Excuse the layout, I'm writing this on my phone.

And I'm based in the UK.

So, I've been divorced for approx: 6 years now. I'm engaged to someone else; we have a toddler, and by and large happy.

But here's the thing. I've still got so many unanswered questions with my ex, either because she gaslights me or just doesn't chat to me. We had a toxic relationship from the beginning, and although I believe we both loved each other, we both made a lot of mistakes and fucked each other up.

When she asked me to leave, I went into a very, very dark place, and it's only because I'm such a pussy and too scared to fail and hurt myself, that I'm still here. I'd planned on how I'd do it (crashing into the central reservation on a motorway at high speed!) Since then, I've done a lot of work on myself and am happy to say I'm proud I didn't do anything stupid because she was a bitch.

Anyway, I've digressed slightly. I wanted some opinions on a couple of things, because I can't get answers elsewhere and want to see if you guys are on the same train of thought as me.

We got married in 2009 and divorced in 2016 (ish), during that time there were a lot of shenanigans.

Her and one of my best mates used to joke that our youngest is his. Became a bit of an in joke which we all went along with. I didn't look too much into it (youngest looks like me and has a lot of my mannerisms). Now, this mate used to fuck everything that moved, but I thought he was loyal enough to not touch friends partners etc - he once said "I'd never fuck a mates bird because there is enough slags out there" when the conversation came up. However, I once found a WhatsApp conversation she'd emailed to herself, speaking to someone who was on her phone under his name. It was proper dirty talk and one point she said "I want you to fuck me again tonight".

Now, I need to add that at this point we were dabbling in swinging. Well, when I say we, I really mean; I was trying and she was succeeding.

She explained this conversation away as part of swinging and that it was only sexting and she had "fucked herself with a dildo on the phone to him"; and as she'd been telling me what she'd been doing it was ok. She'd only put his name as the same as my mates, in order to keep it a bit secret.

Yes I'm naive and believed her.

She also became close to another mate of mine. To be fair, he wasn't really a mate, just someone I worked with who had a business proposition I thought was ideal for her as she wasn't working. They then became close that way.

After we split, it took her less than 2 weeks to hook up with someone (not sure this is relevant but I thought I'd chuck it in there). I have no idea who it was, but have my suspicions...

The first Christmas after we split, we thought we'd keep it as normal as possible for the kids, so I stupidly agreed to spend it with her and her family. We had agreed that neither of us would text the opposite sex or go on dating sites etc. Keep it respectful. About 3 days before, I found an email conversation with the second guy. She was thanking him for "saving her" and "what they'd done was wrong". He replied saying he hadn't saved her, just pointed her in the right direction and "what they'd done was wrong but what they both needed at the time". Throughout the entire Christmas day, she kept texting someone. I knew it was a bloke because of the smirk. She told me it was just her friends making jokes. After several alcoholic drinks, I lost my shit with her and called her a disrespectful cunt in front of her mum and sisters (kids had gone to bed at this point), obviously wasn't allowed to stay, so went home.

Her and this bloke ended up in a relationship with each other. I'd had my suspicions it was him but every time I'd asked her, she would deny it. Then decided to "own up" the day before I flew to the states for my cousin's funeral. She didn't see anything wrong with it, and said it all happened after we'd split so didn't understand why it sent me into a serious downward spiral.

Their relationship ended because he was boring and a cheater....

Anyway, in the midst of the divorce and separation, I messaged my mate (first one mentioned in this long arse post) asking him what the fuck happened, explained the messages I'd found and that they were under his name (common name, just an unusual way of spelling it). He again denied anything happened etc but then blocked me on WhatsApp and I havent spoken to him since (we work for the same company so I've seen him in passing).

My mental health is currently taking a battering for different reasons, but this shit keeps cropping up when I'm low, and I tend to spiral.

I just want to know some outsiders opinions of things I'm pretty sure of.

Was I being to naive and dumb to believe the first story she told? And, am I right in believing her and the second bloke fucked (probably more than a couple of times)?