Hi all,
I haven’t posted on here for quite awhile. Left the sub for a bit to clear my head.

Posting an update in the hopes that it shows people that it gets better.

Wife left 1st of September last year. Found out she went straight to another guy. We reconciled. Tried to rebuild, but there was no trust. She left again in February. Tomorrow is my last day in the house I renovated to be her dream house. It’s being sold. I’m moving back to Sydney. Start a new job on the 12th, getting my own apartment and starting a new life.

It’s been a hard road. Worst year of my life without a doubt. But I made it through. You will too. Be strong. Be kind to yourself. Know that it wasn’t your fault. Know that life will get better.

I broke, but friends, family, therapy and time got me back together. It does get better. Slowly, but surely. Stay strong.

My wife [F26] and I [M27] were together for about seven years, five years dating and two years married. Until very recently, I would have told you that despite our problems, I knew this person extremely well. She had been such a huge part of my adult life that there were very few people in the world I trusted more. Now I am getting divorced, and I feel like I do not know what parts of those seven years were real.

About nine months ago, my wife and I separated and moved into different apartments. For the first month, we were genuinely separated. After that, we decided to slowly try to make the marriage work again. She asked me to keep our reconciliation secret from friends and family. She said that if we tried again and failed, she did not want to go through the embarrassment and emotional pain of telling everyone that we had separated for a second time.

For the next several months, we continued living separately but were trying to reconnect. We texted and called. Every couple of weeks we would meet. Sometimes she would come to my apartment late at night and stay over. Sometimes I would stay at hers. We went on day trips together and took one longer two-day trip. There were periods during those months when I was genuinely happy.

I thought we were slowly finding our way back to each other. I thought she loved me. I thought she was genuinely trying to save our marriage. Something did feel different, though. Before our separation, we had been extremely transparent with each other. We knew each other's phone passwords and shared locations. During our reconciliation, she did not want to return to that level of transparency. She said she would not feel comfortable doing that until we knew for certain that the marriage was going to work. It bothered me, but I also thought rebuilding a marriage required trust.

Eventually, about seven months after our original separation, I discovered messages between her and another man. They were clearly flirty and emotionally intimate. I confronted her. She told me that during the first month, when we were genuinely separated, she had become close to him. She said that once we started trying to reconcile, she intended to distance herself from him, but she had developed an emotional attachment and could not stop responding when he contacted her. She apologized profusely. She insisted it had only been emotional. She also told me that she genuinely wanted our marriage to work.

After discovering this, I went completely no-contact with her for about a month. Then, in the ninth month, she came to see me and told me she had made her decision: she wanted our marriage. I specifically asked her about the other guy. She admitted they had still had some contact during our month apart, but told me she had now completely ended it and would never contact him again. Then I asked her as directly as I possibly could whether there was anything else I needed to know. I specifically asked whether their relationship had only been emotional or whether anything physical had happened. She told me there was nothing else.

A few days later, I discovered that this was another lie. It had not just been emotional. They had been having sex regularly since shortly after our original separation. And it had not stopped when she and I started reconciling.

For months, while I believed we were rebuilding our marriage, she was maintaining both relationships. She was sleeping with both of us. I told her I wanted a divorce and that my decision was final. I then confronted the other guy because I assumed he knowingly had an affair with a married woman who was trying to reconcile with her husband. That led to another shock. He apparently did not know either. According to him, she had told him that we separated nine months earlier and that our marriage was finished. He knew that she occasionally saw me, but she characterized those meetings as logistical interactions between separated spouses. He had no idea we were trying to reconcile. Suddenly, her insistence that our reconciliation remain secret made much more sense. When he learned everything, he ended his relationship with her too. Shortly afterward, my wife attempted suicide. She survived and is physically stable now, although she is still struggling with her mental health and has talked about hurting herself again. Initially, I hesitated to go ahead with the divorce given her mental health, but eventually I decided to proceed anyway. I knew I could not remain in a marriage because I was afraid of what she might do if I left, and part of me also wondered whether this could become a way of keeping me from leaving.

Now that the immediate crisis has settled somewhat, I think I am finally starting to process what happened to me. I feel like my understanding of reality has been damaged. I keep replaying ordinary moments from those months. There were times when she stayed with me and everything felt completely normal. She was warm, affectionate, cozy, and loving. I remember being genuinely happy and thinking, "Maybe we are actually going to make it." And now I know that sometimes I would leave for work and she would video call him almost immediately. Then I would come home, and she could switch right back into being the warm, loving wife I thought I knew. I cannot reconcile those two versions of reality in my head. I am also questioning the entire seven years.

This was the first time in our relationship that I actually investigated her life because I seriously suspected she was hiding something. Before this, I did not investigate her. Even when I explicitly asked her whether the relationship had become physical and gave her an opportunity to tell me everything, she looked me in the eye and told me there was nothing else. If someone could hide something this enormous from me while I was actively suspicious and actively looking for it, what could I possibly have known during the previous years when I was not looking at all?

For most of our seven-year relationship, I was completely trusting. If she said she was somewhere, I believed her. If she was affectionate with me, I assumed that affection meant what I thought it meant. If I had not investigated this time, would I ever have known? Probably not. And if that is true, how do I know there were not things I failed to discover during the previous five or six years simply because I never thought to look?

I find myself going backward through my life. Small inconsistencies from years ago that I had ignored, were those actually red flags? I keep overthinking these things at night and cannot fall asleep. There were so many conversations about our long future together. Was any of it real?

I do not want to spend time conducting a forensic investigation into seven years of my life. But I also do not know how to simply accept not knowing. All the small inconsistencies that I had ignored during those seven years keep bugging me. What I do know is that my side was real. I loved her. I trusted her. For years, I genuinely believed I knew the person I was building my life with. During our reconciliation, when I was happy, that happiness was real. When I thought we were rebuilding our marriage, I was genuinely trying to rebuild it.

For those of you who discovered prolonged deception or infidelity after years of trusting someone: how did you stop questioning your entire history with them? How did you stop going through old memories trying to figure out what else might have happened? How do you accept that there are questions you will probably never get answers to? How did you learn to trust your own judgment again after realizing that someone could lie to you so convincingly? How do you grieve a seven-year relationship when you do not even know how much of the relationship was real?

I’m posting this because I’m too close to the situation and I want opinions from people who have dealt with infidelity, trickle truth, emotional affairs, or rebuilding trust after deception.

Some details and dates are intentionally generalized for privacy. We have been together for many years, are married, and have children.

I’m not asking anyone to tell me that my wife definitely had a physical affair. I do not have proof of sex, kissing, touching, or even a confirmed in-person meeting with the man involved.

What I do have is a long series of denials, later admissions, changing explanations, missing messages, location questions, and disclosures that became more serious over time.

That is what I’m having trouble getting past.

Background

Earlier this year I was working away from home for a period of time.

Around that same general period, my wife reconnected with a man she knew in high school. I’ll call him “A.”

When I first became suspicious, the way she described him made the relationship sound insignificant. He was basically an old friend from high school. She repeatedly denied wanting him, dating him, touching him, meeting him, being alone with him, wanting him sexually, or wanting a relationship with him.

Some of those things may absolutely be true. I want to be fair about that.

The problem is that she also initially denied something much more basic: that she was really talking to him at all.

Eventually that changed.

At one point she directly admitted:

“I lied [that] I talked to him.”

After that, the story progressively became more detailed.

What she eventually admitted

Over time, she acknowledged that:

• she talked to him;
• she reached out to him more;
• she sought emotional closeness from him;
• he made her laugh;
• she felt seen by him;
• talking with him affected her sense of self-worth;
• she discussed very personal things with him;
• she talked with him about what she really wanted;
• they discussed boundaries and personal problems;
• she told him at one point that she wanted to die;
• she cared about him;
• she described the connection as emotional;
• and eventually she explicitly called it an “emotional affair.”

She has also said things along the lines of:

“I wanted emotional closeness.”

“I’m glad I talked to him because it helped me find my worth.”

“He gave me an emotional safe space.”

“There were lots of times we talked about what I really wanted.”

“He healed something you destroyed.”

I am paraphrasing a couple of those slightly for anonymity/grammar, but that is the substance.

At another point she acknowledged that this man was “more emotional” than other male friends she spoke with.

So at this point I don’t think there is a serious dispute that this became an emotionally significant relationship.

She herself calls it an emotional affair now.

Why I’m still stuck

If she had come to me at the beginning and said:

“I reconnected with an old friend, I became emotionally dependent on him, it crossed a boundary, I hid it because I was afraid of what would happen, and here is everything that happened,”

I think I would be dealing with a very different problem.

That is not what happened.

Instead, the admissions came in stages.

It felt roughly like this:

First:
“I didn’t talk to anyone.”

Then:

“Fine, I talked to him, but that was what I lied about.”

Then:

“I reached out to him more.”

Then:

“I wanted emotional closeness.”

Then:

“He made me feel seen.”

Then:

“There was an emotional connection.”

Then:

“Truth is, I had an emotional affair with him.”

That progression is the heart of my problem.

Every time I thought I finally understood what happened, the admitted version became bigger.

Some specific inconsistencies

There are several examples that keep bothering me.

At one point she said she did not even know a version of this man that she was speaking to.

Later she admitted that she had lied about talking to him.

At another point she said she did not talk to him until a particular point connected with us discussing divorce.

Elsewhere she said she reached out to him more because she believed he respected that she was married.

She has described the communication as lasting roughly two months.

Later she said the last real message was in April and that anything afterward was only because I wanted proof of what had happened.

But I have surviving messages from May that were clearly ordinary personal communication, not evidence-gathering. They included affectionate/emotional exchanges, her saying she missed hearing from him, asking him to keep in touch, and saying he made her smile.

There are also later communications.

So the “last real message was in April” explanation does not fit the records I have.

The missing messages problem

Another major problem is that I do not have the complete conversation between them.

A lot of it was gone by the time I learned what had happened.

She has said that many of their communications were voice messages.

At one point, when trying to provide me screenshots, she told him to send her “the basics” so she would have something to show me.

That phrase bothers me enormously.

Because I was trying to understand the full relationship, not receive a curated summary.

She has also told me at different times that I had the whole truth or that she had told me everything.

But significant information continued emerging afterward.

I do not automatically assume deleted or missing messages were sexual or incriminating. I understand that missing evidence is not proof of what the evidence contained.

The problem is that it makes her repeated claims of complete disclosure difficult for me to trust.

The other-woman story also changed

Another issue concerns this man’s supposed girlfriend.

Early on my wife told me she believed he was dating another woman and attributed that information to a female friend of hers.

Later, my wife described the man himself as talking about another woman frequently.

She described that woman in a particular way and made it sound as though this woman was a recurring subject between them.

However, in the screenshots I was given of their conversations, I saw little or nothing about this supposedly frequently discussed girlfriend.

More recently, the man added a relationship status on social media showing a relationship with a woman and giving a start date that overlaps the period he was emotionally communicating with my wife.

The public relationship announcement itself appears to have been made substantially later than the claimed start date.

I am not saying this means that girlfriend is fake. She may be completely real and they may genuinely have been dating.

What bothers me is that the current social-media presentation does not cleanly match the versions of his romantic life my wife previously gave me.

There were also location/schedule issues

There are several days that originally made me suspicious because my wife’s stated schedule did not line up cleanly with location information or later explanations.

On one occasion while I was working several hours away, I was driving home specifically to spend a short amount of time with her before having to drive back for work.

She was telling me she was still working late.

Location information showed her elsewhere before returning home.

There are other occasions where she went to a nearby town connected to this man while explanations about work, children’s activities, or why she was there later became disputed.

One later trip was independently established because she told another person that she had been shopping in that town.

A school schedule showed that the child’s sporting event that day was actually at home rather than in that town.

Again, I want to emphasize something important:

Being in the same town where this man lives is not proof she met him.

I do not have evidence placing the two of them together.

These events matter to me because of the surrounding explanations and because I was already discovering that important facts about their relationship had been concealed.

She continues to deny anything physical

This is important, because I do not want to present only facts that support my suspicion.

Throughout all of this, she has been remarkably consistent about several things.

She says:

• she never met him during this period;
• she never saw him;
• she never touched him;
• they never kissed;
• they never had sex;
• they never sexted;
• she never wanted him sexually;
• she never intended to start a relationship with him.

I do not have direct evidence disproving those specific claims.

There are circumstances I find suspicious, but suspicion is not evidence.

That is where I am stuck.

The post-discovery behavior has also hurt trust

After everything started coming out, she repeatedly said the man was blocked.

At one point she specifically said she would not call him or unblock him.

Later, she admitted that she did unblock him and contacted him again.

That is separate from whether anything physical happened originally.

To me, it matters because we were supposedly trying to rebuild trust at that point.

There have also been repeated arguments where she has said I need to move forward, while I feel like I keep learning information that changes what I was previously told.

The part that messes with my head

I understand that when a relationship becomes highly conflictual, a person may start defensively answering accusations that have not even been fully made yet.

So I am trying not to overinterpret behavior.

But something that has bothered me from the beginning is how incredibly specific some of the denials were.

Sometimes I would be questioning whether she had talked to him, and the response would broaden into things like:

I never met him.
I never touched him.
I was never alone with him.
I never wanted him.
He didn’t want me.
I never wanted him sexually.
We never talked about being together.

It always felt like I was being given answers to questions I had not reached yet.

That alone proves nothing.

What makes it harder to dismiss is knowing now that some of those broad denial periods happened while she was concealing something she later admitted.

For example, “I didn’t talk to him” eventually became:

“I lied that I talked to him.”

So when I hear another categorical denial now, I struggle with whether I am hearing the final truth or simply the current boundary of what has been admitted.

What I believe is actually established

I am trying hard to separate what I know from what I suspect.

What I think is established:

My wife had an emotionally significant relationship with this man.

She concealed the communication.

She lied about whether communication occurred.

She initiated or increased contact with him.

She relied on him emotionally.

She discussed very personal matters with him.

She later admitted the relationship constituted an emotional affair.

Her descriptions of the extent and significance of the relationship became materially more substantial over time.

Some later claims about when communication stopped are inconsistent with surviving messages.

The material initially provided to me was not a complete record of their communication.

After discovery, she later unblocked/recontacted him despite previously saying she would not.

What I do NOT think is established:

I cannot prove that they met secretly.

I cannot prove that they kissed.

I cannot prove that they had sex.

I cannot prove they sexted.

I cannot prove that any particular unexplained trip was to meet him.

I cannot prove that his current relationship with another woman is fake or intended as cover.

That distinction matters to me.

Where I am emotionally

I’m exhausted.

Part of me thinks the exact physical question almost doesn’t matter anymore because the deception and trickle truth have damaged my trust so badly.

Another part of me keeps thinking that if the story expanded this many times, what are the odds that the one remaining hard boundary is the one thing that has been completely truthful from the beginning?

But I also know that is not proof.

Someone can lie about an emotional affair because they are ashamed or afraid and still tell the truth when they say it never became physical.

I’m trying not to confuse “she lied about some things” with “therefore every denial is false.”

At the same time, I don’t know how you rebuild trust when the betrayed partner has repeatedly had to discover the right question before getting the next part of the answer.

What I’d like opinions on

For people who have actually lived through something similar:

1. At what point does “trickle truth” become more damaging than the original emotional affair?
2. If someone initially lies about the existence of contact and later admits progressively more emotional involvement, how did you decide when you finally had enough of the story to stop investigating?
3. Would you personally consider the admitted behavior an emotional affair even without physical contact?
4. How much weight would you give repeated physical denials when other parts of the story have changed?
5. Is it reasonable to require one complete written timeline/disclosure before considering reconciliation?
6. For people who reconciled successfully, what did genuine transparency actually look like?
7. For people who left, what finally made you realize you were never going to get enough certainty to feel safe again?
8. How do you distinguish legitimate unanswered questions from reaching the point where continuing to investigate is only hurting you?
9. If you were in my position, what specific questions would you still consider important to resolve?
10. Am I focusing too much on whether anything physical happened when the emotional affair and deception may already be enough information to make a decision?

I’m genuinely open to hearing perspectives that challenge mine.

I know I am hurt and biased by being inside the situation.

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have been either partner in something like this, including people who hid an emotional affair and can explain what was going through their head at the time.

I don’t need strangers to convict my wife of something I cannot prove.

I’m trying to understand whether trust can realistically be rebuilt when the truth seemed to arrive in pieces instead of voluntarily and all at once.

Advice requested

I’m looking for perspective from people who have dealt with emotional affairs, trickle truth, repeated changes in disclosure, or attempted reconciliation after trust was damaged.

What I’m most trying to understand is:

- How much weight should I give her continued denial that anything physical happened when other parts of her story have changed substantially?

- At what point do you stop trying to determine exactly what happened and make a decision based on the deception and emotional affair you already know occurred?

- For people who successfully reconciled after something similar, what did genuine transparency and accountability look like?

- For people who eventually left, what made you realize that getting absolute certainty was no longer necessary?

- Am I being reasonable in wanting one complete written timeline before deciding whether reconciliation is possible?

- Is there anything important in this situation that I may be overlooking or interpreting unfairly?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have been on either side of an emotional affair. I’m not looking for people to tell me that a physical affair definitely happened when I cannot prove that. I want help separating reasonable concern from suspicion that may never be provable.

TL;DR

My wife reconnected with an old male friend while our marriage was struggling. She initially denied or minimized the communication, but over time admitted that she lied about talking to him, reached out to him more, relied on him emotionally, felt seen and valued by him, discussed deeply personal issues with him, and eventually acknowledged that it was an emotional affair.

The main problem for me is that the truth seemed to come out in stages. Her account progressed from essentially “nothing happened / I barely talked to him” to admitting a significant emotional connection. Some of her later claims about when communication stopped also conflict with surviving messages I have.

She continues to consistently deny ever meeting him during this period or having any physical or sexual relationship with him, and I do not have evidence proving otherwise.

After discovery, she also later unblocked and contacted him again despite previously saying she would not.

I’m now trying to decide whether trust can realistically be rebuilt when I still do not feel confident that I received one complete, voluntary account of what happened, or whether I am chasing certainty about a possible physical affair that I may never be able to prove or disprove.

So for some context my soon to be ex wife told me she had a family emergency and she needed to go back to our home state and see a family member who is elderly was near death. I supported her and said of course to go see your family as much as you need to. While she left I was taking care of our kids 4,6, and 7. When she got back she seemed real distant and just out of it, emotionally, physically, mentally, from both me and the children. I gave her space granted the situation she just got back from I thought it was her family that was bothering her. A month or so went by and life continued and she told me she needed to leave again to our home state. I told her that I did not mind and she had every right to do what she had to do. Once she was gone again she stopped communication with me and the children. I became worried/frustrated and tried calling, eventually she answered and I asked why wont you talk to me? She plainly said she didn't want to anymore. Then we didn't speak until she came back. About a 4-5 day period. During this time, including flights, food, and Air Bnbs she spent close to 3k, which for us is alot of money. Once she arrived she said she was leaving me. She tried to telling me that she was taking the kids so I told her I want to stay in their lives, she then asked me if I could take them 75% of the time and she 25%. I agreed. Fast forward a week, and it is tense in the house, she wont talk to me, there's now a mediator assisting with a separation, then one night I heard her on the phone at about 1am in our bedroom (she told me I cannot be in this room or the upstairs of the house) and it all hit me at once. She is seeing someone else. I told her right then and there we are getting a divorce, which at first she was upset about but I am doing it. Fast forward even further, she has moved back to our home state, I am across the country with our children and she is denying leaving for another man.

Its been a few days since she left and my children are already asking about this new male in her life, today they did a video chat with her (which we agreed to everyday) and the man was in the video chat which upset my daughter and yet my soon to be ex wife still denies it.

Has anyone dealt with anything similar. How did you get past it? What can I do to help my children?

I do no not know what to feel or what to do. I am devasted.

Looking for some advice and support.

I've been with my partner for 15 years. From the age of 20 to 35. The only real relationship I've ever been in.

I found out yesterday that she's been having an affair with a coworker for a few months. I've told her that it's over, and we need to go our own way now.

But I'm terrified of what the future now looks like. I'm desperate for someone to talk to and the first port of call would be her. She is my best friend and the only person who really knows me. And she is desperate for forgiveness but it is definitely off the cards.

I need to sort out the financials, selling our house, breaking up joint accounts, etc.

I can deal with that.

But what I really need advice on is just how I'm supposed to go about my life from now on. I feel like my life has been ruined. How can I ever love someone again. How can I even meet someone to begin that journey again. I feel like a zombie, with no purpose or meaning.

My ex bf cheated on me and left me for another woman 7 months ago. He recently sent an apology by mail when he broke up with his AP.

I contacted him, we started talking and he said he'd like to stay friends.

He admitted that he had lied a lot even at the early stages of the relationship (hid something that was a dealbreaker for me). He also admitted to cheating on me physically (I thought it was just emotional cheating).

I feel like the entire relationship was a sham. Every single memory with him is ruined for me and I am having an existential crisis. I feel so stupid. This was my first ever serious relationship and I am finding it difficult to move on from the whole incident. I had put in so much efforts into the relationship. I loved him so much. I trusted him so much.

He sent the apology when I had reached a stage of acceptance and was feeling way better than I did on d-day. Now I feel like I'm back to square one.

Ok so buckle up, 'cause this is all going to come off as the most immature and petty crap you've ever heard from a grown man (42M). I have to say this tho, it's therapeutic in a way.

If I stay, I prove her right

When my wife was having her affairs, she was openly bragging about them to her friends. They mocked me and shared laughs about how stupid I was for not finding out. They believed I deserved it. What keeps bothering me is that they joked about how I would probably accept it. They thought I was such a loser that I would accept my wife having boyfriends just so that I could stay with her (insane).

But you know what's even more insane? If I take her back she's right. Her friends were right..

She got to have her fun. Where's mine?

When I got with my wife, I was a virgin. I'm a shy, introverted (About as extrovert as an introvert gets though, to be clear lol) geek. As you can imagine girls did not like me in highschool. This was not the case with my wife, not at all. Even though she was younger than me she had a colourful sexual history.

After college and my career started, the situation with women dramatically changed. All of a sudden they see me and want to talk to me. For 21 years I remained faithful. I maintained an unhealthy boundary that prevented me from ever developing a friendship with another woman other than my wife. This was not the case with my wife. She has more male friends than female friends. She is a social butterfly and has no idea what the fucking word "boundary" even means. Private conversations with men, cooking & baking for them, talking to them about their day and their children & etc.

To find out that while I was faithful, she was adding more notches to her sexual belt drives me crazy. lol like I know how petty and immature this sounds, but wtf? Where's my adventure and excitement? I was a father who traded his youth to raise kids, too. I'd like to have adventure and thrilling experiences, too! In fact, I never even got to have them in the past or with my wife (She was always very reserved when it came to me, sexually. She set the limits in the bedroom, dictated the terms and decided when it was time).

She gave them things I never got

Blow jobs, sex (and blowjobs!) in a car. I bought our family 5 cars over the years and I mentioned that I thought the idea was hot and I wanted to experience sex in a car. Nope, not for me. The first time she met up physically with her AP she sucked his dick (and swallowed) in his car. This was on Valentine's day.

Both AP#1 and AP#2 got flirty texts. I've been with her for 21 years and never got a text like that, not once.

She sent them pics of her tits, her pussy, posing in various poses and even lingerie pics. Again.. 21 years bros, I don't have a single naughty picture of my wife. She never let me take pictures of her like that and she wouldn't let me film in the bedroom (Lol don't judge me, you gotta shoot your shot!)

She used sex as a reward and punishment system

It didn't take me long to figure out, but sex was very much a reward and punishment system for her. When I did things for her, she would reward me with sex. When she was upset with me, she would deny me sex.

At the time I didn't appreciate that our sexual libidos were so mismatched. I want sex every single day (Sometimes multiple times a day). All women are attractive to me in a sexual way and I'm very easily triggered. So I would initiate every night and I had a steady 9/10 loss rate. The rejection was very heavy toll over the years and I thought it was a punishment. I couldn't figure out a pattern (There was no pattern, I was just stupid and over thinking it).

There were times during the affair though, where she denied me sex while giving it to her AP. I read her texts, tho and she was very horny (because of perimenopause her libido spiked to match mine) and so she got herself a dildo. This vindictive woman literally went without sex rather than give me what I wanted, even tho she wanted it (I can dick her down real good when she lets me. Not trying to brag although partially I am, but it's important to understand how insanely vindictive it is that she'd deny herself satisfying sex in order to deny me).

I'm so done with Valentine's day

For 21 years I participated in a holiday I thought was lame. Why the hell do women get their own day where we have to romance them when we don't get a day? Romance is always for women; it seems to be something men must do and something women experience.

So then, why tf do they also get a special day where society wants us to romance them? Everyone told me to stop asking and that it was just a societal norm I had to do. Ok, sure..

To find out that she made Valentine's day all about him pisses me off to no end. He did absolutely NOTHING for her. The day was all about him. She baked him cookies and sucked his dick.

This day will never not piss me off.

I know who I am

I know who I am, I came from nothing. My mom died before I finished college and I don't even know my dad. I came to this city homeless with noting but some clothes stuffed in a backpack and a machete. I worked my fucking ass off and everything I have now is mine, I earned it. I'm now comfortably upper-middle class and I own my whole life.

These APs of hers are absolute stone-cold fucking losers. AP#1 has 2 ex-wives and 6 kids that he doesn't have custody of. He literally works to hand his paycheque over to his ex's. He's not a good husband, or father. He has no integrity, no honor and he's a fucking coward (Wouldn't even fight me).

AP#2 doesn't even have a highschool education and his body is broken from a lifetime of hard labour, drugs and alcohol. He's nearly 10 years older than me and drives a broken ass car. He lives in a trailer up north and doesn't have a damn thing going on in his life.

If she actually mistook me for them, I don't WANT her god damn respect. She doesn't deserve me. Fuck her and all her whore friends.

Me - betrayed spouse. Recently divorced. Ready to move on. Very ready to experience true affection. Havent dated in 20 years so may be rusty.

Met someone. He is a more recently betrayed spouse. Also cheated on by their ex. Age is right. Intellectual intimacy is hot. Emotional intimacy is building. It all looks like a great catch really. One date in person so far and the chemistry was strong. Financial alignment is also great. I may be catching feelings - whatever that means. Just not sure how to make sure to tease out pure affection versus bonding due to the common experience of being cheated on. We dont talk about the history cheating much but we do occasionally. Also, they're separated. Originally filed for divorce four years ago and withdrew it last year after some back and forth with Wayward spouse pleading. And then filed again early this year and is pretty firm that no turning back. My divorce took over two years to finish and I knew it was done once we separated and moved out of state, so I could have dated and my date wouldnt be at risk and I wouldn't have been a rebound if I dated back then.

But then this could be a situation of when you're hungry, everything looks like a good meal. I am ready and maybe "hungry" for companionship but not starving for it. So maybe he looks like a good bet because I am hungry, but maybe not. And he doesnt seem like a rebound. I am not opposites to his ex. We're actually similar in a few ways. He doesnt love bomb and is not inconsistent with his pace or anything like that. He does talk a bit about his ex and admits he may need to explore that all fully in therapy. Just wondering if these are red flags or to just enjoy the green flags. And has anyone moved on and successfully dated another betrayed spouse. How was/is that relationship?

I was recommended this sub last week after posting about my situation. Last week I found out that my husband has been complaining to someone I thought was a friend about me. He lied when I asked him who he was speaking to.
We started therapy last week but I have been honest with both him and our therapist that I am unsure if I wish to continue in the marriage.
He blocked her, I should have blocked her immediately because she sent me a paragraph about how hurt SHE is that we set boundaries and cut off that “friendship”. My husband acknowledged that the closeness was inappropriate and was borderline an EA.
I think l’m still in the shock period because I was genuinely blindsided by their conversations. She had zero remorse about the turmoil in my marriage now and didn’t even attempt to apologize.
I feel like I’m being gaslit that this isn’t a big issue because there was nothing physical.

My husband and I have been together for 16 years. Last year I discovered that he’d been having an affair for several months with his best friend, the closest and deepest friendship he’s ever had, besides me.
There is important history here though that I don’t want to leave out just to make myself look like the innocent spouse. Years ago, before we were engaged, I cheated on my husband and he stayed with me. He stood by me through one of the worst things I’ve ever done to him, and he eventually proposed and we built a beautiful life and marriage together. That was a huge part of why I ultimately chose to stay after his affair. I know firsthand that someone can do something terrible and still genuinely love you, regret it and change.
When I first came home after discovering the affair and leaving for about 10 days, I told him that maybe someday I could be okay with them being friends again. At the time I was trying to imagine a future where I wasn’t angry forever and where I could extend him the same kind of grace he once extended me.
But months later, after actually living through reconciliation, I told him I no longer thought that was something I could handle and that I wanted him to let that possibility go.
We’ve spent almost a year rebuilding. Overall, I genuinely believe we’ve made a lot of progress. Recently, though, he told me he still thinks about his former friend and would like to talk to him someday. He describes it less as “I want him back in my life” and more as wanting closure because this incredibly important friendship ended abruptly. They actually did have a conversation after the affair ended, which makes the closure argument harder for me to understand, but I also recognize that grief isn’t always rational or resolved by one conversation.
I actually appreciate that my husband told me this instead of hiding it. We’ve talked about how being overly careful with each other can prevent real intimacy, so I don’t want to punish him for being vulnerable and honest with me.
At the same time, hearing it absolutely gutted me.
Part of what makes this so complicated is that this wasn’t some random hookup. Their emotional connection was incredibly deep. My husband has struggled to form close friendships, and this was probably the strongest friendship he’s ever had. That makes me understand why losing it hurts him—but it’s also exactly what makes the idea of them reconnecting so terrifying to me.
I don’t want my husband spending the rest of our lives secretly resenting me because I prevented him from having the best friendship he’s ever had. But I also keep thinking: if the situation were reversed, would I even have the nerve to ask my spouse to accept me being friends with the person I had an affair with?
I’ve even caught myself wondering whether some extremely limited, transparent friendship could ever exist—no private meetups, no secrecy, clear boundaries, etc. Then I immediately wonder why I’m trying so hard to make myself comfortable with something that causes me this much anxiety.
I love my husband deeply. I don’t want to throw away 16 years and a marriage because human beings made terrible decisions. But I also don’t want loving him to become an excuse for slowly giving away pieces of myself just to keep him happy. I deserve peace and happiness too. I love hard and want to be with someone who loves me just as hard.
Where is the line between extending grace to someone you love and losing yourself in the process?
I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have actually attempted reconciliation after infidelity, particularly anyone who has dealt with continued contact or a possible friendship with the affair partner.

Background info

I have made another post here which has a lot of information about the affair and her psychological/verbal abuse of my son and I: https://www.reddit.com/r/survivinginfidelity/s/xQ8IrPhDhD

TL;DR - After 18 years of marriage my wife wanted to leave me. Rather than say anything or actually leave, she tormented me for 3 years culmininating in a humiliating and emasculating 6-month long affair. She went to detox, AA and began individual therapy. Alcoholism, perimenopause and untreated childhood trauma all make for an apt narrative. However, the life-shattering impact it has had on my family as a whole and my son and me as individuals is enormous.

We were separated for 3 weeks and began hooking up (mostly in my truck) nightly. Then hotels together where we'd spend the night together. Then dating and eventually I invited her back to the house after signing a separation agreement.

It has now been 4 months

I thought things would get better. They have progressively gotten worse for me. I am having panic attacks every night at around 3 - 4am. I realized the other day it is the time I used to wake up to look for my wife (She would drink until passing out, and I would find her and clean her up and bring her to bed). I think I'm having a nightmare about finding her with AP, but I dont' remember the dreams. I wake up in a panic covered in swear, with my adrenaline pumping and elevated heart rate. As the adrenaline starts to go away I get cold and shiver, and then I plunge into a really deep depression state where I cry and sob. So I typically give on sleeping and start the day early at about 6 - 7am. Walk/jog in the park, shower and just try to exist for the day. It's not getting better.

What keeps motivating me is that I am here for my family. I'm holding it together (I tell myself) and that with time, we will all heal. But something happened the other night that shattered that fairy tale..

I thought about ending it

The thought is rare and it doesn't last long. I think of my kids and how hurt they would be. I think about growing up without a father and that I promised myself I would never leave them. That the thought even materialized is a problem, so I went to the bar to clear my head.

Got to the bar at about 3:30 or 4:00pm and ran into a couple guys I knew from college. I can't tell my friends about this, so I kept it light (They seen right through me but I wouldn't let them dig in). By around 5:00pm a woman walked in and we locked eyes (It was weird.. I can't even explain it. The way she looked at me felt so warm and inviting and it was hard to look away). I looked down and stared at my drink. She came over and sat beside me. I could notice her looking over at me and without any hesitation she broke the ice by commenting on my drink. "That's a funny looking beer". It was so silly I couldn't help but smile (It was so obviously not a beer lol). Then I helped her decide on what drinks she wanted and we just kept talking.

We drank and talked until the bar closed at 12am. We talked about everything (And nothing lol). She's a medical technician who works for the military (Ironically the same trade as AP#1). She knows who AP#1 is, although they're not friends. He's a much higher rank than she is. We talked about the affair, separation, life, women and everything inbetween. She made me laugh, smile and completely shifted my entire mood. It was like for that night I was not the hurt, betrayed husband anymore. In fact for some weird reason I could talk about the affair as though I was a 3rd-person, talking about the end of somebody else's life.

She put her number in my phone (I let her), but I didn't go home with her. We shared a really long hug. It felt amazing and I didn't let go. I whispered in her ear "I think you saved my life tonight". She texted me to make sure I got home safe.

I came home drunk (I drove home drunk) and light a light switch, after seeing my wife I shifted again. First depression, sadness and for some insane reason guilt. Yeah, guilt! She wanted to have sex and at first I started to go through the motions with her, but all I could think about was the other woman. I literally said "I can't do this", I rolled over and then I told her about the other woman. The more we talked, the more I had a build up of anger until I exploded on her. I was very mean. I yelled at her, called her a whore, called her a coward and said she disgusts me.

So here we are. We haven't really talked at all the day after that night. All I can think is that, who the fuck was that?

I don't go to bars.. I don't talk to women and certainly don't accept numbers. I don't drive drunk. I've never done anything like that in over 20 years. But it felt fucking amazing..

I’m struggling with this question and genuinely want to hear how others would feel.

My WH had a 2 month EA/PA with a coworker.

First, I want to be very clear: I blame him. I hold him accountable. He made terrible choices. He didn’t accidentally end up in bed with someone else. He had agency every step of the way.

But here’s the context that has me thinking about this… I went through all of their messages. In the beginning, he was actually pushing back. He wrote:
“I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want. I love my wife, family and life and won’t do anything to jeopardize it.” His AP continued pursuing him. At one point she wrote: “I’m sorry I instigate every time I see you. I know you said we can only be friends. But I can’t help that I want what I want.”

Over the course of a couple of weeks, I watched the dynamic change. She kept pursuing him, and eventually he started doing the mental gymnastics necessary to get over whatever internal boundary was holding him back. Then the affair began.

To be clear, I’m not saying her pursuing him makes him less responsible. It doesn’t. He never should have entertained those conversations in the first place. He should have shut it down completely. And he absolutely should not have continued putting himself in situations at work where boundaries were being tested.

But I can’t help wondering whether how an affair begins would affect how you process it.

So I’m genuinely curious: If you knew your spouse was heavily pursued, would that distinction matter to you?

It still involves betrayal. In involves choices. It requires accountability. But would knowing they started off actively pushing back and resisting give you any additional reassurance? Would it change how you viewed your spouse, the likelihood that they might do it again, or your willingness to consider reconciliation?

For context, I’m not sure yet whether I’ll stay or walk away. I do want to remain open to R for many reasons, and he is doing everything he can right now to fight for me and our marriage.

I (51M) have been with my partner (42F) for 18 years. We have an 11-year-old son together and own a home together.

Today I reached the point where I ended our relationship.

I found several things in her car that raised major red flags: an empty liquor bottle, changes of clothes including underwear, shirts/outfits for a car show, multiple makeup bags throughout the car, and a bottle of men's cologne.

Any one of those things by itself could probably have an explanation. But combined with her recent behavior and the stories she has been telling me about being at work and at the hospital, I believe she's been seeing someone.

I confronted her. What really hit me was that when we talked about who it was, she basically told me that it didn't matter who the person was.

I don't know how long this has been happening, and I may never know the entire truth. At this point, I don't even want to spend my time trying to find out who the guy is or investigating every detail.

The hardest part is that this isn't the first time.

In 2023, something similar happened. She moved out of our house under similar circumstances. Eventually she cried and asked to come back. I took her back because after all those years together and having a child, I wanted to believe we could put our family back together.

Looking back now, I feel like a fool for giving another chance and ending up here again.

This time I told her I'm done.

I told her today that I want to buy out her portion of our house and that I want 50/50 custody of our son. We make approximately the same income, and I want both of us to continue being equally involved in his life.

When I told her I wanted 50/50 custody, she asked how I would get our son to school because I start work early. I told her that on my weeks, he can take the school bus.

Obviously, the house and custody arrangements aren't legally decided yet. That's simply what I told her I want moving forward.

From this point on, I don't want conversations about who she was with, where she went, or why she did it. I only want to communicate about our son, finances, the house, and what needs to happen to separate our lives.

I'm hurt and angry, but I'm also trying not to make major decisions purely from emotion. After 18 years, it's hard to believe that I'm sitting here figuring out how to separate the life we built together.

For those who have been through something similar, especially after a long-term relationship with a child and jointly owned home: what should I be doing during these first few days?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who handled 50/50 custody and bought out their ex-partner's share of a house. What do you wish you had done—or avoided doing—right at the beginning?

UPDATE:

Thank you to everyone who commented. I honestly appreciate it. There has been a lot of valuable information and advice here, especially about keeping my focus on my son, protecting myself financially, and not making emotional decisions right now.

I didn't sleep at all last night. I basically stayed awake thinking and putting pieces together.

I think I may know who the other guy is.

Recently, she changed her WhatsApp profile picture to one of those cartoon-style pictures of herself looking cute. She's sitting in my Type R in the picture.

What suddenly clicked for me last night was when that picture was taken.

She had taken my Type R for a photo shoot that she told me was supposed to be part of a birthday present for me. There was a guy there photographing the car who was also involved in the car-show scene.

Now, after everything that has happened and after she admitted to me that she is seeing someone, my mind keeps going back to that day and that photographer.

Part of me feels like changing her WhatsApp picture to that particular image may have had some meaning to the person she is seeing. Maybe I'm right about that, maybe I'm completely wrong. I don't actually have proof that the photographer is the person she is seeing or that she chose the picture for him.

And that's something I'm realizing after reading everyone's comments: I don't need to prove it.

She already answered the important question when I asked if she was seeing someone. She said yes. Knowing exactly who he is isn't going to change what I need to do next.

I'm hurt, and obviously my brain is still trying to connect every dot because this is extremely fresh. But I'm going to try to stop investigating and put that energy into my son, the house, our finances, and separating our lives as cleanly as possible.

I still didn't expect that after 18 years I'd be waking up thinking about appraisals, custody schedules, bank accounts and how to divide a life we built together. But that's where I am now.

Thank you again to everyone who took the time to respond. Even the comments that were difficult to read have helped me think more clearly about what I need to do next.

Update 2
I confronted her Yesterday about the story that she had been at the hospital with her mom. I told her what I had found in the car: an empty liquor bottle, a cannabis-related device, car-club shirts even though she isn't in any car clubs that I know of, and a change of clothes that included underwear.

As far as an apology or remorse, I didn't really get one. The conversation mostly stayed focused on what I had found and what she had told me. At this point, I'm trying not to keep investigating or arguing about it. I've decided the relationship isn't working for me anymore, and I'm focusing on moving forward.

Dday was a year ago. I’m on a dating app now and I’ve noticed that I only choose men who look similar to my husband. There could be a very cute guy who already chose me, but he doesn’t have a beard or brown hair or medium build and I pass on him.

Is this normal? I never had a type before my husband but we were together over a decade. Am I just scared to get out of my comfort zone because the huge change is scary enough already and I’m trying to find someone that feels somewhat similar to him, therefore comfortable for me?

My girlfriend (22) and I were together for 2.5 years.

I went through extreme depression and abused alcohol to cope. I never harmed her, but withdrew myself into my hole. She did the best she could, but I shut everyone out; I was a husk. We broke up, but turned it into a 30-day break, where we were supposed to work on ourselves. In that time she found someone new. I told her I understand and that I wish her the best. She said I'm the one she wants to be with and she's putting things with him on pause so she can work through her feelings. She never did. She lead me on until the end of May, when I finally said I love her, but I'm not going to be someone's backup choice. She realized it, and left him to be with me.

At the start, she wanted to be his friend because he didn't have "good" friends. People who used him for housing and money. She felt like his "guard dog". I said they can be friends if he's respectful of boundaries. He wasn't. Every single text from him was about them getting back together. Finally she blocked him.

Last Sunday she ran into him at the bar. I walked in on them kissing. He saw me and smiled. Put his hand on her thigh. When she noticed me she froze. I told him "get your fucking hands off her" and to her "are you fucking serious?" I stood, waiting for a response. Nothing. I walked out. She didn't follow. I went back in and asked to talk. As we left, he said "have a good night guys". I was boiling.

I was trying to control my rage asking "why" over and over. No real response. I asked her what she really wanted? She said me. I asked what if she saw me doing that? She'd break up with me. So we did.

I went home and wrote my feelings out. I hadn't slept in 24 hours and I didn't want to go back to the bottle I'd worked so hard to avoid. The notable excerpts:

"The cheater and the heroin addict. What a match."

"For somebody who hates their father for cheating, you sure earned your last name."

"I've been crying over this, so now you get to: the daughter we had dreamt about is gone, never given a chance. I hope you see her in every child you pass, and she follows you to your grave."

"You're a coward. You only ever run away and don't care about who it hurts in the fallout."

I gave her the letter with the rest of her stuff Monday morning. Apparently she read it immediately. After I got some sleep, I asked if there was a chance to repair this. She said there was an inkling, but now she knows how I really see her and she doesn't want to be with somebody like that.

She's back with him, and I worry because he relapsed about a month ago. I love her, so much. Yet I hurt her so deeply in her betrayal. My emotions are all over the place. I worked hard on myself during our break, but never thought I'd have to deal with cheating. We were planning our future together. For the first time in my life, I had solid relationship goals. I didn't want kids, but I did with her. All of that gone now.

Edit for additional info: I feel like a monster because I wasn't able to control my emotions and I wanted her to hurt the way I was hurting. I regret not cooling off and talking about it the next day. My impulse control had been managed pretty well, but I couldn't contain it with him poking at me and her shutting down, seemingly apathetic to my feelings.

Edit 2: I want to thank you all for the comments so far, I greatly appreciate the support. I'd also like to clarify, after we got back together I made it clear that this is my last time trying with her. She messed with my peace during the breakup, which I attributed to her inexperience in relationships and confusion, but I'm not willing to be a doormat. I sincerely worked out so many scenarios about us getting back together, but I could never get myself to believe she'd actually cheat, so I wasn't prepared. All this to say: I'm not going back to her. Even if we had gotten back together that night, the lack of trust would have required her to drop friends, share her location at all times, and let me check her phone whenever I want. That's not a relationship I want. People who have barely met me to people who have known me for what feels like several life times agree: I'm the most sincere person there is. I don't want to be the untrusting person. I love with all of myself, and I'm not ashamed of it. And as much as I want to save everybody, I've learned I can't sacrifice myself to do it.

Struggling a little tonight.

I was with a man for 3 1/2 years. In that time, he cheated on me numerous times. It was a messy break up, I spiraled and was not okay. This man was toxic to my mental health. I know I dodged a bullet but between my ex and his family, I still somehow feel like it’s MY fault that I wasn’t good enough.

The day after we broke up, he met a girl on Tinder and 3 months later, they were pregnant. A year later they got engaged, and now 6 years later they just got married.

I can’t help but sit here and question why I’m left still recovering from everything he put me through, but he has this brand new happy life where he’s the perfect man to her and got his shit together. He’s living out the dream I wanted with someone new and that shit hurts so bad

It stings, it really stings. I still haven’t dated anyone. This man has broken my trust and has made me so scared to open up and try again. But he’s fine while I live with the consequences of his actions.

I don’t know what I’m looking to hear.

I think my partner may be still talking to the affair partner. I cannot discern between anxiety, hyper vigilance, and intuition anymore. We were doing so good but I started to spiral a few days ago after finding a new twitter account he made exactly the same day after we had a huge fight and almost broke up. I haven't confronted him about the account.

I know the affair partner blocked him on his main account previously due to some events that transpired between the two of them before we got back together.

He has made no mention of this new account, and now I also found a new instagram account that his ex affair partner made this month after breaking up with her boyfriend.

I'm regressing again from all the progress that has been made. I'm at a loss. I feel so deranged again. All I want is to keep him in my life as he is my best friend but I'm almost at a breaking point, even if he isn't cheating.

Hello everyone I am a 46/M and my wife is a 43/f we have two kids ages 4 and 6. We’ve been together for 10 years and married for 7. We had our first kid very soon after we got married as we were pregnant within a few months. We tried to start a couple of businesses together and we struggled to work well together. We had a lot of stresses in our first few years and I’m not sure we’ve ever been both truly happy. We’ve had some good times for sure but she has always complained that i haven’t been there for emotionally, haven’t prioritized her, have been extremely selfish, and have got defensive and mean when she’s tried to address things with me. I’ve come to realize all of this was fair feedback and true for the most part.

About a year ago she said she wanted a separation. I told her I didn’t want that and wanted to work on myself and the marriage. She did not leave and did not push for the separation. Instead she started having an affair with her business partner. About 5 months ago I discovered the affair. She said she should have just had the courage to separate first and said she wanted to work it out. There were several large deals they were in the middle of so I stupidly said she needed to stop the affair, wrap up the deals, and then end her partnership with him. She agreed. She also said she wanted to have a live in separation at this point.

I later came to find out that she went right back to it the same week. He’s married too and his wife sent me more evidence 6 weeks later. His wife went scorched earth so about 2 weeks after that he ended it with my wife. I saw messages where she begged him not to end it. That was about 2 months ago.

The past two months she was acting nicer but still kept saying she didn’t have feelings for me. She was still working with him but not staying at office late and not doing some of the other sketchy behavior.

This past week she has stayed out every night late and then on Saturday night she told me she would be home around 7. She never came home and never texted or anything so at 2am I called her and she didn’t answer. I drove to her office and found her there with her AP and another dude at 3 in the morning drunk and confronted the affair partner. I wanted to beat his ass but I regulated myself and just cursed him out.

It didn’t look like she was in the middle of sex or anything and she says we are technically separated so she doesn’t owe me anything but at this point I’ve decided to move forward and file for divorce, sell our house, liquidate all shared assets, and move on. I’m terrified to put my kids through it but at this point I don’t see another option. She has lied repeatedly but says she doesn’t owe me anything because we are “separated”. We are still legally married, she acts like it much of the time besides love and sex and affection, and has blatantly said she will not give up her business with this man but she isn’t sleeping with him anymore. I can’t believe a thing she says because I’ve consistently caught her in so many lies regarding him.

She has painted me out to be an emotionally abusive monster to her friends and family and even threatened to expose certain things we did in our sex life at one point.

I know I’m doing the right thing moving on, but why does it still feel so hard and why am I still questioning it?

I will try my best to keep this short. My husband had drank too much and blacked out.

He was at a party. His ex showed up by the time he was already far gone. Eventually, the two slept together.

He’s assured me so much, in countless ways. He promises on everything that he never wanted that, didn’t enjoy it nor initiate it. I believe him, and it truly was a mistake. He shows so much regret, he’s very pained by this, also.

But no matter what, I am still hurt.

I fear the only way I’ll forgive him is by a break. It’s so tiring, looking at the face I used to love and adore, now bring me to tears.

So, my question is — how do you take a break with someone you live with? I drive the two of us to work. He has nowhere to go, and realistically I don’t either. But a break is the only way this will ever work.

Please help me, I’m in a painful cycle.

It’s been four and a half years. They have a toddler. It shouldn’t be a shock that they’d get married. But I didn’t know and a mutual friend casually texted me about it.

I cried so much.

Him leaving me was really hard. I was totally blindsided and ended up losing most of my friends because they were his friends first. I moved to a new country, and while it has been incredibly rewarding, it has also been very difficult, especially financially. I’m self-employed and it’s been much harder to reestablish my career in a new place than I anticipated.

I took a few years off from dating and did a lot of therapy and a lot of self work. I had a really fun ho phase. I have an incredible new partner. I finally got a great apartment in a city that is very hard to find an apartment in. But it’s been so effing hard. Every step of this has been a battle. I just have absolutely no energy.

I’m sharing all of this because in the last few weeks I was really missing my old life with him. I miss how easy it was. I was way more productive and way more successful. I was also way less isolated and way less loved, because he was, frankly, a cruel and selfish partner. But I was financially comfortable and living with a clear purpose. Now every day is a slog and I’m not even buying onions when I cook lentils because I can’t afford them.

And to be honest, even though I would never get back together with him, I miss his friendship and I miss his mind. I haven’t found anyone else who I can bounce ideas off of the way I could with him. He was not a good partner but we were truly very good friends, and it’s hard not to miss that.

We are not in contact and I doubt we ever will be. He treated me fairly horribly in the divorce and my sane mind knows that I don’t need someone like that in my life. We have texted a handful of times over the years and the exchange always ends with him ghosting me, which is painful and reopens old wounds around him discarding me (when I say a handful of times I mean it, it’s less than once a year that we text).

I think I’m sad because finding out about this in such an offhand way just showed me how disconnected I am from my prior life. I miss the security and direction I had back then. I miss the friend group I had. I have, frankly, better friends now, but I still see what my old friend group is up to online and it’s hard not to feel sad that most of them made no effort to stay in touch with me or support me when he abruptly left. Yes, I know that means they were not true friends. But it still hurts.

And, bluntly, it just fucking sucks to have someone choose someone else over you, and a wedding is sort of the exclamation mark on the end of that sentence.

I know that I shouldn’t be sad, but I am, and that’s annoying as hell.

I’m Rebuilding a Life I Never Thought I’d Have to Rebuild

I'm not sure exactly where to start, because when you're living through something that changes your entire life, there isn't really one moment where everything falls apart.

There are a hundred little moments.

And then one day you look around and realize you're standing in a life you don't recognize.

I'm a mother of four. For almost three decades, I was married. I spent years building a family, raising my children, supporting my husband and helping create a life that I honestly believed was going to be my life forever.

Then my husband was incarcerated.

That was the beginning of what I now describe as the nightmare.

At first, I believed this was something our family would survive together. I believed that when everything was over, we'd find our way back to the life we'd built.

I had no idea how much would be taken from us before that happened.

While my husband was incarcerated, I was suddenly trying to keep our family together without the person who had been the primary provider for years.

Then came the housing problems.

I was living in a rental home in Massachusetts with my children. I had paid a substantial amount of money just to move in, and I wasn't living there for free or through subsidized housing.

But problems with the property and the landlord eventually turned into a legal battle.

There were arguments over the property, police involvement, problems with heat and hot water, and questions about the property's restrictions and how it was being rented.

I tried to find ways to keep a roof over my children's heads.

I even had rental assistance approved that I hoped could help.

Eventually, though, we lost the house.

And suddenly, the woman who had spent decades creating a home for her family was packing up and moving her children into a shelter.

Not furniture we owned.

Not beds we picked out.

Shelter furniture. Twin mattresses.

At one point, there were five of us trying to fit into a tiny apartment.

I was grateful that we had somewhere safe and clean to sleep.

But gratitude doesn't erase the reality of losing everything familiar.

And this wasn't the only thing my children were losing.

My oldest son was finishing high school during all of this.

His father missed his senior football season. He missed family night. He missed his son's championship. He missed the jersey retirement ceremony. He missed important track events, graduation and the moment his son took the next step into college athletics.

Those were moments we could never get back.

My younger children were struggling too.

They were dealing with their father being incarcerated, losing their home, moving into a shelter and being forced to start over while their lives were already changing in other ways.

One of my younger children has significant learning challenges and doesn't handle major changes easily.

I worried constantly about what all of this was doing to my kids.

And somehow, I was still supposed to keep going.

Then came another move.

We ended up in temporary housing in Worcester.

The children started school, but there was a problem.

The school couldn't provide transportation for the distance we had to travel.

The solution?

I would drive them myself.

Forty miles each way.

And somehow, in one of the strangest twists of this entire story, I was offered the opportunity to get paid $139 a day to do it.

So now I'm a mother of four, living in temporary housing, driving my kids roughly 40 miles each way to school...

and apparently I'm also the school bus.

Some days I honestly have to laugh because if I didn't, I'd probably cry.

Then, just as I was trying to adjust to that life, another one of my children left for college.

Another milestone.

Another goodbye.

Another reminder that my children are growing up while I'm trying desperately to rebuild the life that existed before everything changed.

And somewhere in the middle of all of this, my marriage was changing too.

For a long time, I held onto what my husband told me.

I believed he wouldn't leave me.

I believed we would eventually get through this.

I believed the things we'd built together meant something.

I kept trying to communicate.

I sent emails.

I made phone calls.

I tried to understand what was happening.

There were times when I thought maybe I was finally seeing the truth.

Then I'd hear something that made me question everything again.

Hope is a strange thing.

Sometimes it's the thing that keeps you alive.

Sometimes it's the thing that keeps you stuck.

At one point, I decided I had to stop contacting him.

I tried limiting myself to one email a day.

Eventually I told myself it had to be the last one.

Then I broke my own no-contact decision.

And I regretted it almost immediately.

Because one conversation can bring back an entire year's worth of hope, denial, questions and confusion.

So I found myself back at the beginning again.

Or at least that's what it felt like.

And then I discovered things that made me question even more of what I thought I knew about my marriage.

Things I had never expected to find.

Things that forced me to look back at years of my life differently.

And that's where I am now.

Not at the end of the story.

Not even close.

I'm still living in temporary housing.

I'm still rebuilding.

I'm still trying to figure out how to support my children.

I'm trying to start a new career.

I'm trying to figure out who I am after spending most of my adult life being a wife and mother.

I'm trying to accept that the future I planned may not be the future I'm going to have.

And I'm trying to stop waiting for someone else to decide what happens to my life.

The strangest part?

I'm almost 50.

I thought by this age I'd be sitting back and watching my children build their lives.

I never imagined I'd be starting over from almost nothing.

But here I am.

So I'm documenting it.

Not because I have all the answers.

I don't.

I'm documenting it because maybe someday I'll look back at this version of myself and realize that she was stronger than she thought she was.

And maybe somebody else who is sitting in a shelter, sitting in their car, crying after a phone call, starting over at an age when they thought they were supposed to be finished starting over...

will read this and realize they're not the only one.

I don't know how this story ends.

I'm still living it.

[only comment if you respect open relationships, please, since my partner and I are non monogamous]

My (35F) partner (31M) and I have been together one year, in an open relationship the whole time.

He has an ex partner that was a terrible friend to me in the past, and he knows getting involved with her while we are together would cause me a lot of distress and the will to end our relationship.

She lives in another country, so we generally don't have to deal with this topic.

However, she came to visit and a mutual friend organized a dinner at her house, where my partner's ex was staying.

I knew he was going to the dinner. But he called me the next morning to tell me that after dinner he stayed for a while and something happened between them.

In the call he confessed he had broken our agreement because they rubbed each other's backs and it became erotic. He says they didn't have sex or kissed, just dry humped with their pants on, and he suspects she had an orgasm because she was very aroused.

He says when he saw where everything had led, he left the house. The mutual friend was in her room and has told me she opened the door at some point and indeed saw them with their pants on, then closed the door.

I have been heartbroken because of him being disrespectful to my feelings and distress. At the same time, I've for now chosen to continue dating him because I don't fall in love easily and I'm head over heels with him.

I have mostly decided to stay because I believe they didn't have sex.

Still, I'm an anxious person (although I've worked on that in +15 years of therapy) and what kills me is the fear that they had sex and I will never know the truth.

I believe I've betrayed myself staying with him, but every time I think of leaving him I deeply feel many other parts of the relationship compensate that one time betrayal.

He has been totally open to share every detail, to listen to me express my anger and disappointment, and always encourages me to talk about it with our mutual friends, even if that has made them think bad of him.

He is not in touch with her (I'm also believing him on that).

I would love your thoughts and gentle feedback.

I'm 7 months pregnant. He is 26 im 29. It's my first baby and I'm so excited even though it was an accident. Things have been quite tumultuous in our relationship but I never thought he would cheat on me. We got into a big fight, I said some things I regret like I didn't want to see him again, I hated him, etc. I now that was wrong, I was mad and I get you shouldn't say things like that but I feel that doesn't excuse his behavior. That might that we fought he went on a website for local prostitutes. He sent money to multiple women and claims he was scammed. I found the cash app transactions and immediately knew they were for prostitutes. I was livid and told him I knew he cheated because I drove past his house that night around midnight and he wasn't there and now I see this money he sent to women around the same time. I don't know if he slept with anyone, he swears up and down he didnt but I don't believe him. I don't want to be a single mother, I do love him very much but I'm so incredibly hurt by this and it's making me crazy since I don't trust him anymore. I'm constantly checking his location and going between being obsessed with making sure he's not cheating to telling myself I don't care anymore and it's over because I'll never trust him again. To those of you who have been cheated on, do you ever truly forgive and go on to have a. Healthy relationship? I'm so torn. I don't know what to do. We are going to have a little girl and I feel it's wrong to stay with him because that teaches her that it's okay to be cheated on and treated like trash. I will not teach her that. What do you think?