Hi, I've been a lurker since August this year. I just want to share my story, and maybe get some insights from people who are in a similar boat.

I knew when I married my spouse that he was a bisexual. I had this belief, though, that because he married me, he knew that our marriage meant exclusivity. When we got married, I got pregnant immediately. It was not planned.

My pregnancy became high risk, and soon I had to be on bed rest. I became emotional--too emotional, I guess. At one point he called me a gaslighter. He soon became silent. Looking back, I think it was because he wanted to put me and our baby first. But because he was silent, he did not want to tell any of his problems or stresses in life. He turned to men. He started chatting with them. At one point, he left me late at night under the pretense of getting a massage in a nearby massage place, only to find out that the went someplace else (I discovered this through Location Sharing). I confronted him about this. He was apologetic.

When I gave birth, postpartum was very stressful for us. We were first time parents. My mother-in-law stayed with us. She would have underhanded comments about how we were taking care of our baby. I would tell him about these comments, but would be told that I was misunderstanding her. He also had issues when it was my mother's turn to help us out. On my end, I would always talk to my mother about them.

Then, he cheated on me before Christmas, when our baby was about 7 months old. He had a massage with an extra service from a male masseuse. I discovered this in January. I and our baby left him briefly. When he mentioned reconciliation and wanting to be a better husband, I was hopeful. I got back together with him.

However, our fights became more frequent beginning March. By July, everything exploded when I discovered condoms in his wallet--condoms that should not be there because we do not have sex outside of our home. Further, when I checked for the second time, one of the packs was missing (i.e., meaning he used one of them). He then admitted of having sexual relations with a male neighbor beginning March up until June.

Now, I have completely separated from him. I took our child with me. However, since we are married, he has the right to our child. To put it shortly, I had to co-parent with him.

I have a psychiatrist, I am taking meds, and I am looking into starting therapy again.

I hope it gets better.

Looking for support on how to move forward. First a bit of background.

I (48M) have been married to my wife (47F) for 24 years. She started being very distant this year becoming absorbed in an online game. She wasn't there for me or our two daughter 15 and 17 emotionally or helping in normal domestic or motherly duties. She would get very defensive if you asked her to put down her phone and be present.

In July our 15 year old discovered she was texting inappropriate things to another man. I am not sure how much our daughter saw but it was enough for her to go to a friends crying and then tell me that "Mom is having an affair". My wife denied it, and I told my daughter it was a misunderstanding, but she pushed me to dig deeper. I asked my wife if I could see the text chain our daughter saw so I could calm her concerns. She showed me, but she was obviously very nervous and there wasn't anything at all that would make a 15 year old think affair.

The following morning she admitted that she was having an emotional affair and later that morning admitted she was actually sexting. A few days later we talked agreed it was a mistake and agreed we wanted to try and reconcile. I recognized how hard the last year had been and she seemed depressed. I know living with my anxiety is difficult and started therapy. I asked her to do the same and when she was ready to set up couple counselling.

In August, we had a family trip which was nice. But once we got back she started to go back into old habits of being on her phone constantly ignoring the family. She also stopped therapy after 2 sessions. And she had not yet booked couples therapy. I confronted her and asked if she really wanted to reconcile and she said yes. I said I need more effort from her and I want her to book couples therapy.

In September, she was giving more effort around the house and the girls. I was working to communicate better and understand and address her needs. She said she needed to feel attractive and sexy so I was trying to support that and schedule date nights for us. I also was feeling increasingly paranoid that she wasn't as invested as I was. It felt like she was going through the motions. I also felt she was cheating again. She was getting her bikini line waxed, which she did while cheating on me. She got a privacy screen for her phone. And I found sexier underwear when I was doing laundry. Everything had a reasonable explanation - she was swimming at the gym, work wanted privacy screens, she ran out of clean underwear. I said I was feeling paranoid and spoke with my therapist and started medication for anxiety and depression.

At the start of October, I was in our shared ICloud and I found photos and videos in the deleted folder. At first, I thought they were from the first affair, but I realized there were selfies of her in outfits before our date nights which really hurt. There were sexually explicit photo and videos throughout the month of September, including on my birthday.

I confronted her asking if she was texting anyone and she said no. I reiterated that I have felt paranoid all month, and asked was she taking any photos or videos still and she said no. I then showed her what I found. She said she wasn't in love with me, didn't find me attractive, and does not want to be married to me and she has been texting a new guy.

During all this both daughter have had major issues. I do not want to go into details, they are not life threating, but are a big deal for the entire family.

We finally went to couples counselling and my wife agreed to move out temporarily to give us a break. I would stay with the kids as I was the primary parent who cooks, cleans, does laundry, checks on them, and who they go to if they need anything. And she would move out to an AirBNB.

Since then she has shared that her intentions are to move back in after the short break. She would like us to live together but not be married. She feels it is best for the kids. She would continue her relationship with the other man or other men as she wishes as we would not be married. She said I am free to do the same, but honestly, I have no desire right now. But she would contribute more around the house and with the girls until our younger graduate high school at which time we would sell the house and split.

I don't know how that would work. I am still hurt and reeling from her betrayal and deception. I cry nearly every day, I cannot sleep, I have lost 15+ pounds since the original affair. It hurts so much to see her and think about how after 24 years of marriage she could just walk away without trying or conversation to talk to me how she was feeling before the affairs. I don't see how I could move on with her in the house or heal the hurt inside me seeing her every day until the girls are out of the house. I don't think a few weeks is enough time for me to process and to have her here all the time and to know she is sexting and dating. I said if she stays, I will move even though I don't want to leave the girls, but she says she doesn't want that either. But she keeps pushing it would be best for the girls, they are struggling now, and they need us both.

Part of me feels that I need to focus on the kids and make this work and I am not willing to sacrifice for my family. And part of me thinks she wants the best of both worlds the ability to date and still have me here for emotional support and take care of the kids and do all the housework.

I don't know what to do. Has anyone successfully lived with their ex after such betrayal and loss of trust? How does that work? Does the pain become less?

I wonder if I’d get more support if he died?

My husband left 5 months ago. It was a high conflict marriage with constant infidelity on his part and abuse. Before the marriage ended he stopped paying the mortgage and our car for 4 months resulting in almost foreclosure and repossession of my car.

He blamed me for all of it the told me he didn’t love me anymore was miserable and wanted out. I assumed we were separated at that point. He then confessed he had an affair 10 years ago and she was the one he always wanted to be with

I’m devastated I’m alone and overwhelmed. He only takes the kids one over night 3 times a month because of work. He comes once a week and takes one child to an event for 3 hours.

I assume he goes to work. Goes home and goes on dates. I’m am his second wife so this is his second divorce. 3 children total

People know and they just act like it’s nothing nobody offers help, nobody offers me an ear, nobody comes over with pizza or offered to help with the kids. I’m doing it alone

I wonder how different it would be if he died? People would call more, people would offer more help.

I spoke to a woman that’s known my family for years and when I told her he left she said “it happens”

I got so angry I told her I didn’t want to hear from her again and how insensitive she is. I’ll bet if my husband died she’d be at my door step with a cake or maybe not

This was my first relationship and it lasted almost a decade, we were the ideal high school sweethearts in the eyes of everyone. I would have never even suspected that this would happen. Of all the people you could think that could cheat, he would be the least person you would imagine doing that. Yet it happened. It's been a year and a half since it happened and I feel like I have gotten over him, but not over what he did. Does that make sense?

I feel like I don't miss him or love him anymore, and genuinely feel a lot happier without him now. I am thriving in that regard. However I still feel angry and hurt about what happened. He tried to remain friendly after what he did, but he found out that I was still resentful over the infidelity and he said I was a narcissist for not getting over it, that what he did was a result of his ADHD and that I should be understanding of why he needed to do this. Am I really a narcissist for feeling hurt about something that drastically changed the course of my life? I planned everything in my life around him, we lived together for almost half a decade, we were going to get engaged, we have been planning to spend the rest of our lives together. I could have never even remotely imagined that he was tired of me enough to hurt me this way. When he cheated he said that he did it on purpose to hurt me because he wanted to feel free and in control and that the only way to feel that power was by making me feel little and hurt (yes, he actually says this, word for word). That is why this infidelity has scarred me so deeply.

The first few months after it happened I didn't want to talk about it because he was still being friendly to me so I thought that it would be inappropriate that I vented about it with anyone and made him look bad. My family avoids the topic, they have never asked how I feel. I don't have many friends but the ones I do have I barely bring it up because I feel like I will sound "narcissistic" or "obsessed". Not everyone likes to hear someone beating a dead horse. Since him and I share the same therapist I also cannot talk about it in therapy (conflict of interest and medical etiquette yadda yadda). But now that enough time has passed I feel like I understand better the situation, now that he's no longer in my life, I feel like I can see the situation and understand it more clearly than I did over a year ago. But at this point I feel like I shouldn't bring it up because I should be over it. And I don't want to sound like I am not over him because I truly am. I feel like most people don't understand the difference between being over someone but not being over the pain they caused.

I recently had a chat with my mother, and she gave me a religious spiel about how I should "forgive and let go, because being angry forever will just hurt yourself", but I genuinely hate that mentality. He never apologized for what he did, so I have never understood why you I should forgive someone who has never given you an apology. And forgiving him literally won't change absolutely anything because the pain will still be there, the scar will still be there. I want to move on with my life and I want to fall in love again, I love love. But I am afraid of falling in love again and that this happens again. I don't want to ever experience a pain like this again and I am terrified. I didn't go out of my house for months because I felt humiliated. It even felt violating, since he knew that I feared infidelity specifically because I was afraid of mysterious STDs, it felt violating that he came back to me after being unfaithful without ever considering my already poor health. Thankfully, I didn't catch anything. But STDs are rampant in our city, he could've exposed me to it, that's what angers me and makes me feel so gross that I ever have my body to someone like this. He cheated with a coworker, they worked at a restaurant I used to love and I just can't bring myself to step in it again, and all my family and friends love this one restaurant, they often tell me if I want to go, but the place just brings awful memories. I cannot enjoy things I used to enjoy because I introduced him to those things and he became a fan along with me and I feel like he stole those things because now I cannot enjoy them without thinking of him (not in a "I miss him" kind of way, but more like "ew, he used to like this too, he's too disgusting to deserve to enjoy this"), I can no longer listen to music I used to love, watch series I used to love. I don't think forgiveness is easy because it just won't erase this level of pain that I feel.

I know that time will heal scars, I know that eventually I will probably be able to enjoy those things he stole from me. I know that eventually I will probably fall in love with someone nice. But I know that I will never stop being angry about what he did. I know that no matter how much everything heals and how much I move on, that experience already happened and I have no way of turning back time to erase it. I wish I could. I wish I could completely erase this memory, I wish I could completely ignore that this ever happened to me. I wish he could have just broken up with me without ever having me have to go through this. I always ask myself, Was is really necessary? he could have just broken up with me, he could have just told me he didn't love me anymore and that he wanted out, and I would have understood. Why was my suffering so necessary for my life story? I've already gone through so much and was already healing from so much trauma just to be hit with this. I genuinely want to know why, why did he feel that for him to be "free" he needed to hurt me in that way.

Even If I get over everything else, how does one get over from a life event like this? Do I have to move on from being hurt? Is it inappropriate that I resent him and feel disgusted by the situation? Is it bad that the memory persists? It's been a year and a half, do I have to forget all about it already?

I don't even know how will I ever trust a future partner after this. There were no signs to what happened. So I don't even know what to look out for next time, I don't know how am I supposed to trust someone after I gave my full trust to this man for him to do this.

My bf and I have been together for 3 years, and he came clean about him and a woman overseas. She apparently confessed her feelings to him, and he kissed her back and told me he has feelings for her and wants to take a bet on something new. He said he possibly ‘loves’ her or at least likes her, he’s only know her for a short period of time 1 month ish. The moment I saw those messages, my gut was twisted, heart stopped, it was different to the way he texted me, a lot of gif exchanges and a lot more cheesy.

He says he still loves me and has been extremely kind, warm, loving to me and given me a lot throughout our relationship, which makes everything even more confusing because I don’t hate him. I forgave him immediately. I saw him yesterday night-morning, and we hugged, talked the night and I still desperately want to be with him. Why am I justifying this?

He has also said he wants to help me get back on my feet financially and will help me as best he can so I can be financially independent. So we will still be in touch.

I’m spiraling right now, I never thought he was the man to not be loyal, and I just don’t know how to proceed with life anymore, we talked about marriage, kids a future together, how can I trust anyone else now? So much anxiety. We have been through so much in the relationship, financial struggles and moving houses. We’ve built a life together through difficult times, I was there when he was first at his lowest.

*Also, the past few weeks my gut has been off and even my period has been delayed, i feel like it’s something to note that it was some spiritual interception and if anyone else relates to this.

Does anyone else find it frustrating that the entire separation process is constantly made harder by the verbal emotional gameplaying of their partner who seems to take every opportunity to use any practical discussion to highjack it into trying to blame you for their actions? This is despite the fact that they've been the guilty party at every single step of the way, and they've left a trail of messages and photos which they know I've taken screenshots of. Maybe it's just me, but i find it increasingly difficult to deal with...

Imagine you’re married and have always had doubts about whether you can trust your husband around other women. You’ve often suspected him of having feelings for other women, but he has always insisted that he has never crossed the line. He admits that he can develop feelings for other women, but claims that he controls those feelings and remains faithful to you.

Over time, this lack of trust has led to constant arguments and conflicts. One day, during a particularly serious argument, you both say that you’ll do whatever you want and stay together only for the sake of the children. Despite everything, you have never crossed the line yourself.

Later, you start feeling that he might actually be cheating. You check his phone and discover that he has been getting close to a female friend from his school days. You find out that they have even been discussing having sex.

When confronted, he finally opens up and admits that he has done things he knows were wrong. However, the truth goes beyond what you initially discovered. He reveals that he has visited spas several times and had sex with a woman working there in private, as well as with some older women.

He says he has realised the gravity of his actions, feels guilty about what he has done, and wants to make things right. He confesses everything and now leaves the decision about the future of the marriage in your hands.

If you were the wife, what would you do?

So I recently noticed my husband deleted messages with a girl he works with. We are friends with this girl and her husband whom are both close coworkers with my husband, he texts both of them.

HOWEVER, she never had my phone number and about 3 months ago she invited him/us to a concert that he couldn’t go to, so we didn’t go. THAT is supposedly what my husband told me was the last thing they talked about so that is now 3 months ago. And now we no longer live in the same state as them but as we are now in this new state is when I noticed he deleted messages with her but not with her husband. And he is still following both of them on all his socials…except he also unfollowed her on snapchat. Which he also deleted a lot of OF models on sc for some reason. So ofc i find all this timing odd.

So…

It is kinda eating me alive to ask her husband if he can check her phone to see if 1. She also deleted my husband’s messages or 2. If they did in fact leave their convo off for the concert invite as my husband claims or if he finds something more.

Should I reach out to her husband to ask this and see what we find?

The day before yesterday I (31F) found evidence of my husband (30M) going to erotic massage parlors for the last 5 months. He confessed after a few minutes of silence when I confronted him. He told me he has a problem and that it has nothing to do with me, that he thought he’d be able to keep that aspect of himself separate from our marriage. We had a couple hour long conversation about all of it where we both were extremely emotional and he truly did seem remorseful for the pain I was experiencing because of his actions. At the end of this conversation he left after asking me if that’s what I wanted him to do.

We’ve been married for 11 years and he truly is my best friend, was my safe place (at least I thought he was) and I cannot imagine my life without him in it. We don’t have any children thankfully. But now it’s been two days since then and the pain of not having him here/thinking about divorce far exceeds the pain of the betrayal. Or maybe I’m just telling myself that I don’t know. During the discussion he said if there was any way to save our marriage he’d do it, such as using things like Life360 and getting a new job that doesn’t require travel. During the initial conversation I told him and myself there’s no way I could respect myself if I stayed in a relationship with him. But now that it’s my reality I dont know if I can stick to my word or not. I know I deserve better, I know what he did is disgusting and selfish. But I just….the idea of moving on with my life without him in it is making me physically sick. We’ve built a life together and even just thinking about walking away from it is indescribably painful.

Does anyone have any experience with reconciliation after something like this? Did it last? Did the resentment break things down eventually?

We were trying to be on friendly terms, but that meant when i got angry, he has to hear about all of it. Sometimes i am pretty calm and civil but i eventually snowball and start to berate him and curse him out and i don't really feel bad about it. Why should I? And he seems to think that im not allowed to express my anger in any way that isn't just leaving him alone for the day and cooling off on my own. Even when I do express myself calmly, his usual solution is something along the lines of: "well im a different person now and we have to move on from that and you cant keep picking at the same wound expecting it to heal. Im sorry for what I did, BUT *bullshit filler*"

How can I not curse you out? How am I not entitled to telling you exactly how shitty I feel, how shitty I think you were, what a shitty thing you did to me, and what a shitty way youre handling my anger right now?

Hey everyone,

As I type this I’m not even sure if I’ll hit send. Never posted to Reddit before. I am shook and don’t know where else to go. I have great professional and personal supports, but this is so raw and I don’t want to jump to anything (because I think that’s already bitten me here—more on that in a moment).

I’ve been with my wife for 12 years, married for 5. We have had our struggles for sure, but I genuinely thought we were solid. We have two beautiful kids, ages 2 and 3, who I adore. Having two toddlers has definitely taken its toll on us, but we have tried so hard to stay connected and I felt like we were growing together through everything. I make mistakes and become irritable and I’m difficult to be with sometimes, but I can’t remember the last time I didn’t own it and apologize and try to (and genuinely do) do better.

This past weekend I got in her car in the driveway to hike with my best friend, and her phone auto-connected to the Bluetooth from our bedroom. I noticed received and sent calls to a coworker over the past several days. They teach in the same dept and most of the calls were right before or after school, but one was Friday night at 6pm, which seemed a little odd. Early in our relationship, there was a rumor that she had a romantic thing with this guy, but she vehemently denied it. He was married and his wife was pregnant at the time. I was jealous though and we talked about it early in the relationship, and then it kind of fell away. I’d get a little uncomfortable when his name came up in normal conversation about work, but I learned through therapy and my own work to go inward, investigate the jealousy, work on myself, and show up better for myself, for her, and for my kids. And I thought it was working. I talked to my best friend about this on our hike and stayed the course, just reinvesting the feelings into myself and trusting her. This past week went pretty normally, but now in retrospect she seemed distant. She was on her phone more than usual, sometimes smiling at it, and it would irritate me because I’m there bathing two toddlers or jumping in at tantrums. And this isn’t even to say she isn’t an active parent. She is a rockstar at running our home and I believe she does love us and love our kids. We are a team and actively talk about how each other is doing with mental load, and try to make adjustments. She can be blunt (maybe sometimes I’d call it harsh) with us, but it’s how she was raised and I have learned a lot about respect and boundaries from these past 12 years. I typically did not feel she was out of line and even when I was initially put off, usually I would come to recognize her side of things and even appreciate it.

All of that being said, tonight we were really struggling with putting our toddler down, as we have been for the past 6 weeks. Getting her to sleep and to stay asleep has been brutally hard, and everyone is running on fumes. I had taken issue with my wife’s method which would work typically, but our daughter would basically fall asleep crying, and then wake up crying throughout the night for us. After 45 minutes of me trying, it became clear it wasn’t going to happen without me staying in there, and my wife took over. I was overstimulated so I went downstairs and screamed into a pillow trying to discharge the energy in my body. After that I was just taken by the urge to check her phone, maybe because of these lingering feelings the past week. I have sometimes peeked over her shoulder but I haven’t checked her phone in several years.

I went to her phone and saw texts between them and started reading them. I was blown away by what I saw. I thought I’d have to dig further than the first screen or scroll. Things like “you send energy up my spine” and they were joking about having made up words together - “seratoning” ? Idk. Something about “I’m sad the field was empty”. I’m assuming they were meeting up and I don’t know what else. In my state, I started basically hyperventilating as I couldn’t contain it. She heard me and left our daughter’s room. She came in and saw what was happening. I remember saying “what the fuck” and “are you fucking kidding me” and I’m pretty sure things about how could you, why, etc etc. She then deleted the texts once she had the phone and told me she’s doing that because of my behavior. My thought is if there’s nothing there, why wouldn’t you just let me read the conversation?We couldn’t even really have a conversation because our daughter was still awake, so now she is back in there and I am downstairs in a stupor. I’ve thought of leaving, I’ve thought of how bad I fucked this up in tipping her off. I’ve thought of fb messaging him and/or his wife (they have two kids of their own). I’ve thought of calling friends or family. But right now I feel like I already fucked myself by tipping her off, I just couldn’t take it. I am a sensitive guy who feels things deeply and I was taken over by the moment.

Part of me is thinking about divorce, the other is just apathetic and wants to give up on us. To re-up my commitment to myself and my kids and let whatever is going on with her play out. But I can’t see myself trusting her ever again or wanting to or feeling safe to be intimate with her. I was looking at photos of my kids before and I’m so overwhelmed with emotion. It feels like there is an ocean of grief, anger, confusion, sadness, self-pity, compassion, love, recognition, disgust, fear, freedom that I am protecting myself from in this moment. I know it will come in waves and I will live this out. I believe deeply that even our toughest moments serve us in ways that they need to, even if they feel absolutely horrible in the moment. I will hold on to that.

I guess I am wondering how badly did I fuck this up by tipping her off? And where do I go from here? I know you guys can’t answer especially the second one, but I just need to type it out. Do I call a lawyer? Talk to a friend? Demand receipts and full transparency and professional help or I’m done? Just commit wholly to my children and kind of ignore her for now? I love them so much and I don’t want snap decisions to determine their future. I feel like I already made one and wish I could have it back, but I guess that was meant to be too. If it hurts my case in court one day that I let her in so early, then so be it. It’s not even really about that for me. I just want to be happy, for my kids to live a good life, and in time I believe I’ll want her to be happy too. I know I can at least find that for me and my kids right now, in every moment. I have been struggling with them lately, but I can recommit to being the best dad I can possibly be and channel this into those relationships. I want to be careful not to let my feelings about her bleed into my energy with them. I feel mature enough to do this in a real way.

Even as I sit here I imagine she is plotting with him or covering tracks and I don’t know if I should even care or what to do. As I type that I’m taken aback by my own distrust and skepticism that has surfaced. As you can hear, I’m extremely overwhelmed and could probably go on for another 5 pages just rambling. In all of this though there is a flicker of freedom and of clarity. Maybe part of me kind of always knew. I also struggle with not feeling like enough, and maybe I invited this experience into my life as a lesson. Not to blame myself, but I do tend to believe in those things. Regardless of the games she plays, I will never forget what I saw, and I know how I feel and how it felt. It feels like I’m in for some gaslighting as we navigate this. I don’t even want to navigate it with her, I guess is what I mean. I’m disgusted, shaken, confused, angry, and really, really sad. I feel like my whole life has been flipped upside down. I don’t know what tomorrow will even feel like.

If anyone has constructive advice or pushback on anything I said, I’d be grateful to hear it. If I fucked up royally feel free to tell me that, too. If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

What did you require of your partner in order to feel safe again?

I’m sitting in my closet right now. On the other side of the door, my husband and daughter are in our bed. Totally unaware.

I had been feeling that my husband was cheating on me for years but I never had proof. It was just a sixth sense. After all this time, 6 years married and nearly a decade together, I have never looked at his phone until tonight. I am generally very against that but this feeling has been literally eating away at me. And my fucking walls are crashing down.

I don’t know how long it’s been going on or with how many people. I have solid proof (and sent myself the proof) of one but I do have hunches of others.

I’m fucking gutted. But also feeling insanely guilty. I know he made these choices and he is actively hiding them, but we have had a mostly dead bedroom for years and I feel like I drove him to do this. There is just so much history I will try my best to get it out and make it make sense. Mostly because I NEED to process this.

Our relationship began like fire. I felt like he was truly a safe man, a good man, and we were compatible in all ways. We were also pretty sexually adventurous when we were new. We fantasized a lot and a couple of times we brought in a third. It was always consensual, fun, and never interfered with US. After we got married, we moved and that was extremely difficult on my husband. It was our choice (mostly his because he was the one really capable financially) but he really had a hard time with change and this was a huge move. Our marriage suffered horribly. We hadn’t been romantic in months and decided to shake it up and consider a threesome again. I fucked up here. I did not want this but I went along with it. I’m currently working on this aspect of my personality because it’s a big theme in my life. That night a huge boundary of mine was crossed. He had never penetrated another woman and that night he did. In his defense, we stupidly never set that boundary. I just never thought he would. And in that moment, it switched for me. I couldn’t bring myself to have “that kind of fun” again.

So our marriage suffered. I felt like it was all my fault. We eventually worked on it and got pregnant. As soon as the positive result came, sex was over. I was actually very into the idea of having sex but my husband felt weird about it once I got pregnant. So we didn’t until months after our daughter was born. She is 4 and we probably have sex twice a year. We don’t reject each other. We just “don’t get around to it.” Which sounds awful. And it is. But we still have fun and had a nice relationship. My husband travels a lot for work. A lot. So that plays into it. And he has an extremely high stress job. That plays into it. If I’m being honest, I have pushed therapy, sex therapy, scheduling sex, date nights, etc more. He says I don’t but I truly have tried hard. And I’ve been feeling in my gut that he has someone else. And apparently he does.

Here’s the thing… I have given up A LOT for this man. My career (literally before getting married and having kids because my career is location dependent and he did not want to live in that city - there’s more to it but that’s the simple version), my home base, I wanted a second child and he didn’t, I usually plan my day or routine around what he has to do. I do a lot of molding and I just lost myself. I know I’m not perfect. I know I didn’t do my part in this. It is a partnership and I’m part of it. But to cheat!? And worse, he’s sending this woman MONEY when he has us on a budget! And I know there’s more than what I found but I am just not sure I can dig around for more without losing my mind.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to tell anyone. I don’t want to even admit it to myself. I’m also so fucking mad and sad that he couldn’t have just left me. I am not too old but I am getting to the point where I can’t just easily find someone and have another child. Like I feel like he is wasting my life because he doesn’t want to divorce me? I know he loves me. At least I believe he does. I believe this is purely sex. But idk. Can you really love someone and disrespect them like that? “I’m in my home office, wife is in the other room. I want to play so bad” I mean can he love me and still talk like that? Idk. Wtf.

As you read in the title, has anyone else experienced this situation where your father or mother chose their lover over your family? A similar situation occurred with my parents, who were married for 15 years. A happy and loving marriage until the third party appeared; this woman knew what she was doing, My father could have stopped it, but he didn't. He said he felt stressed and overwhelmed by a life full of responsibilities, so he decided to be unfaithful to my mother. Comment if you want a second part.

Hi. It is 2 months over a D day and one of the things I struggle is my reaction and what I did after discovering it in the middle of the night. The whole month that she was cheating on me we were celebrating our anniversary, we had an amazing backpacking trip and no arguments at all. 2 days before D day and my birthday she told me some problems that were bothering her and that does not know if she loves me and if she wants to build a relationship. I was devasted because she was so harsh, cold and looking for single, small things that can harm me. I was in a deep shock and immediately offered consueling, went to therapist and looked for multiple solutions. My birthday was the worst day in my life, I went to her with flowers and begged her basically for love and she confessed that she has not prepared nothing for my birthday still lying to my face that there is no other person. I cried for the first time since 4 years all day and was begging her and apologizing for everything.

So moving on to my behavior: in the middle of the night, for the first time (we had passwords but I never even looked at her phone), I felt that something is wrong and I checked on her phone and discovered for the first time also that someone has been cheating on me. I was already 2 nights with no sleep in the biggest crisis ever. She was laughing that I don't expect that and I'm "thinking only about myself", planning secretly meetings behind me back and saying unfair things behind my back. I recorded the hidden conversation with the guy and sent the whole conversation to her sister, mom and two mutal friends asking if they know anything about that. Then i checked on her phone more and discovered that she lied to me and she cheated on the past boyfriends (all of them) and her notebook in our house. She lied to me also about other things. I made screenshots and photos that confirms that.

I hate myself for breaching so much her privacy, but 5% of me says that I would be dumped by her couple of days later with no explanation and I could probably do some harm to myself without the knowledge that I discovered.

Why in that moment I felt so much need to investigate and get all knowledge possible about her and could not just leave house? Anyone was in similar situation.

I was just wondering the thoughts of people in this group when it comes to social media. We never really discussed it when we first met. We weren’t fans of it we said and I was just taking a break from everything at the time. I was looking through Facebook posts from family and thought hey see if he had a profile he doesn’t use. You know how you’ll find a profile and they haven’t posted since like 2020. Well he wasn’t posting but he was certainly liking. It was family and the rest all girls. He said they were all from hughschool. Ok, cool, but if you’re just liking past friends, why is all the going to the club or at the beach pics? Not pics with their kids etc.
this was after he said he loved. Went from there to him having an Instagram and TikTok he never broughf up. I reactivated my TikTok and his following number went down SIGNIFICANTLY. I mentioned it and he said “nope old account or something” . The list was private and he hid his likes…ok, but…considering Facebook wasn’t reasonable for him to be transparent. He’s 36 and said I was the only girl that’d ever had a problem with his social media and why am I staking his profiles and blah blah. Obviously I’m here because he was a cheater lol but that aside. There’s plenty of people that expect openness regarding social media. We were long distance for extended spells, too. He made me feeling like a crazy jealous stalker.
Thoughts?

Why would my husband ask to marry me if he cheated?
I found that my husband had cheated on me the first 2 years of us dating, we are now on year 3 and recently married and I honestly suspect that he’s already cheated during our marriage too but was a lot sneakier about it this time (cause messages that used to exist are now deleted) so I am guessing he stopped due to us moving to a different location… but Im just lost… like why me? Why marry me if 1. I don’t seem like his type based on the women he follows and 2. He has been cheating this whole time… he didn’t even bend the knee when he proposed, he tried giving me a ring he got for free as a “family heirloom” yet he spent $2k on OF models and only spent $5k on my wedding ring after all only because i was in the jewelry store to get his finger sized.. and why did he suddenly delete everything? It all just does not make sense to me… sometimes i wonder if Im just in a lavender marriage, or if I was a convenient marry because of his age/his job circumstances.. anyone else been through something similar? And how was your outcome?

Wife of almost 3 years, we have a house together and a 2 year old son.
For the last several weeks I’ve had this gut feeling that something was off. I kept a wary eye out for major and minor tells. I couldn’t shake it, so a few days ago i started snooping. I figured the worst case scenario is that i’m right and my snooping is justified. I prayed that i was wrong and this was all just the result of some errant paranoia stemming from something more innocuous. Over the course of a few days, in secret i started going through her messages, call logs, photos, and social media, piece by piece, bit by bit. I found a few questionable conversations where a guy friend had pushed a boundary and she didn’t exactly rebuff it, not exactly entertain it, nothing damning or sinister enough for me to really push her on.

I didn’t exactly confront her a few days ago, but before i started snooping, i had an honest conversation with her about how it feels like she doesn’t show me any affection or interest lately. I asked if she was getting it somewhere else, and just flat out gave her the opportunity to ease the tension i was feeling and address whatever needed to be addressed. She did the whole reassurance routine, and the part that really got me is my gut continued to eat at me over it. Normally a conversation like this with my wife would have put me at ease and make me feel better, but for some reason the alarm bells started chiming louder and louder. At that point i went into full PI mode and started trying to get to the bottom of it. Best case scenario, i find nothing of note and i move on with some sort of relief. Worst case scenario, my gut is vindicated for its paranoia.

Now for back story, me and her met on IG around 2015, and had been just mutuals on social media up until around 2021-2022 when we were both single and started talking more and more over the course of months until we were in a sort of long distance situationship (different continents entirely) about midway through 2022, she was planning on taking a trip to the area of the world where i was living, since she had family there that she hadn’t seen in many years and asked if i was happy to meet up with her and spend some time in person. To which I agreed and even offered to give her a place to sleep. Skip ahead to us actually meeting, at this point we are basically in an unofficial relationship, so her coming to meet me in person was sort of the proofing. Skip forward some more everything was incredible, we fell totally in love with eachother and committed to a long distance relationship where we visited each other’s countries and spent a couple weeks together each time every handful of months. The last time i was in her country she ended up getting pregnant. So we made a plan for me to move to her since she has her family close by and a well established career, and i was living far away from my family, and my career was much more adaptable to the circumstances.
I moved to her (legally) we spent god knows how much money on immigration lawyers and visa application fees.
Skip forward, 2024, baby is born, we have been living together for most of the 9 months and it’s going really well. I am happy, she is happy, we have our happy little family. My son is my absolute world and she is genuinely a great mom.
Skip forward 2 years to this past few weeks where my gut was setting fire to my insides. Like my subconscious and drawn up a detailed illustration of what’s going on but my conscious brain is stuck in the dark with no way to see it clearly.
So after snooping and not finding anything for a couple days, i had started to resign myself to just accepting that i’m off my nut and need to chill. The only thing i havent thoroughly checked is whatsapp and all the hidden compartments within. Today i got that opportunity while she was giving our son his bath.
I swiped down to check her archived messages and behold a chat from a man i have never seen or heard of before, no where in her social media or anything. With immediately concerning content from not even 1 hour before. I quickly exported the chat and sent it to myself via whatsapp and deleted the outgoing message on her side to give me time to read through the chat log and decide what the extent of this was.
It was bad.
I almost puked from the stress of it.
I gave myself a few moments to weigh my options and steady my mind enough to confront her. After putting our son down for bed i met her downstairs and asked her to open her phone right in front of me. Which she did then, i said open whatsapp and swipe down then tell me about that message thread. She tried to delete it but i told her i already sent myself the whole chat log and read through the most recent chunks.

I kinda blew up and broke down in waves. We went back and forth for hours about it.

Still not sure what to do. But fuckin hell that was nice to get off my chest.

Has any man personally gotten over his wife having a affair that she had strong feelings for
Its been 10 months and we are working through it but it still eats me alive most nights
Will i ever stop thinking about it
Do you regret staying

Had I not checked Facebook memories for fun, I wouldn’t have even realized today wouldn’t been my 10th wedding anniversary. Do I feel any ways about it? Not at all. That’s the point. I’m glad we never made it this far.

Instead I’m laying next to my favourite woman who returned home from the hospital today after she had her gallbladder removed. She’s curled up finally getting some sleep after a horrible week. I couldn’t be in a better place with a better person.

I was thinking about the last time I went to that hospital because of a partner. Pull up a chair for this one.

It was early March of 2020, right before the world shut down. DDay was 9 days prior, and my ex wife and I were at a friends cottage when I saw the message on her phone. She’d been sleeping with her coworker. I couldn’t make a fuss there because we were surrounded by friends. I didn’t want to spoil the weekend for everyone.

We also were flying to Florida to see my family the next day. We had loads of Florida plans. Clearly I couldn’t ruin her vacation, so I kept it to myself. However, that came at a cost; I could barely sleep for 7 days. On the day we were to return home, I cracked and told her I knew. She immediately gaslit me. She then went into some BS about her depression and wanting to end her life before. Completely deflected from her betrayal.

We returned home, and she shook and cried the whole flight. She changed into a crazy person that day. I was angry, and told her she’s got a lot to answer for, but not today. Early the next morning I’m woken up by calls and texts from mutual friends. I answered, and our friend is panicking asking where she is, and if she’s ok. She’s asleep right next to me.

Apparently she wrote a goodbye text to the girl group chat, and so like any responsible adult, they called for a wellness check. Cops were at my door immediately. After some explanation, and reading the text, she was escorted to the psyche ward. So, there I was in the hospital being the betrayed husband of a woman, who has no successfully taken over the narrative, and distracted from my own pain, and I could do nothing about it. The moment they told me she would be held overnight, I bounced. She was safe, I needed space.

I had a mix bag of emotions from pain, to anger, and some concern for my wife. It felt unfair I wasn’t able to focus on my own pain because she co-opted the moment. The next day I took my time returning to the hospital, and we sat in a meeting room with a doctor discussing what she’s going to need. She was released into my care, and we started the hunt for a psychotherapist.

Then the world stopped. I had planned to get some space and just not be present at home as much, but 2020 decided I needed to up the difficulty level.

Anyway, the lockdown forced us to talk, and figure things out. There were lots of downs, but I thought we had turned a corner. I guess not long after she returned to work, the affair resumed. That was it for me, and spring 2022 we were over. She returned to the psyche ward after threatening herself once, but that was another bluff which I didn’t bite on this time. Goodbye to you!

4 years later and my new queen is snoring next to me. She’s had two surgeries in as many months, and she’s feeling low, but I haven’t wavered once because when you know someone is worth it, and this is long term, you really don’t care about these small things which happens. It’ll be a random convo over drinks soon enough.

Anyway, her engagement ring will be fat!!

Hopefully sharing a link wouldn't be against the rules. If it is, I'm fine with this being taken down.

There's a person on TikTok who does in depth breakdowns of common interpersonal and relationship challenges. He speaks plainly and a little sharply, but he tells the truth.

This post he made on abandoning yourself made me think of this place. To paraphrase:

"Your boundaries are the line at which you have to abandon yourself to continue a relationship.

(Example) She yelled at you and before you met her, you said I would not tolerate yelling, and it triggers you. She yells at you because she had a bad day. You stay.

Then its her parents are sick, the reasons continue but you abandoned yourself when you decided being with this person meant more than your boundaries.

You learned her love language, you learned her trauma, her communication style, her love language. But where are you in this equation? Where is the part where someone is concerned about you?"

Its a common theme here that people abandon themselves to perpetuate a marriage they have consciously already acknowledged they would never want for themselves. They rationalize away little bits of their morals and boundaries until they are naked in the wind and operating on faith.

Just remember that picking yourself is always the better option in a situation someone is not picking you.

Found out myy (F25) bf (M27)cheated on me & hungout with his ex 5different times and was msging her up until saturday night …. He changed his name in her phone to disguise it as a guys name. I had a gut feeling I would ask him, have u met up with ur ex , he would assure me “no baby” “i never wanna see her” just flat out lying to my face.
ever since monday i find myself questioning everything . i ask him do you think i’m pretty he says yes you are gorgeous. i ask him, am I good enough, he says yes you are more than enough . So why do i feel so empty ? I feel ugly and fat and i’m literally far from that …. why did he cheat
on me with her , nights i didn’t hear from him he was hanging out with her. i’m hurting

Disclaimer: I don’t know if all the “subscribe me “ things get notifications when i just add an edit here. If not I’ll try to break it up into separate posts on my PC.

Between posting here and GuyCry (i’m more familiar with that sub.) i wont be able to keep up with comments like i want. I’ll add updates to both. May take a sec since i’m about to drive to work.

Update 1: She agreed to a post-nup. And per another Redditor (i am sorry i don’t know the tag off my head, ill fix later), she will be the one to tell the wife with me on a 3-way call. I disclosed that i had a recording since, as she was on narcotics, it wouldn’t be good in court anyway.

She has stated she wants to fix it and will do whatever it takes.

I told her I do not want a pet and “I don’t want a spouse that cowers around the house all day like a dog who pissed on the floor”. I told her if she trued that or just in general kiss-assery i would think even less of her. I want her to work at it.
More to follow

Update 2: i want to thank everyone who reached out here and in my DMs. I am glad and saddened that there are those who can sympathize and share their hard-won experience and advice. I’ll keep up to date as much as i can. I may push the GuyCry crowd to here since this one has a lot more traffic on it.

Update 3: to recap, she agreed to a post-nup, we are seeking counseling through ReGain (nothing heard yet). She wants to make it work.

I will start recording all of my conversations with her. As Alabama is a 1-party consent state, i will decide in-situ whether i tell her or not about recordings.
I am looking into Estate planners for the Post-nup and a divorce lawyer to consult.
I will be seeking an STI battery.
I will cease using declarative language “not getting a penny”, “you’re done”, etc.

I told her “I do love you” this morning before i left for work.
Her response: “i love you too. But i know that doesn’t mean anything now”
Me: “It means a-lot. If those words didn’t mean anything we wouldn’t be here now would we?”

I relayed this to my sister mostly to get her back up to date (she is now also following the thread). She has a problem with the “woah is me” language from her.

Update 4: His wife has been notified, but based on her response, he got to her first and definitely did not share the whole story. Basically told us that attempts at contact to her would be harassment. I feel i have done my due diligence, though i wish i knew how well informed she was.

Update 5: It has been awhile since my last update. I had to do work and coordinate with a lawyer for tomorrow. Has a session with my therapist. Cried alot. Finished work. Started to drive home, cried alot more. I was heaving so hard for air it made me puke and i had my neck muscles clenched long enough to give me a sprain. Cried until i couldnt in the driveway, tried to bail out of the car to puke and just sat in the grass crying snot spit and all.

She came out and we cried. She apologized alot. I told her “you killed my wife”. It was kind of the weird thought train on the drive started that waterpark. We were talking and crying in the yard and driveway for about 2 hours.

Many of you have asked me to ask her “why?”

She felt alone, and abandoned. Felt not like my spouse and more like a maid. That i failed to help her alot on tasks at home (i did, i was and still am working on it) in particular she was upset about having to do dishes the day after she had shoulder surgery.

This is heavily condensed, but my general response was “give me a problem i can solve” and not bring up “stuff from 3 years ago that i can do nothing about.” “Need me to help with dishes and laundry more? I can solve that. Need me to fix your surgery experience? I can’t, so stop trying to use it as a reason. I can’t apologize, do better, but i cant go back and fix that.”
Most of these can also be looped into the complaint of me hiding in a room after work often on my pc or phone. When i come home, often i am stressed about work. But i hide in my room, and as i explained to her: because that keeps me from getting mad in front of my kids and taking it out on her or them.

Side bar 2: When i was growing up… let’s just say it was abusive. I was the step-kid who was a lookalike of the previous husband. I got tossed around, sometimes down a flight of stairs, furniture would break, holes in the wall, etc. The way i would hide or prevent this was to just play in my room by myself with my Lincoln logs. Age up to middle school, new house, same faculty, same lesson plan. Got thrown through a wardrobe, head smashed into a cabinet door. To not deal with it, into the room and K’nex was my new friend. There is a pattern here. End SB2

I never want my kids to have to see an angry parent. Had enough of that shit. I also have always tried to live by “never take it home” when i was active duty since my family is my refuge and not place to for me to have work 2.0.

Does this excuse her? Fuck no.
Does it excuse me? Also no.

Her reasoning abridged: (I am trying to recite it accurately and not excusing or defending her) my “defense mechanism”, was estranging me from her and the kids. She felt abandoned by me as i seemed to have checked out and left her to deal with all the household stuff. She felt not like a partner and more like my mother or a maid.

I have an appointment tomorrow to meet my lawyer for the post-nup.
She still accepts it, states she will sign “no-contest”, and has said she takes 100% responsibility and wants to make the relationship work.
We are still waiting to hear back from the marriage counselor.
I also added that she is to go to the start of all her messages with him, and build a timeline of the events and topics and to also point out when either of them started flirting and where she believes the line was crossed.

Start:
We had one rule when we started dating: no cheating. It was something we both experienced in the past and had zero-tolerance for it.

Short version: I 34m found out my 36f wife was having an emotional affair for about a week+ after i saw messages on her unlocked phone.

Long version: I have been married to my wife for 10 years. We had our 10yr vow renewal in August. Both family’s, our 2 kids in attendance. Magical time for all.

When i was taking her to an appointment she had to be mildly sedated to deal with anxiety of the doctor’s office. So we get home, i put her in bed to sleep off the meds while i take care of my niece (3)(who we were watching for my SIL)

Anyway, SIL has Life360, and i wanted to check where she was when she said she was on the way to get the baby. I don’t have Life360 on my phone anymore, but my wife did: so i went in there while she was asleep and grabbed her phone to check.

We have always been on an open-phone policy. There isn’t anything we hide (i thought).

Her phone screen was unlocked l, and lo- there was facebook messenger up to her ex bf/childhood best friend with the exchange “I love you” and “I love you so much 😘😘” among other texts.
i knew they were talking. I trusted her enough that i wasn’t worried.

At first I was just brushing it off she says I love you to a lot of people. But i couldn’t get it out of my mind. So i scrolled back a few hours of messages (there were THAT many) then i stopped so hurt and confused, snapped a few photos of the conversation and reached out to my older sister, as she was the only one i could talk to. We talked, i showed her the pics and she came out: “this is cheating. This is emotional cheating. No one married should be sending messages to another married person of the opposite sex messages like this.” Sis even got mad at me for defending some of it.

So i took her phone from the room where i left it, still unlocked, her still sleeping off meds. And i had my sister on FaceTime with my camera to her screen scrolling through the messages. I scrolled for maybe 10-5mins (felt like so much longer) straight trying to find the beginning of her messages and i only made it to Thursday last week. She spent so much time talking to him, texting, 30 min calls here and there. ILY all over the fucking place. She was texting him and sending him selfies while i was taking her to the doctors that day! and before, while i was getting dressed to take her, with pictures of her and niece together!

I can go into detail all night but it never made it past texting, calling, video chats. He lives too far away. She gave him pics of her and the kids. Told him about our marriage and issues we are having.

Side bar: Told him enough for him to have some opinions about me as a man and father apparently. This part my sister seems to think he might have been trying to break us up and present himself as super-dad, because he was there for every game and super-attentive and gave advice about my kids issues.

…Cont’d…

Gave him our address. Shared with him a playlist i made, of music i found that is super-raunchy nsfw type stuff. He was supposedly coming into town soon for a few days work trip. She swears it wouldn’t have gone that far, but as i have had the unfortunate chance to repeat tonight: I have your word for that.

I’m sitting in my bathroom after i couldn’t sleep shaking like i’m cold as i write this and i STILL don’t know how to feel.

I woke her up. Waited til she was at least semi-lucid before i guided her to the kitchen table where her phone was. Told her how i found it. Said i don’t go through your phone but i saw that and read more.

She owned up to it. Admitted it was cheating. Face in hands, whole 9 yards.
Asked if she wanted to leave me: no.
Want to stay married: yes.
When did this start: IDK.
When did you realize you were cheating: ~week ago.
Do you want to fix this: yes.

I can keep going with details, but i just want to fix my marriage. I gave her terms up front.
1: he shows his wife, or I do.
2: you are to never have contact with him again, after we verify his wife knows.

He disappeared from facebook, so likely blocked or deleted the account but my sister found his wife’s account and tomorrow i will be reaching out to her to make sure.

This has been my life since 3pm yesterday. As a guy who used to get shocked with electricity i feel like i have been on a live wire all day and night. I feel so much at once that it seems like it isnt enough of any one thing to call it each. Like i know i am mad, sad, hurt, but i cant feel those things. I havent cried. I havent raged or had any kind of reaction at all.

I was military, so i know the signs: textbook shock.

I told her in the car after we picked up McDs for our kids for dinner and it was just us: we have two rules now.

1. No cheating.
2. If i hear you have contacted him again, see his name, he shows up at the house, “if you so much as poke him on facebook”, you are done. You get the van, your clothes and jewelry, and not a thing more. You won’t get my kids, my house, or a dime out of me.

I have been the bread winner almost our whole relationship. She stopped working after our second kid and her company screwed her on a pay raise. She is a SAHM, has no college, no work history in the last 10 years. I have given her everything she has. When we met she was living on her mom’s couch. Lots in credit card debt. A (1) rubbermaid container for her clothes.

At my sister’s prompting i recorded our conversation at the table with my phone. JIC for court she said.

Wife is also in a kind of shock i guess? Some crying but mostly a zombie, that may still be the meds.

She was gonna sleep on the couch but i asked her not to because i don’t want the kids seeing us be any different.

I can’t sleep. I have tossed and turned and prayed my clock would say 5am. Nope 1145p so i laid there and tried everything to go to bed.

And here i am at 140a writing a message to you all. I don’t know what to expect or what i want. Still in shock

Please help.

I already know I want to leave but i honestly just want to know what actually happened between AP and WH. II know my husband is lying to me because nothing he said makes any sense. I'm not sure if AP even knew we were married. I see she blocked him on instagram so she might have found out or something happened between them I'm not sure. I want to reach out to ask questions for clarity, but I'm not sure it would be worth it.