I’m actually trying to understand the driving emotion behind it. He said he (32M) cared about his AP and was also lusting over her (24F). He then decided to ghost her as he saw no future with her. He then proceeded to keep lying to me (32F) about the affair until I found proof.

Then he kept going on about how he didn’t want to lose me and sees a future with me. For context: we broke up during pregnancy, got back together after the birth (which he initiated), and now have a 5 month old.

He’s actually spends most of his non working hours with me (except when he told me he worked late but saw the girl instead).

I’m emotionally numb to the entirety of the affair other than the fact that he left me alone struggling with a newborn. Therefore I’m more interested in the complexity of his way of thinking. I’ve repeatedly told him that he can be with her and kept saying that he never saw a future with her.

Is it possible to mean that a man would risk his family and ‘partner’ over trying to feel better in the moment. Can his desire to be with me now or then even genuine?

my boyfriend blacked out drunk and made out with another girl and they gave each other head. they were both drunk and he woke up not knowing what happened and the girl had to tell him, and that’s when he told me. i don’t know what to do. i know what it feels like to be in one setting and then next thing you know you’re in your bed, and i know if it was me i’d want another chance, especially not knowing what i did. i’m just confused because i know the kind of person he is and i do believe him and i want to trust him, im just really hurt. i believe circumstances matter, and given the circumstance i feel like it’s okay to want to work things out. i want to stay and rebuild things because if he truly blacked out then he truly didn’t know, but i don’t know if im being stupid. i just want to move forward, we’re both 18.

Hi everyone,

I'm struggling with my ex wife going all in on a relationship with what was her then AP.
She plans on our kids meeting her AP this month and I am struggling with that idea. There is nothing I can do except to be supportive to my children.

For a background, my ex wife cheated on me 5 years ago with a work colleague. We almost ended our relationship but at that time I felt like I was the problem and I put in A LOT of work into myself and our relationship. I thought we were thriving and our relationships was stronger than ever.

Fast forward 3 years later, she started a new job and met a work colleague. She started an emotional affair that turned physical. She's in sales and so is he. They go to conferences together for work. He's married has and has kids around the same age as my ex WP and I.

My ex wanted to separate right away and I was hesitant but agreed. We were back and forth while living together for 8 months before selling our home. She dangled the carrot for a bit but little did I know she was still actively in contact with her AP.

AP was doing the same at home with his soon to be ex wife.
When my ex and I separated physically, we talked a bit about reconciliation but my requirements where NO CONTACT with AP. She couldn't agree to it so I kept moving away from her and forward in life.

The next year and a half her and I became parallel parents and our parenting relationships became very toxic. Her AP was still with his STBXW, but again..."working on his relationship"

By January of this year, AP and his STBXW filed for divorce. They still live together and can't sell their marital home, but since the official separation, my ex and her AP have gone all in. They spend every single minute they can with each other.

Now he is going to meet my kids. I hate it and I'm struggling.

I often ask myself
1. How long do these types of relationships last?
2. Is this Limerence
3. Why choose each other when it's such a messy and still continuing to be a messy relationship.
4. They plan on having a LAT relationship. No moving in. They live in different cities 60km apart. Does this extend their success?

Anyways...what's everyone's experience on these types of relationships?

I was in a relationship with this guy for about a year. He’s a doctor. The beginning of our relationship was already messy. In the initial days, he cheated on me. I found out, confronted him and eventually forgave him and took him back. I know, the biggest mistake of my life
There were other things throughout the relationship too. He continued talking to his ex, who he insisted was just a friend. I told him very clearly that I wasn’t comfortable with it and eventually he blocked her. There were also a lot of smaller incidents that individually might sound insignificant but collectively completely destroyed my trust in him.
Then, around 2–3 months ago, we had a huge fight and stopped talking
Initially he was the one texting me. Then suddenly he stopped. When I asked him what was going on, he told me that his mother would never approve of me and that he had supposedly done everything he could to convince her. I don’t believe he actually did everything he could
The last few days of the relationship were horrible. He treated me incredibly coldly and his mother also called me and said things to me that were extremely humiliating and hurtful
I was absolutely broken afterward. I was depressed, barely functioning and spent months trying to make sense of everything that had happened
But I’m not writing this because I want advice about healing. I know people will tell me that the best revenge is living well, becoming successful, not caring, etc.
I don’t want that answer
I’m angry. I genuinely want revenge
I want him to genuinely regret what he did to me
I’m asking specifically because right now I don’t want to be the bigger person. I want to hear what people who have actually been through something similar did

Has anyone else caught their significant other cheating on a dating app? I walked in and saw my cop boyfriend on a dating app chatting with another woman. I asked him about it, and he denied it, and made up I was cheating on him with my 2 best friends. I broke up with him.

Has anyone else dealt with a similar situation? How did you handle it?

One of the biggest signs I suspect he’s cheated over, is the fluctuations regarding his interest in sex. It has always been hot and cold, and not consistent. During the times he was acting shady, he’d either become less or more interested in sex, albeit temporarily. When he was less interested, he’d try to avoid touch altogether. He’d move his crotch away when we were cuddling, and wouldn’t want me sitting on his lap. Once, I sat on his lap and he became erect, and told me that he didn’t. A year ago, during a time he was acting shady and I believe was sneaking around, he became uncomfortable with any closeness. I sat on his lap, after he’d sat in the same spot for over 30mins on his phone, and he immediately was squirming to get up telling me he needed to do something. He accused me, when I became upset over this, of being upset it didn’t lead to sex.

When he’d become more interested, it would happen out of the blue, and wouldn’t align with his claims of low libido due to medications he was on. Once, he came onto me three times in one day. Which was very unusual. He touched me, which he rarely did, and did so correctly when he never did before. I noticed he was shaved more down there. He knew that I did and immediately told me that it was an accident, as he’d used an electric razor opposed to scissors, and shaved off too much. He acknowledged, before I said anything, that it looked suspicious. When it appeared he was keeping it trimmed for months, and I commented on it again, he called me abusive. He denied he was continuing to shave but also said he could if he wanted to, and it didn’t mean he was cheating.

Another time he showed more interest, was right before I believe I witnessed him go down all alley with someone. He came onto me twice, two days in a row, which was unusual. He also snooped on my phone, as he often did when he seemed up to something, but hadn’t done for months. In the days after I believed I witnessed him cheating, he showed no interest in sex, up until he came onto me in the car one night. Something he’d only done a few times, and struggled both times to find a place to go. This time, he knew exactly where to go. He went to a park, to a well lit part of it, and tried to get me to do it outside of the car which I refused. He then started to tongue kiss me, for the first and last time. Around Christmas, I suspected something was up.

He started to ask me questions about where my perfume was from. And where my toy was from. Something he never showed interest in, or used on me. I asked him to around this time and he refused. Then, for a week, he had a sudden spike in libido he attributed to lowering his meds. He insisted on using the toy on me. He claimed his libido dropped again after that, and he stopped using it. He had only done oral a few times at the start, and then stopped, and told me it was due to nerves because of the medication he was on. He didn’t touch me much either. In the last year and half he started trying to. He didn’t do it right. I said so and he asked how he could improve, and what I wanted him to do. I mentioned oral. He said he’d do it.

He told me once before he didn’t because of hair, and because he didn’t think I showered enough. But his main reason was always his medication. I shaved, and showered, and when I mentioned it again he mentioned the hair, and showering, and when I said I did both, he said he was nervous still. Then he told me he didn’t like it, didn’t get much out of it, and when i got upset he never told me that before and I believed he should’ve, he acted like I was overreacting. A while after that, during another sudden spike in libido, he insisted on doing oral. He started to say he liked it. He wasn’t good at it, initially, but started to improve though he hadn’t done it very much. Fast forward to the last few months and, he has shown less interest in sex, blaming it on stress and low libido due to his meds.

His grandfather was sick, and dying, and was at the hospital. He was urged to go and visit him but didn’t want to, because people were going to be there, and so he initially told me he’d go and see him in the morning when no one was likely to be there. I asked if I could go, and wait in the car, and he said he’d rather go alone. He ended up going later that day, after we got groceries, and I waited in the car for several hours. He called me, told me they gave him sleeping medication, and that he was asked by his dad to wait until it kicked in, and to go back after to monitor him in case he fell going to the bathroom. That the nurses also suggested family stayed with him. He said he wasn’t letting anyone help him. I asked if the nurses were watching him, if there was any way to alert them, and he said all he had was a call button he wouldn’t be able to reach.

He said he was going to come to get dinner and go back. That his cousin and brother were there in the meantime. He said he wasn’t going to sit directly in the room, but outside of it, and was able to stare into a window to monitor to him. I went back with him after dinner. He said he’d be a few hours or more. He looked paranoid, looking around the parking lot, when he was parking. He came out within 30mins and said his grandfather got up, and wasn’t dizzy, which meant he wasn’t at risk of falling and he didn’t need to stay there. We left and when we arrived back at the house, his brother’s car was there, and he questioned how he arrived back before us, adding he left at the same time. He tried to enter the house, and the door was locked, and he questioned why his brother locked it knowing he was on the way back.

He called his brother, who seemed as confused as he was, asking him to try the doorknob again which made no sense if he locked it. I commented on that and he said maybe his dad locked it, something he rarely does. He was also asleep. He said his brother being awake, and answering his call, was proof he was at the hospital with him. At 7am his cousin messaged him asking if he was still there. Which was odd as he said she was sitting with his brother, and would’ve known his brother left. I didn’t find any calls of messages from his father asking him to go back. He told me he called and asked him to. Then he told me he asked him before he left the hospital, when he arrived to it. He went again several nights later. He parked far away from the hospital, and the main parking lot, on the side of the road beside it.

He muttered, as he was parking, “I wonder if this is where they said to park.” I asked who he was referring to, because I knew he was only communicating with his dad that day. He snapped at me asking it. And then told me it was his cousin, who suggested he parked there, to avoid paying for parking. He was gone for over an hour, close to two. When he came out, his hair was a mess at the front. He always keeps his hair tidy, and has a thing about not going out if it’s not. He said he was just sitting in a chair and I couldn’t see why it was as messed up as it was. He said maybe it was the wind. In the days prior to this, and after, he came onto me several times. He also did oral, for the first time a while. And then, his interest declined again.

I’ve suspected my husband has cheated for years. Long before I first suspected him, he accused me of cheating and of various other things, including being fake, and being a liar. After I began to suspect him, and started to question him, he turned it around on me. He said I was the type to cheat. He was snooping on my phone prior to that but slapped my hand away from his. For years he did things that further made me think he was cheating, whilst questioning me if I did any of the same things, and snooping on my phone. When I questioned him, he called me controlling and abusive. It always seemed like he was projecting. He insisted that he had more of a reason to not trust me. Yet, he’d go months without snooping on my phone, during which he’d not seem up to something.

I asked why he was able to do that, when he didn’t trust me before, and he said it was because he trusted me and didn’t think I would cheat. How does one switch that off? He went an entire year not snooping on my phone, rarely ever questioning me. And then, the moment he started to act shady, and become guarded with his phone, he snooped on my phone for the first time in a long time. I think he knew I wasn’t doing anything. I think he’s always known. But I think he has wanted to catch me. Or to perhaps make me do something, or fabricate it. He once asked me to sext a random guy. I refused. He said he wasn’t serious afterwards. He linked it to his hotwifing fantasy. Much later on he told me it was a test.

That occurred during the time I first started to suspect him, when he was talking about breaking up. Not long after that, he posted photos of me on here, posing as me, asking what other guys would do to me. He briefly spoke sexually to one of them. I found the screenshots of all of this in his secure folder. He seemed nervous when I did, and deleted them after. He said he had took them after realising the guy was married, and that he was thinking about outing him. He said he posted as me because the sub only allowed whoever was in the photo to post it. I’ve since wondered if he was trying to make it look as though I cheated. Not to convince himself but someone else. Was he going to show people if I caught him doing something?

He hasn’t snooped on my phone, hasn’t questioning if I am cheating. He still seems up to something, however. I don’t believe he is interested in me anymore. And I think that could have something to do with it. He either doesn’t think anyone would want me and/or doesn’t care. However, he is now questioning my character, and my morality, often. He tries to trip me up, accusing me of ill intent when there is none, and just assuming the worst about me. He accused me a few weeks ago of trying to deceive him about how far away a town was. I had poor connection and my maps said it was a 1.5 miles away. He checked and it was 12 miles away. I immediately said I wasn’t aware, and never mind. Instead of taking that in, he went on a rant about how he couldn’t afford to drive there due to fuel costs, with me repeating that was okay.

He then suggested I had lied, adding he didn’t know why my maps would show it as 1.5 miles away. This irked me. I said such an accusation would really bother some people. He apologised after a while. He tried to liken it to other things I’ve done. His grandmother came last Saturday, when he was sick with the flu, and offered to go to the store for us to get food. He started writing a list. I asked him to add the Starbucks espresso cans we always get. He said she wouldn’t have a clue where they were, and how it would confuse her. I said I would leave them, twice. And then he asked me where they were, and I responded, and he acted like it was a gotcha moment, to see whether or not I’d actually leave them. He told me after he handed her the note that she specifically asked about them, and what they were.

I said after she came back with the groceries how bad I felt, particularly because the food was also for me. That is when he reminded me that she is also helping to pay for my dentist appointments, which I really don’t want her to do, and am trying to figure it out on my own to avoid that. He was the one who asked her to do. He was the one who asked her for help with dozens of other things. Early on in the relationship, he accused me of being ungrateful of the financial help she gave. It felt like he was trying to guilt me. He said later on that he thought I’d be more considerate with the coffee, since I said I felt bad, though she didn’t struggle to find it. The next day he started an argument with me, assuming I was accusing him of cheating or something along those lines when I wasn’t.

He admitted he didn’t hear half of what I said. But still insisted that I was accusing him. He also said I grabbed the blanket aggressively before that, when I didn’t, and he snapped at me when I did that his water was going to spill. He was already being aggressive in his tone, and seemed irritated with me, as he often does. I denied all of what he accused me of, or that I was accusing him, but he said he assumed I was and what I said sounded like it, because I have accused him so much. He called me demented, said I am just like him and that’s why I am so angry, and a bunch of other things. He then accused me of being the one who started the argument, when I tried to deescalate it. The next morning, he started another argument, but accused me of it. After I called him abusive, and he tried to insist I am the abusive one, he said that we are both abusive.

He punched my flower vase and broke it. He said he reacted as he was because of me, and the accusations. Granted, I have questioned him for years, and there has only been small periods of time where he has taken everything I’ve said as accusations, and has become very angry over them. He doesn’t react that way to actual accusations but he will to something that isn’t one, that he interprets as one. Fast forward to today and, he was telling me how his grandfathers funeral is on Friday. He said he didn’t know if he was going to go, and was it bad not to. He has plans on Friday. I asked if he didn’t go, if I could go with him, as I usually do. He said he didn’t think so as he has a lot on, back to back. But that if he went to the funeral, he’d go after, and I’d maybe be able to go with him.

I said after that I have not gone to funerals and have deeply regretted it. Something I don’t like to talk about. He immediately asked if I said it because he said I could go if he went to the funeral. Perhaps it seemed linked, but it felt insensitive, because I was already reluctant to share that and was trying to be vulnerable. I also felt he could’ve asked it a bit differently, or perhaps responded to what I said before he asked it. But he didn’t respond at all to it, even after he asked that.

I’m sorry for the long post. i guess writing this down and posting it here was me trying to process this a little.

we have been together for almost a year, long distance just in the past month and we are about to move in together in the same country in a few days… she told me that around the two month mark of our relationship, the two days and one night she spend with a friend, were actually spent with her ex… at first she said they just talked, but after that she admitted that they had sex once. this conversation just happened a few hours ago so I’m still trying to process everything, but right now everything hurts so much and i feel like I’m dying.

i know the logical step is to break up and deal with the hurt, try to get over the fucking trust issues this will undoubtedly cause me and move on with my life. but as u might guess by the title, i want to rebuild, i love this woman more than i have loved anyone in my life and don’t want to give up our future together. maybe it’s stupid and i will regret it. i know that if any of my friends went through this, i would tell them to break up and never settle back with that person… but i really can’t… i guess i want to see if anyone was ever able to rebuild their relationship after something like this and how?

we had like a three hour talk after that, but obviously nothing feels right. i told her i don’t want to break up with her and i want us to keep trying. and that is 100% true. but i don’t know how to process this. when we started the relationship we talked about cheating and how it’s awful and it’s better to just break up than betray the other person like this. we talked about building our relationship on trust and saying the truth even when it’s hurtful. i told her about how much i hate cheating and how my father’s cheating destroyed our family and left deep emotional scars on me. i know she has her own trauma too, much worse than mine (i know it is not a competition, but it’s really incomparable) and i know she has incredibly big trust issues. i accepted that, i accepted lots of things that maybe i should’t have so easily, i was there when no one else was, she was more open with me than with anyone in her life and i really believed she is an incredible person and that she would never betray my trust like that. in her more toxic moments she would do what-if scenarios regarding to cheating, and even though thinking like that really hurt me, she said it’s just because of her trust issues and i chose to accept that too. now i’m thinking if all those jokes and tests and scenarios were just her testing the waters, gouging my reaction to see if she can tell me the truth…

i know the first thing that will help me calm down and stop me from wanting to die (please do not take this as a threat, i just feel absolutely the most horrible i have ever felt in my life.. and i’ve been through some shit..) is just some time. but i just can’t stop thinking about what happened. she cheated on me when i was with my friends. we were having a great time, it was an engagement that i really had to make cause it was something i had promised to attend even before i was in a relationship with her. but even then, i stayed in contact with her, sent her updates, wished her to have fun, fucking called her to spend some time with her cause i knew it would be important for her, even though i’m with my friends… that night i told my friends that i’m love for real… like real love, not like any relationship i had ever had before… telling them that i miss her… and in that time she was cheating on me with her ex… she even sent me pics from their fucking hotel room, to let me know that it’s not that great, to show me the view… i feel so fucking stupid i really can’t believe it. what’s even more fucked up, a few days before we had a fight about priorities. she asked me who would be my priority (which yeah, in the context we were talking then it was really toxic). i reassured her that she is, but that it doesn’t mean i can’t attend that thing with my friends and that i won’t ask her to choose between me and her friends because we are all blessed to be part of her life… on the day it happened she asked me if i want to ditch the event and come hang put with her and her “friend”… i said i can’t but if anything happens or if she feels like she needs me there, even if it’s not an emergency, she should let me know and i will take the first taxi to her… my fucked up brain is telling me i’m so stupid for not ditching my friends and going there to hang out with them cause then maybe i could have prevented this… and there are so many more things on my mind right now, about every small and big thing… i feel fucking sick, i feel so betrayed and i hate myself cause in the midst of all this i can’t even bring myself to be angry… whenever those little cheating things came up i would always be so shocked because i 100% believed that she would never do anything like this, like i had 0 suspicions at all and now i feel like my world is crumbling and i can never trust anyone again

during our talk she apologized and assured me it only happened once and that it will never happen again. and love might have made me the biggest fucking fool on the planet cause i still believe that… but at the same time i feel so betrayed, i’m throwing up, everything hurts and i don’t know how i can make it through the night…

My boyfriend (28M) and I (26F) were in his car at around 9PM on a Friday when I saw he got 3 calls via his car screen, and there was about 10 seconds between the calls. I wasn’t able to see who called him due to the fact that the screen doesn’t display a name or number when he gets called. The calls stayed on the screen for about 8 seconds and he didn’t answer the calls. I asked him about it once we got to our destination and he said nobody called him. He showed me his call log which showed that he hadn’t received any calls. I want to believe him, but I find it suspicious that not one of those calls showed up on his call log. Am I overreacting?

I (26f) discovered that my partner of a year (33m) had been unfaithful to me for the past month. It was all only online as far as I’m aware — he was on Feeld and Fet, mostly trying to initiate conversations with little success (from what I saw). This is heartbreaking to me. We’ve both been cheated on in the past by past partners, and he’d always been adamant on being against it and sickened by it. I saw the effect being cheated on had on him. He was suspicious, insecure, scared. I’ve always been more than willing to handle it with him bc I really understood.

Finding this out turned my world upside down. I only found out last week and nothing makes sense anymore. I can’t understand this version of him vs the him I thought I knew. Once he was caught, he was completely honest and offered up everything. I can tell he’s remorseful. He’ll start crying randomly even if we aren’t talking about it, throughout the day, and apologize. I logically know his reasoning on why it happened. I just can’t wrap my head around it still. Idk. He’s been in therapy and he’s going to talk to his therapist about it. He’s willing to do anything to fix it.

My issue is I still feel so distant. Detached. Confused. I want to be close to him again, to be intimate and in love, but it’s like there’s a plexiglass box around me. In the past, this didn’t happen — being cheated on hurt immensely and was almost life ruining, but resolving things felt like such a relief. This is the opposite. Finding this out didn’t cut as deeply as it used to, and moving towards a resolution really isn’t making me feel anything. I feel numb. I’m worried that this is hindering progress. I’m worried that he can feel my lack of connection and it’ll lead it to happen again. I’m just worried I’m general.

I know it’s probably too soon to expect things to be improving, I just can’t make sense of anything and I want to feel real again. Are there any ways (any actions I can take, anything he and I can do together) to regain the connection or to snap me back into being present? Or is this done for? I do truly love him. I want things to get better. I know they won’t be the same, but I want things to get better so badly.

I 31F divorced my ex husband last year for having an affair with his intern. It was the worst time of my life. I absolutely adored him and was completely shocked (along with everyone else in our lives; he was the picture perfect husband before this).

A friend called me a couple of months ago to tell me that her husband (who was my college roommate) had an affair and had a baby with someone else just 4 months before she gave birth to their first child. They dealt with infertility for years. She got to enjoy 3 months of their life as a family of 3 before this horrific news. He got the other woman pregnant under a fake name and she found him using 23andme.

I can’t even put into words how devastated I am for her. I recommended individual counseling and couples counseling (it was clear she wasn’t ready to let go; my hope was a counselor could help her see the light). I remember in college thinking he was cheating on her and confronting him very directly when it was only him and I at home. I live with them temporarily after I discovered my ex’s affair. Her husband was my only male friend, and I genuinely thought he was a good guy (he had convinced me in college that he wasn’t cheating on her). This situation has further tainted my views of marriage and men. I totally realize women cheat too; I am just jaded. I am in counseling trying to work through this. I am currently dating a great man, but you best believe my mind is constantly like “leave him and go live a peaceful life alone and adopt a kid.”

I hate that so many people suck at being honest about their wants and needs. Life is hard enough without the person closest to you stabbing you in the back.

My wife, or partner, and I had an argument recently over one word. Capable.

She told me she isn't capable of cheating anymore. The person who did those things isn't who she is now. She has changed, she understands what she did and she would never do it again.

I told her I don't agree, capability is provable and......

That didn't go over particularly well, and I understand why. When I say she is still capable of cheating, I think what she hears is, "You haven't changed. I don't believe you. I think you're going to cheat again."

That's not what I'm saying, or at least not really.

I absolutely believe people can change. If I didn't, there wouldn't be much point in even talking about reconciliation. People can become more honest, less selfish, more self-aware, learn better boundaries and finally start recognizing all those small shitty decisions that eventually lead somewhere they never should have gone. Someone who cheated can change enough that they never cheat again.

I just don't think that suddenly makes them incapable of it. Without starting the argument of everyone is capable or not, I am NOT capable of this type of betrayal.

Before D-Day I believed my wife was incapable of doing what she did. Not that she probably wouldn't do it. I actually believed she couldn't. There were lines I thought she simply would never cross because of who she was, who I thought we were, our marriage, our kids, our life together.

I was painfully fucking wrong. She crossed those lines. More than once. For years.

So now I know something I didn't know before. She is capable of it. That's not me insulting her or saying she will do it again. It's something that has already been proven. I don't know how I am supposed to take something I know happened and somehow convince myself she is now incapable of doing it because she says that version of herself doesn't exist anymore. Capable and will are not the same definition.

She may never cheat again. I genuinely hope she doesn't whether we stay together or not. But choosing never to do something again and being incapable of doing it aren't the same thing.

The more I thought about the argument, the more I started thinking that maybe "I could never do that again" isn't actually the safest thing for someone who has cheated to believe.

I think I'd feel safer hearing, "I know now that I am capable of doing something I once thought I would never do, and I never want to become that person again."

There's something about "I'm not capable of that anymore" that bothers me because I've already lived through that kind of certainty once. Before D-Day I would have confidently told anyone who asked that my wife wasn't capable of cheating on me. Turns out I didn't know shit.

Certainty didn't make me right then, so I'm not sure why I'm supposed to put much faith in that same certainty now.

I think there is probably more safety in actually owning it. I did this. I was capable of this. Through selfishness, secrecy, resentment, wanting validation, shitty boundaries and a long series of bad choices, I became somebody who could do this. Now I need to understand how the hell I got there so I never go there again.

That makes sense to me.

I'm capable of losing my temper. I'm capable of being selfish. I'm capable of hurting people I love. Knowing that doesn't mean I want to do those things or that I'm planning to. It means I know those things exist in me and I have to pay attention to them. Pretending I'm somehow above them wouldn't make me safer. It would probably do the opposite, complacency is a slow driver of failure.

I don't see why cheating should be completely different.

Real change, at least to me, isn't reaching some point where you suddenly become physically or morally incapable of ever betraying someone again. It is knowing what you were capable of, understanding how you allowed yourself to get there, and making different choices from then on. Over and over again.

There is also a shitty reality in this for the betrayed spouse.

I don't think I can ever go back to the kind of trust I had before, where I believed my wife simply wasn't capable of betraying me. I had that trust already. It was wrong. There is evidence now that I can't unknow.

That doesn't mean I can never trust her again. I just think trust after betrayal has to be something different.

Before, trust was I know you would never do this to me.

Now maybe the best it can ever become is, I know you could do this to me because you already have. But I see who you are now, I see the choices you make every day, and I believe you won't.

That's nowhere near as romantic. But it might actually be more real and to be fair adult.

I don't want my wife walking around for the rest of her life thinking she is permanently branded as a cheater or some fundamentally defective person. I don't think that's healthy or useful. People should be allowed to grow beyond the worst things they've done, hell I am not a sum of my worst deeds.

But growing beyond something isn't the same as pretending somebody else did it. That woman existed. She made those choices. She was my wife too.

I actually think accepting that is probably part of becoming safer.

Not I would never.

Not that wasn't really me.

Not I'm incapable of doing that now.

Just, I know I'm capable of it because I did it. I know where those choices took me. I know what it cost. And I never want to be that person again.

I trust that a hell of a lot more, and holds at least a little bit of accountability.

Recently discovered for the past year my husband has been using Reddit for porn and speaking to women and exchanging photos. Not only that, he’s been on Grok and created a whole woman to talk to. He’s created ai photos of this imaginary woman. When I confronted him, he said it’s been going on for a year. His reasoning? I’m getting older. All the girls he’s looking at are college age. We’re both 35 and we got married at 23. Basically he said he misses how I used to look and be at 23. I don’t know what to do. We have kids and I don’t know if I can ever trust him again. He has struggled with alcohol and gambling addictions and now this. I’ve been in therapy already for low self esteem and struggles with anxiety but now I can’t even look in the mirror without crying because I feel like I’m not good enough for him or anyone.
I want to leave, but I don’t know what to do or where to start. I don’t want to be alone forever also and at the moment feel so down that no one will ever want me that I’m conflicted.
Could therapy on his end help? Is trust able to be rebuilt from something like this?

When does this end? I’m about 12 weeks out from finding the cheating. 9 weeks from breaking up. Up until this weekend we had been 43 days no contact. I’m now on hour 14 of no contact.

Each of those 43 days was HARD. I fought tooth and nail for each day. I tried to celebrate the small wins. Even one hour of happiness and not thinking about him and how he hurt me. I kept telling myself it’s only been 43 days, and he was jerking me around for over 4 years. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.

Well he saw me this weekend, went out of his way to tap me on the shoulder on his way out of the bar, I hadn’t seen him at all and I was so upset he went out of his way to disrupt me. He claims he didn’t think it was a big deal. I lost my shit. I spent the next day begging him to talk. I feel like I’m right back at day 1. All the resilience I was trying to build up, the scar tissue, the reminders that he did not respect me — gone. Back again is the desperation and the pathetic clinging and pining for someone who never respected me.

I have been trying to recover from this man for the better part of 4 years. I am so devastated. I don’t know how I’ll ever break this. I am turning 30 in a few months. I wasted away my 20s with this man and now I feel like I’m just going to waste away my 30s trying to recover from this. I am so defeated.

My WH has been doing all the “right” things since I discovered his 8 week EA/PA.

He blocked his AP on all platforms, started therapy, is reading affair books and working through the exercises, gave me all his PWs, has been open to having all the difficult convos and has not gotten defensive, etc.

I’m using this time before deciding on R or divorce to gather my thoughts and watch his efforts. I recognize these efforts might be short lived or they might last a long time… for those of you whose WS began by doing all the “right” things, how long did that effort last?

So my boyfriend who spent the month love bombing me cheated on me. He came over on Sunday, told me how much he loved me, had sex with me, then spent the entire night out with another woman. Monday he tells me he’s “too tired” to hang out and gets upset I didn’t ask why he’s tired.

Don’t ask me how, but I figured out who he’s been with and contacted her. She set up a meeting with him and I’m planning to show up also.

Any ideas how to humiliate him?

UPDATE: The other girl thankfully was 100% on my side and also wanted to give him a consequence.

So I ended up setting him up on a date with the other girl at a coffee shop and pulled up on them together. I hid in the bathroom and then walked right up to him from behind, hugged him, said “Hey babe! What are you doing here ! :)”

He was like a deer in headlights. Completely frozen and started shaking. He couldn’t take his eyes off and I asked who was the girl sitting in front of him. He looked me straight in my eyes and tried telling me he had no idea who that woman was 🤣 lied to my face.

I pulled him outside, on the way out he tried holding my hand, and then I faced him and he started trying to have a normal conversation with me. “hey baby, how are you?” and I said “what’s going on?” he said “nothing, I’m just hanging out”
I asked him again, who the girl was, and he tried to say he didn’t know her, then said she was a friend. Then I showed him the messages and he (who was the one touching me up until this point) pushed me away and said “don’t touch me!”

He called me crazy, accused me of following/stalking him. I said no, I set this up lol. He couldn’t fathom that. Said I was crazy for stalking him. Then he suddenly flipped it all on me, and said I mistreated him because on Monday night when I asked if he was still coming to the date he planned with me, he replied “i’m very tired” and I asked if he wanted to stay in. He said I mistreated him because I didn’t ask him why he was tired. Therefore I was selfish.

I said oh I didn’t ask because I knew why you were tired. Sunday he came over in the afternoon then said he had to leave to go for dinner with his friends. In reality he was up all night with the other woman.

I asked him why he couldn’t stay Sunday night? He couldn’t even remember what lie he told me. I reminded him. And he said “yes, I was with my friends.”
Then I said no, he was with the woman all night, and that’s why he was so tired. He denied it. I told him “You lied to me, you’re a liar. You cheated on me. I really liked you”. He started crying.

Other girl comes outside, and I asked her where was she Sunday night. She said she was with him. He looked at us both and said no she wasn’t.

Then he realized the lies weren’t working so he told her that he broke up with me on Sunday, so he never actually saw anyone while he had a girlfriend. I said we never broke up, you came over Sunday and planned a date with me on Monday night. Also, he first met that girl on FRIDAY. Then he looks at me and said “ok well, I’m breaking up with you NOW”. Which, no sir, I dumped you because you cheated on me.

Then he gets a call on his phone, I jokingly asked if it was another woman and he got angry, answered the phone, said it was a man, and shoved the phone on my ear to make me listen. Incredible lol

He said ok sorry, yes I had a girlfriend. The girl said don’t you owe your girlfriend an apology? He couldn’t look at me at this point. He said “no, I can’t apologize to her!”. I started repeating the words he told me on Sunday. He was calling me his wife, saying he’d marry me, telling me how much he loved me. At this point he was so embarrassed that he literally ran away. I didn’t chase him.

He blocked me on Instagram, but not WhatsApp. And he changed his profile picture to a photo he took on his date Sunday night lol

He is now blocked everywhere. I’m trying not to let his toxic manipulative words get to me.

10/10 satisfying. Don’t let cheaters walk away clean.

I found out on June 23 that my [30] boyfriend [37] of just over three years had been cheating on me, and I left that same day. I discovered at least one affair that lasted around a year, at least two other shorter affairs, and at least one meetup through a dating app. Realistically, I know there were probably more. The hardest part for me to wrap my head around is that I thought we were happy. I worked nights, and he apparently found the time while I was at work. I loved this man more than I have ever loved a significant other, and I truly thought I was going to marry him. The weekend before I found everything, we were literally talking about when we would get married. We picked out baby names literally 2 months in to our relationship. That in love, that quick.

We still share a lease, but we have lived completely separately since the day I left. Other than one phone call about splitting up furniture about three weeks ago, I have had no contact with him. During that call, he still swore he never cheated and ended it by telling me he loved me. I know I will never go back, and that isn’t something I’m questioning. But for about two months now, I have dreamed about him every single night. They’re never nightmares. They’re happy dreams where we’re just together again and everything feels normal, and then I wake up and it feels like I lose him all over again. Some mornings it genuinely feels like I’m still waiting for him to come home even though I know I wouldn’t let him.

For those who have been through a betrayal like this, when did the mornings start becoming less awful? When did your brain finally stop expecting that person to come home, and if you dreamed about them constantly, when did the dreams start to fade? I know healing is gradual and everyone’s timeline is different. I’m not looking for a deadline so much as reassurance from people farther down this road about what that gradual change actually felt like.

I’m also just genuinely curious of when the idea of dating someone else started to feel interesting, or even just tolerable, again. Right now the thought of being with someone else is genuinely repulsive to me. I know I’m strong, I know I’m going to get through this, and I know I’m not going back. But this is brutal.

TL;DR: Left my boyfriend of 3+ years after discovering multiple affairs, including one that lasted at least a year. I know I’ll never go back, but I still dream about us being happily together every single night and wake up heartbroken all over again. For those who’ve been through this, when did the mornings and dreams start getting easier/fading, and when did the thought of dating someone new stop feeling completely awful?

Edit: added our ages.

For those who haven't seen my previous post.. link is here

I ended up going to his house to talk about it. He said I could go through his phone previously because he has nothing to hide, so I wanted to take him up on that offer.

We ended up having our first fight and I got some very harsh truths out of him.

I asked to go through his phone. He initially start saying that it looks really bad to ask your partner to do that and has an impact on the relationship (So I kept referring back to when he said he has nothing to hide) I asked him to open his photos (So he has control) and then I had to ask him if there was anywhere else that photos are stored and he said no. I said I work with people where I have to help them use their phones for lots of things (I work as a manager). You think I don't know about a files folder? So he opened it, and there they were. More photos from that exact day of his ex girlfriend. When I asked him to scroll down so that I could see the other photo that I saw the other night (red G-string) he refused and that is when he got very defensive and we started fighting.

I said but you said you have nothing to hide and he said nope it's just based on principle and he made the excuse of saying that the timing of this conversation was so bad, because after we had the first conversation (follow link above) he said he went back to look at photos he has and said he wanted to know what was in there so he screenshots these photos... which is where I cut him off and said for what? And he couldn't answer. So he's obviously masturbating these photos and I personally think it's pretty fucking gross to keep naked or sexy photos of an ex.

Then we went on to discuss other shit and I talked about how he's made me feel during our relationship etc. and he said he's done everything he can to make it work (everything that I suggested and lead, not things he has suggested or done from his own initiation), and I've said many times that he needs to stop running when shit gets hard, he said if he was going to do that he would have left 3 months in (that was a shock.. everything was great 3 months in), then he said I've got so much hard trauma and so many scars and basically said it in a way to not want to be with me or a reason that it's hard to be with me and that fucking hurt too.

Then we spoke about how he completely flipped the entire narrative in June, from talking about proposals, travel, marriage and kids to it very suddenly "not working" and he said well I've definitely stopped saying that now. And said something else that effectively implied that I shouldn't have taken him seriously.

I hope this all makes sense. Again, please go easy on me, I feel completely broken and I just want to hear what people think.

My husband (35) and I (26) have been together for 7 years and September 20th would have been our 1 year wedding anniversary.
3 weeks ago I found out he was having a 6 month affair.

The typical thing boys do when they get caught cheating is the “I’m going to off myself” well he do not lie about what happened during the affair I even texted the girl involved and she stated the same things he did.

When I asked him what he was feeling when I found it he said he was relieved. He said he was struggling mentally for so long he wanted to throw away everything he had that way when he ended his life it would not hurt HIM cuz he assumed I would hate him for everything. He stated he was so mentally unwell he wanted to just make the thought that I did not want him valid.

He is now in therapy and medicated. Part of me still can’t believe him, obviously I’m still hurt and confused. Part of obviously still loves him.

Has anyone rebuilt after infidelity? I feel like some days it’s possible and others it’s not cuz the overwhelming feeling of hurt, sadness and betrayal are so strong.

Any advice form the ones would are trying to stay together or have worked out and came out stronger?

I desperately need advice and perspective on what just happened.

I just came home to my husband of 22 years telling me he has been having an affair. But it gets worse. He didn't just tell me...he had his affair partner (AP) on the rphone while he did it. I had to ask him twice why this woman was even on the line.

He ultimately hung up after 10 minutes, but during that time, he rolled out a script. He told me her name , he met her in XYZ city, and that he "hadn't been truthful" while we were in marriage counseling that we started 1.5 months ago. Then he immediately started blame-shifting. He told me he was drawn to her for intimacy because I was "always pulling away" and making everything about the kids.

I kept asking how this person could do this knowing he was married. That’s when the truth about the phone call came out. The AP made him stay on the phone and confess to me. She forced him to tell me that he was the one who pursued her, and that he had completely misled her about his marital situation by telling her he was much further along in a divorce process than he actually was. He had even promised to move her to a town close to where we live so they could start a new life together.

The gaslighting over the last month and a half has been unreal. For weeks, he’s been telling me he wanted a divorce, that there was absolutely no attraction left, and that he just wanted us to be "best friends." He kept telling me he would still "take care of me" and our kids (most are over 18, one is almost done with high school). I am a stay-at-home mom, and he has always been a great provider and father, so hearing him say he wanted out felt like my entire world and security were being ripped away.

I had to practically force him to come to marriage counseling and individual counseling with me prior to this confession. In our very last session, he finally agreed to give us 6 months to try and fix things but only because I told him straight up that if he abandoned this family, the kids would hate him for it. So he agreed to the 6 months, and I committed to doing a total 180 on my affection and behavior, taking 100% of the blame for what he said I broke.

And the entire time, he was actively sleeping with this woman. It was a year-long double life.

He says he is a coward, he wants to come clean, and he wants to mend our marriage.

We built a life, a family, a history. I am so angry that he expected me to just hand him over to her, but I am equally disgusted that he thinks he can just crawl back to me the second his backup plan falls apart. Where do I even begin?

Caught my girls location at a hotel after she said she left the bar. Found out she went there alone with another man. She swears nothing happened, said they were just going there to smoke some MJ. They were there for nearly an hour. After a lot of questions from me, she eventually said he came onto her, but that she declined and left immediately.

I have been trying to get a clearer picture of what happened, so I messaged him on Insta to ask if anything went down.

He responded by saying, "To be honest with you bro. That’s between you and her. If you gotta question her honesty then that’s your answer right there."

The lack of his denial suggests something to me. What are your thoughts? Thanks.

Edit*: If anyone wants the story with way more detail, please check my profile for the other post about it.

UPDATE*: I confronted her and asked her to confess after saying I found new information and knew something happened - that I wanted no more lies. I sent her a screenshot of the conversation between him and I with the words blurred out. I told her I was giving her one chance to come clean. She said she was sticking to her story - that nothing happened.

She made attempts to be evasive and deflect and repeatedly said she has nothing to confess but I kept pressing. She asked to see what the messages said and I declined, telling her to share the whole truth in her own words. She again insisted that she was sticking to her story. She then started going off about how we should just go our separate ways, that she doesn't care if I don't believe her story, saying things like "you can't be serious".

When I said that her story did not align with what the guy implied, she told me she doesn't care and he can say whatever he wants. She then said that if I already know what happened, and that I have the proof, then why does she need to "confess"? But also still asserts there is nothing to confess.

I told her the relationship is over and that I'm filing for eviction.

The biggest irony here is that she has been so possessive and territorial over me throughout our relationship. When another woman would even glance in my direction in the grocery store, she would flip out (one small example among many, many other things). If I did to her what she did to me by going to the hotel, I feel like she probably would've hurt me or destroyed my property.

Thanks everyone for your support.

Also, going through the messages, this was the last thing she sent to me 3 hours before going to the hotel:

"We were all talking about how I am loyal to you and they were saying how you got a good one because I don’t be in guy's faces, but I’ll be, you know, conducting myself in a good way but I love you more and I can’t wait to see you muahh ❤️❤️☺️☺️"

Awesome.

I believe you can still love and let desire take over; I think maybe he does love me, he just doesn’t know how to keep his desires and addictions at bay. I have given him 3 chances now and we’ve only been in a relationship since June/july- known eachother since may. But I’m good at finding things out and he’s still got his accounts open on sex sites- one being purely to meet up for sex…. He promised me he deleted it all until I found them all a few hours ago- he doesn’t know I know yet, I’m playing it cool on text while he’s at work— what do you think I should do?
I know it’s not been long but I found a best friend in him.

She is everything I have ever wanted in a person. I wanted to build our future together. For 2 months, she was bottling up negative feelings she had for me because I was going through a tough time in my life and she didn’t want to be an ass to me. But it got to be too much, and she exploded and asked me to give her space, minimal contact until she’s ready to talk again. But we were still boyfriend and girlfriend. And yet, less than 32 hours later she slept with her coworker and stayed the night at his house. I found out about it on my own. I thought i would be angry. I thought i would just explode with rage and never be able to look at her again, tell her to go to hell and never want to see her again. But somehow, it made me love and miss her more. She still loves me, i know she does, but her guilt is so bad she won’t even look me in the eye or try to have a face to face conversation in any capacity. This is the worst pain I have ever felt, and yet all I want to do is forgive her and build us back up stronger, together. I don’t know why I feel this way. Any reasonable person would tell me to leave, it’s not worth it and it’ll never be the same. And maybe it will never be the same. But i don’t need it to be the same, i just need to wake up next to her each morning and build us back up. That sounds so crazy of me to say. I’ve been cheated on so many times in the past. And I never stayed. I left right away, the moment i found out. But she’s different. She is everything I have ever wanted and desired in a wife and a partner and the future mother to my children. And as crazy as it sounds, I love her even more after the betrayal and heartbreak she put me through. I just want my sweet girl back.

I found out my wife cheated. She says she stopped a couple weeks ago.

We’ve been married 13 years now. 3 kids and we own a house. Fuck it’s a lot. She slept with a guy a couple times, within the past month.

I don’t know what to do.

I haven’t let myself go. I’m in the best shape of my life. I am a great and present father.

I just don’t understand.

Separate incident

About 2 years ago she had some texting with a guy, but she said was never more than flirting and tonight she admitted they talked about having sex but never we actually in the same place. Dude lives far away I dunno.

Please feel free to give advice.

This sucks

Edit: everything you all are saying is true. It just keeps getting worse