AIO: My [30F] boyfriend [30M]reached out to an old fling during our rough patch.
TLDR: My boyfriend and I are in a fragile place after arguing about issues and recently taking space, though we never broke up. After we started to reconnect, I found out he reached out and called a woman he casually dated during a past breakup: a text while I was asleep next to him and call after I left his place. I feel confused and anxious about all this and whether this is something I should confront or just walk away
For context: I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for over a year.During that time, we’ve had some problems around our conflict styles and communication and reconnecting after we disagree. This is the number one issue for us, leaving both of us feeling unseen and misunderstood. We broke up once before (I initiated - for about 2.5 months). Last week, we had another conflict that led to us mutually agreeing to a few days of “space”/reflection as to if our relationship is progressing or we’re forcing what’s not working cause of the other parts that really work.
To be clear, things were emotionally intense but not informally or formally ended in any way, just cooling off. Yesterday we reconnected after I went through a very difficult personal day (funeral, emotional distress) so I interrupted the space after about 3 days to ask for company. He was supportive, I stayed over, and we were affectionate, cuddling, etc. Nothing was officially resolved between us, but it felt like we were reconnecting, even with some underlying tension/ awkwardness.
He invited me so I came by his place again this evening. I later saw on his phone that he had made a call to a woman he previously casually dated during our earlier breakup (he gave it to me to place an order on DoorDash for us and his phone app was one of his recent apps and accidentally noticed her name ). From what I know, they had not spoken since January after he ended things with her when it started to look like we were on track to get back together after we broke no contact, so I was shocked.
What really threw me is that he made the call less than an hour after I left his apartment this morning, after we had spent an emotionally close night together.
While I had his phone to pick up the order, I’m not proud but I did snoop more. They hadn’t spoke since Jan but I see he reached out first to her this week the day before I reconnected with him. She responded coldly the day after. Next were messages suggesting he wanted to talk if she was willing cause enough time had past and saying he’d call cause he prefers that to text (He sent this at 1am today while I was asleep right next to him). I now we’re in a fragile place but I can’t fathom why he’d ever reach back out to her.
I feel extremely confused because we’re still officially together. The timing feels really bad to me. He knows a line for me is doing something that can make me look dumb by another woman so this just feels like added unnecessary breach of trust in addition to our issue. Adding this to our list of other issues to confront makes me feel sick and I don’t want to think about how his defensive nature would react
Now I’m struggling with a couple question: Am I overreacting when I have no idea what they talked about? Do I even bother to confront him, or is this already a sign I should leave?
I don’t want to be reactive, but I also feel anxious and sick thinking about the timing and audacity. Would appreciate honest outside perspectives.