  The Higgs potentials of extended Higgs sectors exhibit a complex and
interesting vacuum structure. When travelling back in time, i.e. going to
higher temperatures, the structure may change and exhibit interesting phase
patterns and sequences of phases related to the respective minima of the
potential. The investigation of the vacuum structure can give us indirect
insights in beyond-Standard-Model physics and the evolution of the Universe. In
this paper, we investigate the possibility of an intermediate charge-breaking
(CB) phase in the 2-Higgs-Doublet Model (2HDM) type I. The existence has been
reported previously by using a simple potential setup. We here confirm that the
intermediate CB phase can still exist when using the one-loop corrected
effective potential including thermal masses. We discuss its features and the
relation with SU(2) symmetry (non-)restoration as well as its consistency with
the current experimental data. Lastly, we show for some selected benchmark
points the rich and interesting phase patterns and sequences that the 2HDM can
undergo during its evolution from the early Universe to today's electroweak
vacuum.
