TL;DR My husband made out with another man two years ago. How do I bring this up to him?
Together for seven years and married for one. I was sitting next to my husband as he was scrolling through a text thread with a mutual friend of ours looking for a specific picture. As he was doing this I saw a text that read something along the lines of “I heard you made out with ‘Dan’ the other night. He said it was weird but he’s cool with you”. Dan is another mutual friend of ours. I remember this particular night because husband came home extremely drunk which never happens. This was over two years ago and before we were married. I have a pit in my stomach and don’t know what to do. I have to bring this up to him but I am scared to learn more. How do I start this conversation? What questions do I need to ask?
EDIT: After not being able to think about any thing else all morning, I finally called my husband and told him what I saw and asked him point blank what happened. A night of heavy drinking led to a “bromance” (stupid compliments and lots of bro hugs), and our friend texted him about it the next day to tease him. He sent me a screenshot of the texts so I could see the whole conversation in context. My husband thinks this whole situation is hilarious and I have to admit I’m laughing about it now too. I feel like an idiot but I’m glad we were able to talk about it.
Lessons learned? I need to calm the fuck down and communicate before I jump to conclusions. I’ve never snooped through his phone and this solidifies why I never will. Context is key in electronic communication, and it’s a guarantee you’ll find something that makes you nervous even if you trust your partner.
This could be an out of context joke. People (a lot of guys in particular in my experience) can joke around in very odd ways and things are quite lost through text without physical context clues like voice inflection. Definitely ask about it though but this really could be joking. But in my experience, my wife could go through all my texts and have tons of questions about things that are extremely innocent at its core. We joke around a lot sarcastically and exaggerate everything
Write down the questions you have and have a conversation with your husband.
Sit down at the table. Say you saw something the other day and you can’t shake it. “Did you kiss Dan while we were dating? Is there more to it than that or was it a silly drunk night?”
I’ve drunkenly kissed my friends and not made anything of it. But it’s up to you what you consider crossing a line.
I would be really hurt to find out my partner cheated on me before marriage, and then married me without coming clean first. That’s really despicable behavior imo. You just have to tell him what you saw, and ask him if it’s true.
I think you need to prepare for finding out more, and determine if this a deal breaker for you or if this is something you’re willing to move past. It’s totally fair if your partner enjoys other men and can’t help it. It’s also totally fair if you consider this outside the bounds of your relationship. The question is what are your options and how do you wish to proceed.
I highly recommend a book called State of Affairs by E Perel, or some of her talks online. She goes in details about affairs and philandering, how to move past it, why people do what they do.
A lot of commenters here are seeing a man maybe being bisexual, wanting to support him, and ignoring the cheating. He cheated. Being drunk isn’t an excuse, wanting to experiment isn’t an excuse, having repressed sexual urges isn’t an excuse. TBH whether it was a man or a woman is irrelevant, because he made out with someone while committed to you.
I would just be upfront and frank about what you saw and ask for enlightenment in the event you read it way out of context and nothing actually happened.