looking for something serious initially.

We talked for hours over the phone before meeting at his place. Talked some more, talked about what we want from this relationship and decided, for now at least, to try and make things work. We're both deeply broken people, and we thought that with honesty going forward, we could support and help eachother heal.

Thank you for all your responses, even the not so kind ones. They really helped me open my eyes and think, as well as pushed me to get a therapist.

TL;DR: We're still together, lots of apologizing and crying but we're going to try to make things work.