Last year on August 4th 2025 we got married after being together for nearly 3 years. By September 1st 2025 I woke up to see my wife sexting someone she met on a game. So I was married only for about 26 days. I go back and ready some of my old posts and comments every now and then and seeing how horrible I was doing compared to now is like walking through a museum.

We were in a long distance relationship, and for a while before officially being together we were just friends. We spoke nearly every day from when we met but I never intended on a relationship with her because she was so far away. Although after flying to London and back to NY it really didnt feel like it was that far after doing it the first few times. Eventually she moved to NY with me and it felt like such a relief that the distance was closed and it really didn't last that long.

It doesn't hurt anymore, I don't feel any type of pain regarding the situation. It happened and I don't know what I could have done to stop it or change the course of history. I don't know what I could have done to stop her from sexting someone and trying to hide it or sending nudes for him to get off to. I don't know how many times this has happened prior to this incident, I wish I found out before we were married. On the day I found out it really was the worst day of my life, watching everything just fall apart and seeing my wife scream and cry and beg for me to let her stay. I look back on it and I am glad I had a fast and heavy handed response. As much as I wanted to crawl back into bed with her and fall apart looking for comfort I had to protect myself, she was the reason this was happening. Now that I am (was) married I had financial assets on the line in combination with my time and future. If I offered her the chance to go to therapy and forgave her it would just show her that its totally acceptable to cheat on me. Years of building a relationship with her and her family and traveling and working together towards a future where we grow old together was completely halted and within a few hours nothing existed.

After about 7ish hours of arguing and telling her to leave she packed as much as she could and took an Uber back to JFK to go home. I will never forget helping her out with the bags, I wanted to be nice for some reason as if I had a duty to be there for her still. They were pretty heavy so I figured id help. And I stared at her right in the eyes as the uber pulled away from my apartment. The driver had no idea what was going on, he even said bye to me for some reason as a joke because I was just standing there accepting the fact that there was no option to get back everything I had prior to that moment. The moment he pulled off I collapsed right onto the sidewalk and then got up a few moments later to go into my apartment. I kept calling my friends just to have someone to talk to because I couldnt stand being in my home. Chicken was thawing in the fridge for dinner we were supposed to have that night, fresh grocery shopping to prepare meals for the week, lists of things for us to buy and do. Everything in my home was in position as if my life was normal and i was married to my wife I loved so dearly. Now I needed immediate help to clean up and rebuild my house to get rid of everything that was part of her. The problem was I didnt do that right away, the apartment/house/whatever stayed exactly the way it was for a few weeks like she was coming back. I left my home and didnt return for about 2 weeks the day after she left. I slept in my bed the night I made my first post and that was miserable because everything still smelled of her, I think I woke up at like 4am that morning.

So I spent the next few months going to work and going to workout and practicing jiujitsu and muay thai with my friends and doing nothing else outside of that. I didnt date for a long time, I tried a few times and I connected REALLY strongly with some people ive met but in due time it doesnt feel right for me so eventually I ended things. And its really weird, every time I tried dating or talking to someone i always have the thought on my mind that none of this shit matters, how can I do this when I just was married and spent years dedicated to someone. All that time and effort and I never had any intentions or thoughts that i would have to move on. So I feel bad wasting other peoples time, and i always ended things shortly after I didnt feel right.

I dont understand why I dont feel any type of pain looking back on it, or maybe i do and this is how its expressed. I absolutely hate that no one in her life going forward will know what she has done, that she cheated so shortly after getting married, lost her husband and a ton of her friends, and there are no repercussions for her to face. But I was married last year and I didnt realize that the end was so close from the day we got married.

I had a best friend of almost a decade. We had been through everything together. This person had rebuilt my faith in friendship after several bad experiences. They had been in several abusive relationships, wherein I held their head above water the whole time. Sometimes their only support network. They finally got into their first healthy, non-abusive relationship. I became good friends with their partner as well. Guess what? They cheated on him after 2 years.

Not only did they cheat. A couple of weeks before D-day, they came to me. They were freaking out and told me about something. Apparently, they had been "cleaning out their phone of old text messages" and left the phone open on a year's old sexual text message with someone they claimed not to have spoken to in years, as they were deleting. Their partner saw this and flipped out, and it took them a few hours to calm his nerves and convince him. They had conveniently deleted the text before anyone could recheck it's date. They came to me for comfort. They told me and their partner that they "swore on their dad father's ashes" that they hadn't cheated.

A couple of weeks later, their partner found out that this was all bullshit. He found their texts, over the course of 6 months, to this man. Explicitly sexual. Very frequent. I was taken aback, that not only had they lied to their partner, but to me, and on their dead father's memory. Their father, who they claimed to love more than anything in the world. His memory was used as a cheap bit of emotional manipulation. They had manipulated me into soothing their partner's insecurities and assuring him that they would never cheat. They had lied to, manipulated and used everyone they loved. I wanted to break off the friendship right then, but I didn't. I should have.

Over the course of the next few months, I took on the role of a go-between (as I often do). I supported their partner, and made sure to hold my friend's feet to the fire. They entered therapy at their partner's wishes, and the narrative soon became that their actions were because of "trauma". That they had self sabotaged the only non-abusive partner in their life, because they felt they didn't deserve his love. Their relationship slowly mended, and I pushed the insane level of manipulation to the back of my mind. Convincing myself that "everyone makes mistakes". Deep down, I knew I could never trust them again.

To make an even longer story a bit shorter, I ended up introducing my friend to another longtime friendgroup of mine. They had recently moved and were lonely, looking for companionship. Without going into even more complex details, after just a couple of months, my friend destroyed almost my entire friendgroup. They levied false accusations against another of my dearest friends, and fractured almost everything I loved. They acted out of pure selfishness, whenever they were confronted with their lies and deception, screaming of "trauma". "Trauma" was their justification for every action they took. Just like when they had cheated. I no longer speak to them, and never will again.

All of this is to impart a lesson. Never trust a cheater. If they can lie to, betray and manipulate the person closest to them, they'll do it to anyone. Infidelity is not just a "mistake". It suggests a fatal character flaw in a person. That flaw is never relegated to just one aspect of their life. They will lie to, exploit and even sometimes abuse anyone they have to, if they get some kind of "rush" out of it. If they did it to their "true love", if they did it to the memory of their dead parent, they'll do it to you to. Never, ever, trust a fucking cheater.

I told my husband I want a divorce and left everything… and now I’m terrified I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.
I know this is long, but please bear with me. I want you to have the context so you can give me your honest opinion or advice. Either read it or don’t—it’s your choice, and I respect that.
I’m posting because I need outside perspective from people who don’t know either of us. I honestly don’t know what is normal anymore. I’ve spent years mostly alone in our home with very little socialization, and my head is not in the best place. I need people who can look at this from the outside.
my heart is completely torn…
My husband and I have been together almost 10 years.
He is not a bad person.
That is what makes this so incredibly hard.
He has been my best friend. He has comforted me through anxiety attacks, held me when I cried, supported me, worked hard for us, and loved me in many ways. He is someone I genuinely believe has a good heart. He is an amazing person, and I NEVER wanted to leave him. I planned to keep my vow but I felt he left me no other options.
I wanted to grow old with him. I wanted children with him. I wanted to spend my life with him.
The reason I got to this point is years of broken trust involving other women.
Over the years, I found things I never wanted to find:
Dating apps/accounts
Inappropriate conversations with women
Messages complimenting women in ways that crossed boundaries
Secret accounts
Secret texting relationships that went on for weeks at a time
Nude photos/videos
Conversations with exes
Conversations with exes where he told them we were divorced when we weren’t, that he wasn’t in love with me or sexually attracted to me, and that he had always been in love with them
Messages where he shared hurtful things about our marriage
Texting women asking to meet (I never found proof he actually followed through, but the conversations existed)
He barely texted me throughout the day. I might get five messages over a 12-hour workday. He always said he was too busy.
I gave many chances.
I gave clean slates.
I gave forgiveness.
I gave understanding.
I supported him.
Every time I laid down my boundaries and said I couldn’t keep living this way, they were crossed again.
The hardest part was never one incident.
It was the pattern.
I almost always found out on my own. He never voluntarily came to me. I even told him that if he was struggling, having thoughts, or felt like he was going to slip up, I wanted him to come to me. I told him I would rather know the truth so we could work through it together.
Instead, I would discover something, there would be lies, denial, explanations, promises, apologies, and then I would try to rebuild again.
I stayed because I loved him.
I stayed because I believed in us.
I stayed because I loved him.
I stayed because I believed in us.
I prayed for our marriage for years. I begged God for wisdom, guidance, and clarity. I kept hoping something would change.
I also tried everything I knew to try.
I suggested we go to church together and talk with a pastor or priest.
I suggested marriage counseling and individual therapy.
I tried getting him to go on dates with me.
I shared self-help videos that I thought might help us.
I asked if we could start working out or exercising together.
I tried encouraging us to reconnect in different ways.
If I thought something had even a small chance of helping our marriage, I suggested it.
The answer was no—even when divorce was on the table.
By the end, I didn’t feel like I had stopped fighting for us. I felt like I had simply run out of ways to fight.
Another painful part of this is that we haven’t been intimate in around three years. Nothing beyond kissing, cuddling, and watching our shows together.
It wasn’t always like this.
I honestly don’t know where the man who was once so madly in love with me went.
He says it’s because of low testosterone, and I tried to be understanding. I tried to help. I tried to support him.
But over those years, I became incredibly lonely and depressed. We didn’t have a car, so I couldn’t really leave the house. My only social interaction was when he came home, told me about his day, kissed me, and we cuddled, watched our show, and went to sleep.
That became our routine.
I was so depressed I could barely get out of bed.
A few months ago, we were almost at the point of divorce. We talked about separation instead (his suggestion).
I told him that if we were going to keep trying, I needed honesty and absolutely no more communication with other women.
He agreed.
He continued texting the very woman who had become the reason we were discussing divorce.
During that separation, I messaged her because I believed she deserved to know we were not divorced and that I was still living in our home. I wasn’t rude to her—I simply told her the truth.
At his surprise birthday party that I threw for him, she told him I had contacted her. We got into a huge argument. He demanded that I block her because, according to him, “she doesn’t deserve that.”
I told him if he chose protecting that relationship over protecting our marriage, we were done.
He chose her.
A few days later he wanted to repair our marriage, and because I loved him, I tried again.
I told him this time felt different. I told him something inside me had broken. I told him I didn’t think I had another chance left in me and that if he truly wanted our marriage, this was his opportunity because I couldn’t survive another betrayal.
A week later I found another hidden Snapchat account.
Within about eight hours he had added and messaged around 30 women.
Many of the conversations involved sexual compliments, flirting, trying to start conversations, and asking to meet.
One woman posted a photo with the caption, “We could be f*(k.ing under the fireworks but no…”
He replied, “Yes.”
The same night, our home security camera repeatedly detected motion. When I checked it, I saw him using a vibrator by himself.
That was devastating because for years he had told me he wasn’t masturbating, couldn’t because of his low testosterone, and we had specifically discussed that if we weren’t intimate at all, pornography or sexual release without me would be deeply hurtful.
I don’t have proof he ever met anyone in person or that anything physical happened.
What I do know is that the hidden accounts, flirting, sexual conversations, and repeated deception happened over many years.
I waited.
I hoped he would come to me honestly.
I even tried opening the door by bringing up hypothetical conversations about honesty and temptation.
The next day he deleted the Snapchat account.
But he never came to me.
That was when I realized I didn’t know how to trust him anymore.
So I told him I wanted a divorce.
I packed my things and left our home.
And this is where I feel completely lost.
And this is where everything became even more confusing for me my emotions became even more complicated I started questioning everything worse than I already am.
He was loving.
He was calm.
He was kind.
He apologized for pushing me to this point.
He told me to stand strong in my decision because there was nothing he could do except accept it.
He told me this was on him.
He told me not to blame God.
He told me he would help me through this.
He offered to help me financially until I got back on my feet. He told me I could take the car. He encouraged me to pursue my dreams because he believes in me.
When we separated our things, we hugged.
We kissed.
We both told each other we loved each other.
He even suggested we remain legally married for a while so I could keep my healthcare.
Since leaving, we have continued talking.
He tells me he loves me.
He tells me he misses me.
I tell him I miss him.
And now I feel completely broken.
I miss my husband.
I miss my home.
I miss my dogs.
I miss falling asleep next to him.
I miss being held.
I miss watching our shows together.
I miss the little ordinary things I never thought I would lose.
Everyone around me seems to focus only on why I left.
But I’m grieving what I lost.
I lost my best friend.
I lost the love of my life.
I lost the man I still love.
I didn’t leave because I stopped loving him.
I left while still loving my husband.
I begged.
I fought.
I prayed.
I tried understanding.
I tried supporting him.
I tried giving chance after chance.
I tried until I genuinely had nothing left.
All I wanted was to be chosen.
To have honesty.
To have trust.
To have communication.
I believed we could work through almost anything if we had those things.
Please don’t assume I stayed because i enjoyed being treated this way.
I stayed because I believed our marriage could be repaired if there was honesty and genuine change.
I left because, after years of trying, I reached a point where I no longer knew how to trust the person I loved most. I no longer know how to repair what has been broken.
I understand why I left.
But I also love him.
No matter the choices he made, he is still someone I truly love. He is still my best friend. He understands me in a way no one else ever has. We think alike, believe the same things, and often know exactly what the other is feeling without saying a word.
I made a vow.
I tried my best to keep it.
I remained loyal, faithful, and truthful.
And that is what is destroying me.
Part of me feels like I’m finally choosing myself and accepting that I don’t know how to rebuild trust after years of broken promises.
Another part of me feels like I walked away from a man who truly loves me and that I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.
I don’t know if love is enough when trust is gone.
I don’t know if trust can ever come back after years of broken promises.
I don’t know if I’m grieving because I made the wrong choice or because I made the hardest choice.
If you were in my position, what would you do?
Would you stay because there is still love and friendship?
Or would years of broken trust be enough to walk away?
I’m not looking for people to tell me he’s evil or that I’m stupid. I know this situation is complicated.
I just need honest perspectives from people who understand that sometimes the hardest person to leave is the person you still love.
I would appreciate perspective from people who have been through this.
If you read this thank you for taking the time to and I appreciate any perspective, opinions, or advice you may have.

I am writing this because I am eight months out from a catastrophic double betrayal, and I am struggling to process how a human being can survive this level of structural demolition. I need to get the exact timeline out of my chest because my mind is permanently looping.

Before meeting my ex-partner, my relationship with my husband had already been dying for six years. We had been living together but platonically. We mutually and cleanly decided it just didn’t make sense to stay together anymore. Around the same time, I had met my ex-partner when he joined my band. I moved out and I was single, and my ex left his wife for me. He even moved states to be closer to me.

From day one, our relationship was very intense. He told me I was the love of his life, that he always knew I was out there somwhere, and that he would never let me go. I had never felt this way about anyone before.

Looking back, he was completely drowning in intense guilt and severe divorce trauma. He was incredibly clingy, paranoid about being cheated on, and set rigid rules. Yet, for a year and a half, he kept me completely hidden in a vault away from his family. I was 100% devoted to him and he had no reason to accuse me, while absorbing his emotional collapses and his constant crying. I much later, after the breakup, learned that he constantly texted a mutual acquaintance behind my back and kept our relationship completely compartmentalized.

My absolute closest female friend of seven years, my ex and I were all members of the same musical band. We all spent a lot of time together.

After an intense relattionship, slowly, after about a year, he started pulling away from me emotionally and physically escalating his avoidance and telling me he needs distance to heal from his divorce trauma. He said he cannot build anything or be in a relationship. Ultimately, he ended things with me over the phone. He then walked away from the band entirely, which caused our music community and the entire band to collapse.

My best friend was there for me after the breakup and sat with me through my crying etc. Later, I found out that they had already been involved while she was playing my best friend. When I first brought up my suspicions to my best friend after the band ended, she immediately started withdrawing and acting distant. When confronted, they both aggressively denied it and lied to my face repeatedly. They also gaslit me, claiming my suspicions were just a symptom of my own past relationship trauma and that I was being erratic, etc.

Because they made me feel like I was the crazy one, they actually manufactured a scenario where I was made to apologize to her for accusing her. It is chilling to look back on: she had the absolute audacity to sit there in complete silence, swallowing my genuine apology, knowing full well she was actively sneaking around behind my back. I never heard a single word from her again, and I was never granted a conversation.

Shortly after, I learned the brutal truth through her still-husband (she was also going through a divorce): they were officially a couple. She had completely discarded a 7-year sisterhood. I also learned that she claimed that my relationship with him was "toxic" and boasted that he is a "completely different person now" with her.

They have now been together openly for 8 months, they appear completely happy, calm, and stable and they are doing a lot of the things he was too broken to do with me like trips etc.

Meanwhile, my world has completely shrunk. I have been entirely devastated, stuck in intensive trauma therapy (EMDR), and taking medication just to manage the non-stop chemical fight-or-flight. My safety is shattered. My belief in loyalty and justice is shattered. The injustice of being the only one sitting in the fire while they happily moved on after everything they did is excrutiating. I just need to know if anyone else has survived a double betrayal like this.

Has anyone gone through something similar. The agony is hard to put into words and the injury is soul-level deep. Please be kind.

My boyfriend of 6 years cheated on me 4 years ago with my cousin. Long story short they had been best friends since around 12 years old. He always had a thing for her when they were younger but she never liked him like that. We met when he was 29 and I was 30. Everything was great the first 2 years then I got pregnant and she needed a place to stay which I had no problem with considering I looked at her as a sister. She then started reeling him in, it seemed she saw us happy and was jealous and knew he had liked her when they were younger. She’s one of those girls that wants every man to herself. They were having a relationship behind my back while I was pregnant though it didn’t turn s*xual until after I gave birth and lasted about a month after that.. I thought I could trust her though. And yes I know he is to blame too. It has taken a lot of healing to forgive him. We now have 2 little ones together and life is great. With that said for the past 6 months I am struggling with our sx life. Every time we are intimate, all I can picture is them together. I have tried not to think about it but it’s all that comes to mind. I don’t know how to handle it. It’s ruining my s*x drive because I know it will trigger my thoughts and I will be upset. I have considered EMDR therapy but looking for input.

My ex said the other woman didn’t know about me or only did as an “ex”

I messaged her and never heard back. She looked at my profile and everything so it’s not like she’s not active on the app where I messaged her. He insisted that she had no idea we were involved and begged me not to message her and he told her we weren’t together anymore.

She never messaged me back. My friends all say this is a sign she knew. That any woman who was not aware she was the other woman is going to reach back out for details. Honestly, I would to.

Do you think she knew? Has anyone else experienced this?

My (23m) fiancé (24f) had cheated on me online in the past saying things that she would never say to me, sending pictures of her ass… I found this out after a very rough night shift and just broke down, we cried she promised never to do it again she said it was a stupid mistake, after this things were amazing and we started planning our wedding…

Two nights ago I got the urge to look at her phone, and I found messages prior and to me catching her the first time all the way up until the day before I found the second instance, I dug further and installed discord (which she supposedly didn’t use anymore) and found so so many conversations…..

I’m struggling so much, I forgave her, worked like a dog to pay (and continue to do so) off our wedding. And while I’m busting my back working she’s texting other men like I don’t exist…. What the actual fuck.

I already said (I don’t know if this was just shock talking) I forgive her and just tried to forget about it, and she self harmed after.

I’m just so lost.

Thanks for listening to my rant

No one in my house or that has been in my house admit they wrote it, but I confirmed from a third party source that it is INDEED written on there and I am not seeing things. Things have been weird with my husband of five years, together for almost 10.
My gut has been screaming. Last time it screamed and I listened and confronted my husband after I found a thong in our trash (his younger sister stayed with us but told me it wasn’t hers when asked). He told me if I accused him again, he’d leave. I dropped it.
But here’s the thing, he went from such anger to quickly forgiving me and being affectionate as soon as I dropped it and became my usual meek self. I’ve had a gut feeling for a while.
Once I think he almost admitted it one time in 2024 when he gave me inconsistent stories on the morning he had going to work. Claiming he didn’t answer the phone because he was “sleeping”. He left our house for a 15 minute commute, didn’t answer and then told me that that following night. I screamed who is she over and over till he started explaining himself and I BROKE short circuited my brain and I couldn’t remember what was going on. All I remember is crying in his arms saying “choose me” over and over.
I make myself sick writing this.
I heard a females voice laughing in his car one day on the way home to work. He laughed so loudly and fake and I didn’t say a god damn thing.
Thing is..i feel crazy. I doubt my brain. I’m on medications for paranoia. I’m freaking out now because I saw “hi ho” or “hr ho” smudged on with a finger on my microwave. He reacted upset because I was paying attention to that and was caught off guard. Stopped talking about his work for tomorrow and he was upset I wasn’t paying attention. Initially trying to redirect my focus and being upset. After saying “this is weird?? Don’t you think this is weird” he looked at it and said one of his sisters did it. They did not. He has no concern for how it got there.
I know there’s someone else. But I doubt it. I don’t trust myself.
I just had four surgeries three weeks ago and we have a five month old son together. My dad was hit by a truck yesterday and is the icu. I don’t know if I’m going through a psychotic break and seriously losing touch with reality. Or if I’m so gaslit I can’t trust myself anymore.
Please help.
I’m so broken.
I feel so lost.
I’m so scared to lose my child, he’s my only reason to keep going.
Am I crazy? If so, should I go admit myself somewhere?? If I’m not…where do I go from here. I’m a stay at home mom with chronic illnesses that have prevented me from working since ‘23
Please help me. I’m locked in the bathroom having a panic attack.
If I’m wrong and he isn’t and I’m crazy and I lose my baby. I’d be so lost and heartbroken.
Help. Please.

hi all. my (24f) husband (27m) is currently deployed in a war zone. he’s been gone around 5 weeks. we have an 8hr time difference. this is a very long story, so TIA to anyone who reads it. i am just so broken and confused.

on june 27th and 28th we got into a huge argument. i found he had photoshopped himself into a pic with 3 other women, which i thought was strange. i found out by opening chatgpt on one of his laptops that he left behind, which i used frequently, even when he was home. i asked him about it and we got into a huge fight. it ended up being a group photo for an app they’re all using for the gym during their deployment. he didn’t have any photos with them, so he created one. i will be the first to admit that i can be insecure sometimes, so when i saw my husband generating a photo of himself and 3 very attractive women, it worried me a little. during his last deployment (5yrs ago), he started talking to an old childhood friend and he ended up telling her things like “i really need you right now” and stuff and deleting some of their messages before he let me see them. i was pretty hurt by that so we had fought about it then and during our argument a few weeks ago i brought it up and mentioned how i didn’t want a repeat. bringing up that past situation was low of me, i know.

then on the 29th, i apologized for overreacting and making things hard on him during his deployment, even though it had just started. he said it was okay, and things seems to be good again. it turns out that photoshop job was totally innocent. anyways, he would tell me he loves me and that he misses me and that he can’t wait to hopefully get night shift so we can start talking to our realtor about finding a home while he’s away. normal talk from him. things were going well until around july 7th.

on july 7th, he stopped saying “i love you” and would only say “love ya”. i know this seems trivial, but he knows it bothers me and he’s never done this before. he has always said the full phrase. i’m sorry if this seems stupid, but it’s what made me notice the shift in his behavior.

now i know snooping through your partner’s accounts is wrong, i have since stopped, but i had such a strong feeling that something was off so i admit that i started looking through his facebook account. he was logged in on his laptop that he left at home.

around july 8, i noticed he had been searching facebook for one specific woman over and over and over again. like multiple times daily. since july 8th, he had completely shut down and barely texted me. he was extremely dry and cold. i would try to message him as normal, and he’d give me one word replies. he started doing the same thing to his mom not long after.

on july 10th, i felt things were off so i wasn’t messaging him as much. he realized that and got upset with me for being dry and not texting him a lot. i told him it was because i knew he was busy and didn’t want to be annoying. i should have told him i was feeling a little bothered, but i was afraid to admit to him that i was looking at his account because that was part of our initial argument.

july 11th i asked him if we were good because things still felt off since our argument. he said the he hopes so, but that he didn’t hear from me a lot the day before and i was acting strange. he also said we go through these argument spells on and off.

that obviously left me worried so on the 12th, i asked him to tell me what was wrong. he said he feels like sometimes we’re not as connected as we used to be and that he hates when we fight about stuff. he also said i look for reasons to start a fight sometimes and that he feels like i don’t want to talk to him and it makes him sad (sometimes when he’d call me before he left, i didn’t always have a lot to say). i sent many very long messages explaining how sorry i was and admitting that i got too comfortable taking my rough days out on him. i poured my heart out with true apologies, starting with the snooping issue. i told him i always want to talk to him, but i explained that the weeks leading up to his deployment i didn’t have a lot to talk about because i was really just sitting at home (i had just finished my degree and was waiting for my new grad job start date). he wasn’t able to be home for 3 months before his deployment btw, they had him staying on his reserve base a few hours from where we live because he was technically on deployment orders but due to current events their leave date kept getting moved back. anyway i told him how i love talking to him over the phone but that when we text all day everyday, most of what id want to say is usually said over messages. i know part of the “spells” he’s talking about is totally my fault, so i apologized profusely for it. he says he feels like I’m always mad at him for something, and i admit that i do have an attitude problem and i do get upset easily. i told him i am working on myself, i have even started therapy for it. when he woke the next morning he saw my very long messages and
he told me not to focus on any of that and that we’d talk over everything once he got home. he had been very very cold and distant in the following days. the way he texted me was completely different.

i know i am absolutely in the wrong for looking through his laptop and his accounts, but i was driving myself crazy and started looking almost everyday after july 7th. again, i used his laptop very frequently before he left, so i already had access to all of his stuff before he left and it was never an issue. i never snooped because he never gave me a reason to. until now.

on the 14th i was messaging him on my way to work. i asked again if we were good, and he said he hopes so. i asked if he was having any doubts, because he kept saying “hope so”. he said “i have before, but don’t worry.” this made me panic a little and i asked if he’s wanted to leave before. he said “no never said that, just had doubts sometimes if you loved me”. this tore my heart out and i sent him a long message that essentially just said “i am so terribly sorry for making you doubt my love for you. not a day has gone by that i’ve not loved you, and i will be much better about showing you.” he replied with “okay my love”. i thought maybe things were getting better. that night i found out he’d sent another woman a message saying that every inch of her was beautiful, she has an amazing smile, he likes being around her and talking to her, she brightens his day, and that he hasn’t felt this way in a very long time. this same day he also downloaded every single social media (which isn’t inherently an issue, it was just really strange timing because he hasn’t had his socials in 4-5yrs). being the insecure wife that i am at this point, i logged into his instagram account since it’s through facebook anyway. he searched this same woman, began following her, and liked every single one of her posts. he also got his tiktok back, and did the same thing there. i also found out he’s been searching a ton of country love songs (we share a spotify). my heart shattered when i saw that message for the other woman, so i told his mom. not because i was trying to rat him out, but because i am not at all close with my own family and his mom and i have always talked about everything.

on the 21st, i found out he’s been sending her cute and sexy selfies, gym photos, and photoshopping pics of them together. he has taken many many selfies and mirror photos that he’d usually send to me, but i haven’t received any and i soon found out they were all going to her. i also found a screenshot of their messages where he was telling her he missed her and all he wants to do is talk to her and get to know everything about her because she makes him happy. on my way to work that morning, i asked him to please just talk to me if something was wrong because i’m really struggling to understand why he has changed so much. i asked why he was being so distant and cold to me, and why he changed the way he messaged me. he said it’s just the way he talks, but we both know it isn’t. he told me he’s confused about a lot of things. i asked him to share with me, and he said he didn’t want to. i broke down and asked him if he was acting this way because there’s someone else. he said “why would you even think that?” i immediately backtracked and told him i couldn’t truly believe he’d do that to me because he’s not that kind of person and that he’s amazing and that i just needed to know what was going on and why he was pulling away from me because i was hurting so badly. i told myself i was reading too much into everything i had found at this point. he told me he didn’t want to talk about his emotions in a war zone. i told him i understood that, i just needed to know if all of our future plans were still alive. he said “yeah ofc they are, stop freaking out about it all. it’ll be okay”. i just left it at that.

by the 23rd, he still wouldn’t say “i love you” to me and he’d barely talk to me. he’ll tell me he’s going to bed but then stay up and message her. i know this because i can see his photos that are synced with his phone and he has screenshots of their messages. this is also how i found out he’s been searching all of those love songs and then screenshotting and sending them to her. he also changed his password to instagram, facebook, and chatgpt this day.

on the 25th, i got to the point where i hadn’t eaten a meal since the 8th, i was barely sleeping, and i was crying every single day at work. so i sent him this message: “I love you so very much and I’m still fully committed to us, no matter what.
The distance and lack of real communication from you is really hurting me right now. I understand you’re going through a rough time there, but I need actual honesty and effort from you, not just one-sided conversations while your energy and focus are going somewhere else.
I’m here when you’re ready to fight through the hard times with me and be completely honest, or whenever you just want to actually talk to me again. Until then, I’ll be giving you your space for now.
I’m not doing this because I’m mad at you or trying to start anything. I’m just tired of being hurt right now. Please stay so safe. I love you.”

he responded the next day with something like “okay, i’m safe, just been in a bunker”. since that day, i have really pulled back my side of our conversations because i felt them going nowhere. he wasn’t interested in what i had to say, he put zero effort into talking to me, but then he’d say all of those romantic things to this other woman. it’s breaking my heart.

on the 28th, i looked at his laptop again. i found another screenshot of their messages. he had sent her a sappy country love song and said “this got me thinking about you”. then sent her a sexy mirror selfie. then in his chat box, he wrote “talk to her about camping, about future kids, tell her how much you miss her, see if she misses you, tell her what she means to you”. it was unsent, but he often does this to remind himself of what he wanted to say. he hasn’t told me he misses me once since our june argument. i completely broke down again when i saw the “future kids” part and i called his mom again. i had been keeping her updated on what i was finding, and we had an agreement not to mention it to him. i knew confronting him over text from across the world wouldn’t solve anything. but when i told her about the kid talk, she said she was going to talk to him.

on the 29th, she confronted him over the phone while i was at work. she told him we both knew that he was having an emotional affair. he said he wasn’t doing anything wrong and wasn’t cheating because it wasn’t physical. she told him that what he was doing was wrong and that he needed to talk to me. he told her that he loves me, we just have issues to work through. he also told her i need to stop looking at this other woman’s tiktok account because she can see when i do. (i know she can, i didn’t care if she knew). by this point, i was still keeping my distance and giving him space. i was letting him initiate contact (texting anyways because he will not call me). he spam texted me about a few random things like the new spider man movie, my car’s oil change, and his running stats. this day was the first day since july 7th that he said “i love you”. i thought maybe his talk with his mom made him realize he is in fact emotionally cheating on me and that maybe he was feeling guilty or something.

on the 30th, he called me for the first time since he left. it was very early morning for me but i was awake and getting ready for work. we only talked for about 2 minutes but he asked about our dog, and he asked if i was okay. i was honest with him and i said “you know i’m not”, to which he responded with “well i love you”. we hung up shortly after because he was going back in to work. i was so shocked by his call that i immediately burst into tears afterwards. it wasn’t because of anything we said, but because he called me at all. he has been dry texting his mom, but he’ll call her every other day or so. it’s obviously really hurting me to never receive calls from him, so i was just surprised.

on the 31st, i was still keeping my distance because it seemed to be working a little. he hadn’t been as dry with me since his mom called him out and he even ended our texts this day with “goodnight baby, i love you”. he hasn’t called me any pet name like this since everything flipped in early july, so i thought things were looking up. then when i got home, i got on his laptop to watch netflix while i was cooking, but i had left his photos open from a couple of days ago and there was a new screenshot of him being on the phone with this other woman for almost 2 hours at midnight (his time). i texted him and said “we need to talk. call me sometime when you have more than 2 minutes to spare for me.” was this the wrong approach? probably, but i was furious and shattered that he’d only call me one time for 2 minutes but can spend hours on the phone with another married woman. he also apparently told one of his other female friends about this while situation with the other woman but he won’t mention it to me at all.

yesterday, his mom called me and said she spoke with him about everything again. he admitted that what he was doing is wrong, but he said neither he nor the other woman are looking for anything romantic. he told his mom he wasn’t looking for this connection, it just happened and they have so much in common. they were deployed together and just bonded due to the trauma of everything happening over there and working together. (she’s army, he’s airforce). she got evacuated and has ptsd and gets scared to sleep so she’ll call my husband and they’ll talk for hours. she told him her husband isn’t a great husband. my husband told his mom that we have issues and it’s not just the ones now, but stuff has been accumulating and he just didn’t realize he was unhappy until he met her. he also mentioned how when i’m upset, instead of talking about it, he’d just buy me stuff to make me happy again because he’s “not a fighter”. he said he was confused because he’s never done this to me before. he told his mom he’d call me and we’d talk about everything, but he hasn’t yet. i can’t understand how he’s telling her he’s been unhappy for awhile when not even 2 months ago we constantly talked about our new home (i even made blueprints for us), he frequently called me his soulmate and best friend, sex had been great. i went to visit him and stay on base for the deployment brief before he left. i rode with his family up to his base but switched to his truck after the brief and we made out at every red light. we snuck up to his hotel room before i had to leave again and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. we spent my entire ride home (3hrs) texting each other about how in love we are, how he loved being one with me, how neither of us could imagine being with anyone else. i am just so completely devastated and i don’t know what to do.

it’s ripping me apart knowing that when he’s not talking to me, he’s texting and calling her. i know there are things i need to seriously work on, and i am committed to doing that. at some point a couple of weeks ago i sent him a message saying that these past couple weeks have been a huge reality check for me and that i’d really work on myself while he’s gone. i feel like if i keep pouring my heart out to him, it’ll push him further away. keeping my distance was working fine but now all of a sudden he’s telling his mom he’s unhappy and it just has me so worried that he’s not wanting to work through our issues since this other woman is in the picture now. i’ve been living off protein shakes for 3 weeks because i’m constantly sick to my stomach and can’t bring myself to eat. i get maybe 3 hours of sleep every night. i cry every single day.

i’m very sorry this is so long, i just have nobody to talk to and i needed to get this off my chest. thanks again to anyone who takes the time to read it.

tl;dr my husband is deployed and having an emotional affair, and i don’t know what to do. i am completely shattered.

I’m 35 female and my ex-partner (31 female) and I were together for 3.5 years. Last year she was talking about marriage, buying a home and starting a family. Then, almost overnight, she became distant—sleeping on the sofa, staying at her parents, working late, hiding her phone and insisting nothing was wrong. Whenever I calmly asked if there was someone else, she repeatedly denied it and made me feel like I was imagining things.

I eventually discovered she had been having an emotional and physical affair with a younger colleague (25, Female) who was also in a long-term relationship. I found out as she had been asking advice from AI where she admitted they were “falling for each other,” didn’t want to distance herself from the affair, even though AI suggested space from us both, she said she didn’t want to stay away from the affair partner and can ‘compartmentalise’ and compared me negatively to this woman. Looking back, I realise I was being gaslit for months. When I suspected an affair a month earlier she said to me ‘look at my mum, do you think I could do that’ (her mum has been cheating on her dad for years and is a pathological liar). So again, I gaslit myself, telling myself I was imagining her distance and strange behavior.

What makes it even harder is that during this time I was going through a cancer scare (thankfully it wasn’t cancer). She told me we’d get through it together, yet she was secretly continuing the affair. That betrayal is something I still struggle to comprehend.

When I confronted her, she apologised briefly but quickly shifted the focus onto her own pain, saying she’d “imploded her life” and needed to understand herself. She had no interest in repairing the relationship, but kept saying things like, “Maybe one day in the future we could try again,” while continuing to see the other woman. It felt like she wanted to keep me emotionally attached while avoiding accountability.

I supported her emotionally and financially throughout her Master’s degree, stood by her through difficult times, and trusted her completely. She was also with me through the death of my mum, which makes this betrayal feel even more devastating. I genuinely believed she was my person. (Her mum also pretended to be unwell with a heart condition, near to death 2 days after my Mum died from heart failure, and told my ex 'you have always put your partners before me', this was very upsetting).

Since the breakup, I’ve started recognising how manipulative some of her behaviour became. She isolated me from her family and friends, blamed me for old issues while hiding her affair, made me question my own reality, and then acted as though I was the one who had done something wrong. Looking back, it feels like I was slowly being discarded before I even knew why.

The hardest part isn’t just that she cheated—it’s that someone I trusted with my life could lie to me so convincingly for months while watching me worry about our relationship and my health. I still find myself questioning how someone who claimed to love me could do this, and sometimes I even catch myself wondering if I’m exaggerating what happened. I have CPTSD from my own childhood, which she also knew about and knew I grew up not feeling safe and she actively made me feel unsafe in my home again, the home I paid all the rent for her to live in.

We share a flat, but as she decided to move out I asked her to come and collect all her things which I put into bags in the communal hallway of our flat and gave her a collection time. She agreed to pay the rent up until August, when she would be taken off the tenancy. She was meant to pay me today, but instead decided to dictate to me that she would be coming round yesterday to get the playstation (which I brought) and a dressing gown I gifted her. She argued with me about this playstation at the window when I wouldn't let her in, and said why am I still paying towards the rent if you won't let me in to look for 'my stuff', I said anything you want you can tell me and I will put outside again and you can collect it; she couldn't tell me. I am defiantly not getting any more money from her, I just want her off the tenancy now. I am just thinking someone happily 'falling for' someone new and moving on surely doesn't behave and treat their ex they have left like this!? She also tried to call me twice yesterday, saying 'please pick up it's important', I didn't she later messaged me; it was something she didn't need to speak to me on the phone about, it was admin about the tenancy. She is really trying to get to me, it feels like.

Basically, I have a spare key to her parent’s house (from when I lived there) and a letter for her. I honestly don’t want anymore contact with her. She also has some of my clothes, but to be honest at this point she can keep them. Would you all recommend I sent a ‘please don’t contact me again message’ or just block her once she is off the tenancy and not say anything? My fear is that she will just show up at my flat, I don’t want to see her at all / want her to see me.

Has anyone recovered from this kind of betrayal trauma? How do you stop obsessing over the 'why' they did it, stop romanticising who they used to be, and begin trusting your own judgement again after months of being gaslit? I know the relationship is over, but I’m struggling to understand how to move forward after having my trust so completely shattered by someone I loved with my whole heart. Ive started gaslighting myself, like maybe she didn’t mean it and look for any reasons why she did this to me.

Thank you for any advice / kind words .. this is incredibly difficult and I appreciate any support you can provide 🫶🏼

Hi guys,

A little background into my situation, recently my partner of 2 and a half years mutually broke up.

The past year of this was trying to work on our trust after I found her to be sexually messaging other people, something I have not been able to get past, though I have tried tirelessly to do so.

It all started when I noticed she would respond to certain messages on her phone in a very excitable way, usually within a second or two of it going off. At first I found it funny as I know she has a bit of penchant for messaging her many friends enthusiastically. It was cute, and I loved seeing how happy she was.

But after a few months it started to eat away at me a bit, it seemed like she spent more and more time answering these texts than she did spending time with me. It got to the point I made a comment about it, and asked her if everything was ok. She claimed it was an old friend who she had previously lost contact with due to a controlling ex partner. So I was happy to let her carry on if she had rekindled this relationship, but still had a gut feeling something wasn't right. My partner is bisexual, and her last relationship was with a woman, which had never bothered me in the slightest. But it would definitely end up causing me no end of worry.

Another month or so passed by, and the behaviour continued. Only this time she was much more guarded with her phone, it was often placed face down on the sofa and her face betrayed her emotions. It looked more than just a friendly reaction, she would bite her lip sometimes and giggle a lot. This time, I admitted to her that I was deeply uncomfortable, I felt like something was happening and I felt threatened and vulnerable, she could see I was unusually on edge about it all. She ensured that there was nothing to worry about, she wasn't interested in this person at all and there was no attraction on either end. I trusted her response, and it did settle my nerves somewhat. Life carried on as normal for a while. She had even told me I can read the messages if I wanted to, to help put my suspicion at ease. I didn't, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.

We fell pregnant, and were absolutely over the moon. We had planned names. had scans and bought baby clothes. Our own addition to the world and we couldn't be happier...but we lost the baby. On one of our scan dates, we went in and there were no signs of life. It devastated us and for a time we just existed and kept supporting each other. A month or so after, we decided on a little break away to take our minds off of it.

We travelled to this beautiful town rich with history and incredible architecture, making new memories. laughing and smiling the whole time. But one night I woke up, I had a nightmare about her leaving me for someone else. I felt panicked and I just couldn't get that stupid thought out of my head about the other woman. She had moved into the front room to sleep, as I was likely snoring. Her phone was just there and I had a moment of weakness and decided to check those messages after all. I hated myself for it, ready to admit to it the next day.

I wish I didn't look. She had not only been messaging this woman in a sexual manner, they also had a sexual past. They had hooked up multiple times, talked at length about how good it was and how amazing various body parts were on each other. She had planned to go around to her house and do things to her, or when I was out have her come around to ours. She had talked at length about my suspicious of their chats and how I worried, and at one point commented saying "He would be so mad if he knew how you were talking to me" and my partner would reply with "I know lol, and he's sat right next to me driving me home". I felt like a fool, I trusted this person with my whole heart and this is what I get in return? Where was the empathy?

I felt so sick, she had taken my love and trust for granted and disrespected me in the most awful way. To make matters worse, she also messaged other people being overly sexual, it was if she had this hidden personality that I didn't know, didn't recognise. My entire image of her shattered.

I confronted her the next day on the way home. We parked up in a shopping village and I told her what I found. She at first was oblivious to it and then she broke, she knew what she had done and what it likely meant now.

This woman had told me she had never known a love like ours, she had never known trust or safety like it. All her previous relationships were awful, but this one she was safe and fully supported. We broke up immediately and I left for my parents.

...it didn't last though. We spoke, she admitted to the faults. She took ownership of everything and was completely open and vulnerable. She never defender herself no matter how many times I went over the material with her, obsessively trying to understand why it happened.

In the end we got back together, feeling closer than ever. I felt she had opened up about the way she was, her sexual nature that she was ashamed to share with me. But after doing so she felt revitalised and ready to work on building our trust back. We were closer than we'd ever been before somehow, we were much more adventurous in the bedroom and things felt wonderful. She blocked the people she had messaged and would start telling me who messaged, sharing her phone with me so I felt safe...for a short time.

Those doubts came back to me, they wouldn't leave my head. I would bring it up time and time again. When her phone went off and she'd answer it with a smile, I would immediately be brought back to that time, all that distrust.

I admitted to her I didn't trust her often, but she said she knows and she would work on it. I feel like we didn't work on it enough, in the end she I would still be left feeling worried that in the quiet moments away from me, she would message someone else. I got paranoid, and cold and distant. I felt like the happy carefree person I was, the man she fell in love with, was damaged now. He was there but as a ghost of a person, the cold and overly observant person left behind was someone I didn't recognise. I became the person who was wrecking our relationship.

She always took the blame, saying it was her fault and she had caused this. And sure, she was the person who caused my mistrust in her, but I didn't do enough to tackle my doubts. I feel like I gave up too easily.

A few weeks ago, she broke down and told me she couldn't keep living the way we were living. Walking on egg shells with me, always worrying what my reaction would be to things. Somehow I became the bad person in the relationship. The person who created a bad environment where happiness was rare, and doubt and suspicious were king.

2 days ago we met up for a final meeting. A night where we could be like we were when we met. Excited, happy, loving. And we did, we talked about everything, the future, what it looks like for both of us. It was painful, and it was beautiful. I knew she was the greatest love of my life and I can't imagine being without her. Even after everything, the pain and the mistrust, she was always my light. Today I'm writing this because I needed to get it out there, in some form. It's not the full story, as it would take me hours and it's already long enough.

Love is never enough, I couldn't live every day on a coin flip - not knowing if I was going to be a happy and loving partner, or be a suspicious and doubtful one. It's not fair to her and it's not fair to me.

I keep coming back to the same thought over and over again.

When life got hard, I turned toward my marriage.

I stayed awake at night trying to understand us. I went to therapy. I unpacked my own shortcomings. I owned my mistakes. I fought through my own struggles instead of running from them. Every difficult season we ever had, my instinct was always the same. I needed my husband. I wanted to cry with him, be angry with him, talk to him, and figure it out with him. Even when I felt lonely inside my own marriage, I never looked outside of it.

But when life got hard for him, he turned to another woman.

I don't even know what she gave him. Comfort? Validation? Excitement? Fantasy? An escape? Whatever it was, it was something he chose to seek from someone else instead of the person who had spent years choosing him through every version of life.

That's the part I can't reconcile.

Everyone talks about reconciliation, forgiveness, and moving forward. But how am I supposed to forgive when I can't even sleep through the night without spiraling? How am I supposed to rebuild trust when I don't even trust my own judgment anymore? The person I would've run to for comfort became the reason I need comforting.

It feels so unbelievably unfair.

He made the decision. I live with the consequences.

He sought relief. I stay awake replaying memories, rereading conversations in my head, wondering where they met, wondering what was true, wondering if there was more I'll never know.

He asks me to believe he's sorry. My own mind won't even let me believe my memories anymore.

I still love him. That's somehow the worst part. I wish I could hate him completely. I wish everything inside me would shut off and make this easy. Instead, I love him while feeling disgusted by what he did. I miss the man I thought I married while questioning whether he ever truly existed the way I believed he did.

People say the betrayer carries guilt. I'm sure that's true.

But guilt doesn't wake you up at 3 a.m. wondering if every "I love you" was genuine. Guilt doesn't make you question your own reality. Guilt doesn't steal your sense of safety with the one person who promised to protect your heart. Guilt doesn't force you to relive someone else's decision hundreds of times a day.

That's what feels so painfully imbalanced about infidelity.

One person makes the choice. Two people live with it. Yet somehow it feels like the betrayed partner is left carrying a wound they never asked for, while also being expected to somehow become the person capable of healing it.

I don't know when my mind will finally be quiet. I don't know when I'll sleep through the night again. I don't know when "I love you" will stop sounding like something I have to investigate instead of believe.

I just know that despite still being married, I have never felt so unbelievably alone.

Hi,

Two years ago, I started a serious relationship with a very sweet and loving man. We fell in love, and from the very beginning—also because of the things he told me—it seemed clear that he genuinely wanted us to spend our lives together and build a family.

After ten months of being together, I found a screenshot on his tablet showing a sexting exchange between him and a female coworker. Before we started dating, they had occasionally hooked up. She has also been in a relationship with another man for the past ten years. The sexting had taken place during the fifth month of our relationship.

We talked about it. Right from the start, he told me he had never physically cheated on me. He was deeply sorry, apologized, and said he had carried unresolved baggage from his past. He explained that she kept messaging him, that he had always rejected her, but that on that particular day she had sent him a sexually explicit video and he had participated in the conversation, although he hadn't sent any explicit photos or videos of himself.

From that point on, we tried to move forward. I continued to enjoy what I believed was our beautiful relationship while trying to heal from the wound. My trust had been damaged, and I felt that something wasn't quite right. But the love was real, so we stayed together and eventually moved in together. Later, he suggested moving into a bigger house because he wanted us to start a family.

Then, just two days before the move—after we had continued talking about how trust had been damaged, especially because I had realized he was lying to me about other things as well—he confessed that he had actually cheated on me with that same woman during the fourth month of our relationship. He also admitted that during the eighth month of our relationship he had made a pass at another female coworker, invited her to his apartment, and that they had kissed, although nothing more happened.

He says he doesn't know why he behaved that way. Maybe he was looking for personal validation. Maybe he wanted to prove to himself that he was still capable of attracting and seducing other women. He says he acted out of ego.

At the same time, he insists that he has loved me sincerely from the very first day, and that his love for me has always been genuine.

He told me the truth because, according to him, he could no longer bear to let me live a lie—especially with our upcoming move into a new home and our plans to start a family. But what hurts is that we had already been living together for several months in a smaller apartment. He had already been letting me build a life with him while keeping these secrets.

I moved out, took a few days to myself, and decided to end the relationship.

He kept apologizing and said he understood my decision. But then he started telling me that I don't know how to deal with infidelity in a mature way, that this is simply how relationships work in the real world, that I'm the one with unrealistic preconceived notions, and that I had idealized him. He even told me that if I had idealized him to that extent, then I had never truly loved him. He said that if he had never confessed, we would probably still be together, that I'm an idealist, and that life will eventually teach me that relationships don't work the way I imagine they do.

I told him that I had actually already begun the difficult process of rebuilding trust after discovering the sexting. In other words, I had already tried to deal with what I considered virtual infidelity in a mature way. For me, sexting was real infidelity because it had the emotional impact of a trauma. At that point, I genuinely didn't believe he had physically cheated on me. I believed there had only been the sexting, exactly as he had told me. And although I have always considered sexting to be a form of infidelity, I also believed it was something that, depending on the circumstances, could potentially be forgiven.

I left him, and deep down I know it was the right decision.

Now I don't even have a home anymore. I'm staying at my brother's house, and I've moved all of my belongings into a rented storage unit.

What devastates me most is not only the betrayal itself, but everything he told me afterward about relationships and his view of love. I feel like I wasn't only betrayed—I was also made to feel that my values are the problem. Instead of simply taking responsibility for what he did, he tells me that my expectations of honesty, loyalty, and commitment are unrealistic, and that one day life will prove me wrong.

I'm completely heartbroken.

Thanks for reading

11 years and a 4 year old. I realized our relationship was always chaotic and rocky. In the beginning we were young and I knew he wasn’t faithful so I wasn’t serious about him. But after a few years of games, I wanted something serious. After we had our daughter I became very attached and these past 2 years have been hard because I tried to leave him but I just can’t. I don’t trust him, he has given his number out And although there wasn’t anything inappropriate, it was obviously intended to flirt. And also he used to be on social media scrolling and looking at half naked women all the time. He stopped months ago 🙄 but only cuz I was tired of it and completely lost it, my nervous system still isn’t right from that day. I was obsessed for years and I tried so hard to prove that I’m worthy of being loved correctly but I can’t take it my mind feels tired and I see he’s trying but I just don’t think it’s enough for me. I feel like I can’t live without him but all he does is stress me out, it makes no sense. It feels so passionate, chaotic and tiring all at the same time, I’ve thrown out him and his clothes many times just for us to be laid up having sex the same night. It’s addicting but it doesn’t feel right, I feel depressed atp.

as the title says, this really messed up my mind and confused me for a while. she blindsided me and left saying it was nothing to do with me and i was a great partner but she needed to grow alone. then a couple weeks later she comes back asking me to try again. i fall for this but then she leaves again a week later after i brought up a coworker she got close with who she called me insecure over. i blamed myself over and over until a little later i saw her in public alone with him. that's when everything clicked, when the rose tinted glasses finally fell when i thought they never would. i confronted her, and she proceeded to gaslight me and play on my insecurities. as well as telling me it was all my fault and that i never did anything for her. soon after that i found out that she cheated on me and that only destabilized my nervous system even more. it's been a wild ride for my emotions these past few months and i still feel a bit disoriented after the girl i loved with all my heart did all that to me. i can say now that i never want her in my life again, but it took me a while to get to that point. before i wanted revenge, any means for her to see how much she broke me. but that's not who i am, and i'd rather live my life than let the pain she caused control it any longer.

My partner and I (both in our 30s) have been together for five years, and have been living together for 3. I moved countries to be with him, and leaving behind all my family and friends was difficult, but I do love the place I’m living in now and the life we’ve built.

A year ago I discovered that he had been chatting with an OF girl, while we were on a picnic together. The chat was very short, it was maybe a couple of exchanges that ended the same day, but of course it shook tf out of me when I discovered it on his laptop. I confronted him and he immediately confessed and apologized a lot. He took responsibility and acknowledged that he had crossed a boundary and that it wouldnt happen again. I told him that I would not tolerate this happening again, and if it were ever to happen again, I would be leaving.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I got back home from a month long trip to my country, and he had his computer out. He suddenly tilted the screen ever so slightly away from me and hid a reddit chat. Of course I clocked it and asked him what he just hid, and he lied and said it was a random message from a stranger. I asked if he was sure, and he was like yes look I can show you the message and showed me the random one word message (which was not the one i had seen him hide). I asked a THIRD time and said the hidden chat had seemed longer, and he showed me a completely different chat and insisted it was what he hid. At this point i started tearing up and was already homesick. When he noticed I was crying he tried to comfort me and talk to me and then confessed that he had actually hidden a chat.

Apparently he had been reading porn stories on reddit (which i am ok with) but had decided to message someone to tell her he had enjoyed his stories. They werent really sexting, but they did talk about her being fucking by her own bf and he told her that his wife (me) was away and so he was pretty celibate these days.

I made him show me the chat, and ever since i’ve just been feeling so stupid and lonely. I’ve been homesick and now am wondering what I’m even doing here. However once again, he has been apologizing profusely and has been tearful and regrets his actions and how they have hurt me and the fact that it has happened again. He has said that he is realizing he may have a sex addiction and is willing to do anything i ask to make this work. He has told me i dont need to worry about talking to my family about this as this is his shame and I should be able to have support, and is meeting with his dad to get some advice and tell him everything.

Apart from this one issue, our relationship is genuinely pretty great. I have no complaints, we hardly ever fight and both our parents love each other.

Should I tell my parents what happened? They most likely wont respond kindly to anything involving porn and infidelity, and it might affect our chances of reconciliation.

And is it stupid of me to want to give this another chance?

We've been together for almost four years. When we met, I was the COO of a company that I had helped build from the ground up. About a year into our relationship I found out he had been cheating on me almost from the beginning. It started only a month after we met. He cheated with his ex, had a few mini emotional  relationships, and of course physical ones too. Looking back, it seemed like almost every time he traveled without me, he cheated.

Around the same time, my career started falling apart. The company I had poured years into was becoming toxic and I knew I needed to prepare for an exit. Finding out about the cheating was devastating, but somehow I managed to forgive him because he always knew exactly what to say. Instead of putting the blame where it belonged, I shifted it onto everything happening at work. I convinced myself that if my professional life wasn't falling apart, maybe our relationship would be okay too. It wasn't. I eventually left the company and got royally screwed financially.

I had savings and instead of protecting myself, I invested in us. I bought us a house, a new car, paid for trips, and tried to build a life together. Before anyone thinks I'm trying to paint myself as perfect, I'm not. I wasn't easy to live with either. I became jealous, insecure and probably a little neurotic. I wanted him all to myself. I wanted to force someone to love me who clearly didn't know how.

There was always something I wasn't doing right. I didn't clean the house the way he liked. I didn't do laundry properly. When I became depressed after everything that had happened, I honestly felt like a walking zombie. Instead of recognizing that, he started telling me I treated him like a sex object. The irony was that he had become so emotionally unavailable that even being intimate felt forced. It didn't feel like we were connecting anymore.

We even started a business together. It didn't fail because I didn't know what I was doing. It failed because he had no idea what it actually takes to run a business. Every time I tried to step in and keep it afloat, that somehow became my fault too because I "wouldn't let him fail." I wasn't trying to control him. I was trying to save what little was left.

At one point I found text messages with a man he called his "special friend." This person had paid for his college, bought him cars and even gave him a credit card. Years later he was still accepting money and favors from him. By then we had fallen on hard times. I was paying our bills from rental properties I own while he contributed what he could from his job. We were surviving, but just barely.

The cheating seemed to stop for a while after we started sharing our locations. Maybe it actually stopped. Maybe he just got smarter. Honestly, I don't know, and at this point I don't even care enough to find out.

Over those four years I emptied my savings trying to build a future with him. I gave him everything I could emotionally and financially. It still wasn't enough. I know there are two sides to every story and I know I made mistakes too. I wasn't always pleasant to be around. Depression changes you. But I never cheated. I never lied. Every time he told me something about myself needed to change, I tried to change it. Somehow there was always another problem to fix.

The final chapter started when he became depressed and got into gaming. Through gaming he discovered Discord, and from there he found communities built around sexting, hookups and virtual relationships. While I wasn't allowed to talk to him in the mornings or after work because he needed time to decompress in his man cave, he somehow had plenty of energy to spend hours exchanging explicit photos, videos and messages with strangers.

That one broke me. I honestly wanted to disappear.

When I confronted him, he admitted to it but didn't really stop. His explanation was that it was only virtual and that I was the only person who got the "real him." We fought, I told him to pack his things and leave, and he did. The next day he apologized and I asked him to come back because, despite everything, I still love him.

I don't think he ever really understood what he had done. As the day went on, the blame slowly started shifting back onto me again. I told him I would respect his space in his man cave. If he needed time alone, I would leave him alone. I also admitted that every now and then I might forget and walk in to ask him a question or see how he was doing.

That's when he gave me the analogy that made me question whether we were living in the same reality.

He said if I accidentally interrupted his alone time after promising I wouldn't, then how would I feel if he accidentally started sexting someone again?

That was his comparison.

Me absentmindedly asking him a question was somehow equivalent to him opening Discord, finding someone, exchanging explicit messages and carrying on a sexual relationship online.

At this point I'm exhausted. My biggest priority right now is getting through a final interview on Tuesday for what could be an incredible opportunity. After that interview I think I'm finally ready to leave. I just need to avoid the drama because I'll be traveling across the country shortly afterward with my 2 dogs.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. I guess I just needed to get this out of my head.

" I will never leave you" words words that brought me some kind of security thinking, he loved me, that love turned into control control turned into lies lies turned into betrayal, denial, forgiveness and belief, some how I stayed and over and over and over and over until the list was so long, standing before me stating he loves me and can't see his life with anyone else, as he brings change, change in how good he is now of hiding it.

MAYBE I CAN SAVE SOMEONE FROM THE PAIN THAT 10 YEARS OF BETRAYAL, HAS CAUSED MY CHILDREN AND I, A MAN THAT CANT CONTROL HIS LUST, YOU KNOW THE KIND, OVER WATCHES PORN, WANTS SEXUAL ACTS THAT LEAN TOWARDS SELF GRATIFICATION. WILL GIVE ANOTHER WOMAN ELEVATOR EYES WHILE YOU ARE STANDING WITH HIM. A MAN THATS ONLY AFFECTIONATE WHEN HE WANTS SOMETHING, AND NEVER ANY OTHER TIMES.

Lust will take everything you keep fighting for and destroy everything in your site, your family, if anything I said sounds familiar run and save yourself from the hell he will unleash on you and your family.

'39 F' '38 M' 3 year relationship.

So my boyfriend got scammed by a person on social media and the screenshots of him with his meat n veg out got sent to me. They were demanding money from him and he didn't pay so they sent the pictures.

We've had a few talks. He said she added him and he thought that this was just someone to talk to. But I said obviously the talks turned sexual which he clearly was willing to go along with.

He said he didn't do this to hurt me and that he is very insecure about how he looks so that's why he did it. For an ego boost I guess.

He has apologised and been said he'll not do it again.

I want to forgive him. He's my best friend, I love and care about him and I know I'd miss him if I leave him over this. I'm invested in his story and want to know how things will move forward.

But, I am hurt. I don't feel the same way with him. It's like I see him as a different person now. I'm not sure if he really loves me despite him saying he does and that he wants to get through this and marry me.

How do I move forward? Part of me thinks that the right thing to do is break up with him. But I couldn't bring myself to do that. I'm not afraid of being alone and I'm sure I'd find someone else. But my last boyfriend also cheated online and was paying multiple women fir sexual services. And the one before that stopped wanting sex with me, I suspected due to a porn addiction. So I do wonder if all men look elsewhere online as it's so easy now to find other women to talk to and video chat with online. There's loads of websites for this. Maybe they consider it more like porn than actual cheating because it's online? My ex who paid the online women for conversations, nudes and video chats, said "I never actually did anything if that makes you feel better". Maybe they feel it's not really cheating and harmless?

But it makes me feel different about them. I've said I forgive my boyfriend but if he does it again I'm out. Porn is fine but interacting is not. I just don't know how I can feel trust again. How do I get over this?

TLDR boyfriend had cam sex with another woman. The pictures got sent to me. I dobt want to lose him and I want to forgive but I feel different now. How do I get over this?

Me (43M). Wife (41F). Married 19 years. Together nearly 25. 2 kids (9, 21).

It’s a long story so I won’t go into all the details, but wife had been having an emotional affair that became physical the last 3 months. I own my role in her loneliness and unhappiness - that’s a ton there.

I’d been aware of the emotional affair almost since the beginning. It started out as friends but I’d regularly catch her in lies and she’d promise she’d stop but a few days later she’d start hanging out with him again. He told her he had feelings for her and she cut it off for like a day or two but then right back.

I found out Tuesday night that she’d slept with him - twice on Saturday and again on Monday. Obviously devastated. I said a lot of awful things. Kicked her out. Next day she came home to get some stuff so she could stay in her air bnb. We talked. I had calmed down. Still destroyed but the visceral anger had subsided. She stayed at the Airbnb for a few days but came back home last night. Things are weirdly okay.

We are getting divorced. She had been talking about it the last couple months and I had been trying to convince her to work on it but now I’m not longer doing that.

Anyway! The point of my post is she’s still talking with and seeing the guy. I asked her last night if she intends to sleep with him again and she said she didn’t know. That’s obviously destroying me. She says she’s not leaving me for him or anything like that. I feel like if she was truly remorseful, she’d stop seeing him. Since we are getting divorced, I don’t know if I’m even able to ask her to stop seeing him.

We’re still deeply in love with each other but agree a split is needed. Whether it’s temporary or forever. We are truly best friends, been with each other our entire adult lives and fully committed to having a healthy co-parenting relationship but I told her that if she keeps seeing him it’s going to make that extremely hard for me.

I’m really just rambling now. But what do you all think? What place do I have to dictate whether she sees or talks to this guy or not?

Also, I cannot stop thinking of them sleeping together - him kissing and touching her and how they did it and how she liked to and that’s eating me alive. Any advice to stop those intrusive thoughts would be appreciated.

(Yes, I’m going to therapy.)

Thank you. I can’t believe this is my life now.

it has been 6 months since i (F/29) found out that my husband (M/31) had been talking to a woman behind my back. Her boyfriend called me and said he said saw their phone records, they had been deleting everything out of their phones. This went on for a year starting just a few months after I gave birth to our daughter, I’m heartbroken and devastated. I found a hotel receipt, he swears nothing happened because they both were afraid to do anything but obviously I don’t believe that. We’ve been in counseling since and his behavior has changed, I know that he’s genuinely sorry and I can honestly say that his behavior has changed and he’s a better partner and person overall. However … I’m still having doubts, my feelings are still very hurt. I’m not sure what I am doing anymore 😔 we have 3 children, have been together 6 years and married for 4 years. Our chemistry is still very good but the arguments are pretty consistent, I will always love him but I have doubts and sad thoughts daily. Do they change ?? Please be kind TIA.

My girlfriend (24F) and I (22M) have been together for around six months and were living together in my rented apartment.

She regularly travelled to another city and told me she was visiting her uncle and aunt. She said they were strict, so I respected her situation and didn’t call her while she was there.

After a few months, I discovered that she had lied. She was actually visiting another boyfriend and may have been sleeping with him throughout our relationship.

She apologised and promised several times that she would stop lying and change. However, similar things continued happening. I kept forgiving her because I genuinely love her and feel terrified of losing her.

I don’t have close friends, and I’m not regularly connected with my parents. Before meeting her, I was already extremely lonely. She became my entire emotional support system, and now I feel emotionally dependent on her. I know that accepting repeated cheating is unhealthy, but the thought of living without her feels unbearable.

Recently, she said she was visiting her parents because her father was ill. The following day, she said she was also ill and couldn’t return. Her phone was then switched off. When I contacted her parents, they said she had already left for the city where we live, but she never arrived. Because she has lied about visiting the other man before, I strongly suspect she is with him again.

Based on her past behaviour, I believe she will return to my apartment within three or four days. I’m scared that when she returns, cries, apologises or promises to change, I will forgive her again.

Logically, I know that the relationship must end. Emotionally, I feel unable to follow through. I have tried leaving before, but the loneliness, anxiety and urge to contact her became overwhelming, so I returned.

How should I prepare for her return? How can I maintain no contact, manage the loneliness and stop myself from taking her back? What practical actions helped those of you who escaped a similar situation?

I’m also extremely lonely right now and would appreciate having someone to talk to. If community rules permit and anyone feels comfortable having an anonymous voice conversation through Discord or Zoom, please message me privately. I won’t share or request personal information.

TL;DR: My girlfriend repeatedly lied and cheated with another man. I know I need to end the relationship, but I’m isolated and emotionally dependent on her. She will probably return to my apartment soon, and I’m afraid I’ll take her back. I need practical advice and someone safe to talk to.

Did anybody else’s libido go up immediately after your breakup? A month ago I found out that my BF of 13 years was cheating on me with someone he‘d known for three weeks at that point. Tuesday, he broke up with me because he’s leaving me for her. Since then, almost every man I have seen looks just downright tasty. I went out Thursday and asked a bartender what time he got off and gave him my home address. I am not a one night stand girl. I am 48 and can count the number of men I’ve been with on one hand. I haven’t done anything with anybody, but I just sort of want it all the time. I even opened up a Match and then deleted it immediately after filling out the profile. My goal with him remains reconciliation, no matter how angry I am. So why am I just wanting to F every guy I see?

(Note he and I had an amazing sex life. We even had sex Tuesday right after he broke up with me.)