Am I being unreasonable by asking to look at his phone?
I am devastated. I'm 46f, he is 52m, we first met 20 years ago. Back then, we had a situationship and we fell deeply in love. I have never connected with someone like we did. We clicked in every way. We were together on and off for 18 months. It ended due to complicated life circumstances. There was no malice involved on either side, but it was incredibly painful for us both.
I have thought about him at least twice a week since we first split, so many things remind me of him. A few years after we split, I tried to find him on Facebook, etc, with no luck. I checked every year or so.
Last November, he sent me a Facebook friend request. I immediately accepted and sent a message. We saw each other a couple of days later, and within a month, he had moved in. We were so happy.
In the last couple of months, intimacy dropped off. I felt rejected and angry. Things didn't improve much
3 days ago, I saw a message from his ex that raised my suspicion. Today, he fell asleep, and I went through his phone. I didn't see anything inappropriate in their messages.
Before I gave his phone back, I checked his photos. I found screenshots in the deleted section and discovered he was sending sexual messages to women from a website called Locanto. It's similar to the Craigslist hook up page.
I checked his messages on Locanto and confirmed there were at least 6 messages since we have been together. I did see in 2 messages that he told the women the area he lives in. I let my anger take over. Instead of reading everything, I confronted him.
He said it was a mistake, just a horny message when I was sleeping. We fought, and he became angry and defensive. I told him to get out. He argued that he deserves a second chance, that it was just a message, he didn't touch anyone, so it wasn't cheating. I accused him of attempting to meet up with other women, and he denied it.
I gave him an ultimatum - he shows me the messages to prove he didn't meet anyone or try to. He refused, claiming he admitted he was wrong and apologised. He also said that I was wrong to go through his phone, and reading the messages would not help.
I spent about an hour arguing my point - he did the wrong thing. Sending sexual messages is still cheating in my eyes, and I can't move forward and forgive him without full transparency.
I kicked him out. This has all happened in the last 2 hours, I feel numb. I'm not ready to tell my friends yet, and they are biased in my favour.
So, I've decided to turn to reddit. Do you think my ultimatum was reasonable or not?