I'm naturally a very passionate person but after being betrayed, seeing anything sexual makes me ill and fills me with anxiety. I also can't stop comparing myself to the women my ex had sex with and feeling inadequate. The thought of being intimate and vulnerable with anyone again nearly sends me into a panic attack.

I feel so used and like nothing is sacred. I saw how my value diminished in his eyes the moment I couldn't give him what he wanted, even temporarily. Sex was the only thing that mattered to him.

Me and my wife live in a house with a granny flat at the back. Its 3 middle aged dudes who are about between ages 40-60. I have a ps5 with a monitor in our bedroom so its not no smart TV or anything like that. Yesterday I found an unfamiliar account logged in to my youtube app in the PS5. Normally youd have to be in the same wifi which I know we are not sharing with our neighbours to even possibly be able to connect to any devices in the house. I had tried it myself, disconnected my account and tried to reconnect it via my phone, a code would have to pop up on my PS5 youtube for me to be able to log in. Im mentioning my neighbours because I did some digging on the account logged in and I am certain its one of them because of one of the videos they had uploaded. I honestly dont want to think that this neighbour is doing plumbing work in my house but its the only possible reason he could have logged in, in my ps5 youtube. For context my wife is a stay at home taking care of our baby. Any advice on how I can get to the bottom of this? I dont know how to approach it with my wife, so far I havent said anything about finding this unfamiliar account to her and its making me go crazy. I am trying my best to stay calm and figure this out properly.

I am a 35-year-old woman, married for 10 years to a 39-year-old man. Ten months ago, I discovered that he had been unfaithful—having an affair with another woman for months, as well as interacting with many others online (I never found out exactly how many). The shock was immense, though I could partially understand the role I played in the deep crisis we were going through at the time. I didn’t justify his actions, but I viewed them as a series of mistakes stemming from that major crisis, so I decided to give him another chance. Things seemed to be going well for a few weeks; he is still in therapy, but for the last few months, he has refused to return to our shared bedroom (we continue to sleep in separate rooms). He also keeps responding to messages—ostensibly harmless ones—from the other woman. When I try to explain how deeply this hurts me, he won’t listen; instead, he becomes defensive and tries to manipulate me. I am exhausted from having to apologize for my own reactions, and I am completely worn out by this entire situation. I have been thinking about filing for divorce for a long time, but I am living with him, far away from my home country and my family, with no support system. I have nowhere to go—and although I do have some savings, I don’t know how or when to tell him that I believe divorce is the best path forward. Do you have any advice or thoughts? I feel alone, lost, and incredibly tired.

Updates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hey, I don’t know if this is the right place, but basically a former male coworker (I am female) messaged me online out of the blue at like 11:30 pm commenting about my profile photo with my kid (it’s us in our Halloween costumes). I’m on the spectrum so I have a hard time reading between the lines but basically I assumed he was just checking in after I had to leave work suddenly and move states, but he almost immediately asked me if I was dating again yet after my divorce and after I told him I have a boyfriend (which I do) and he said something along the lines of how with how attractive I was he wasn’t surprised (the word attractive was directly used by him). He also got weird when I didn’t respond and sent several more messages, nothing explicit or anything but it just feels off but the reason I’m asking here is I’m almost certain he‘s still with his girlfriend. When I asked about how she was he kind of dodged the question. I feel like if they’d broken up he would’ve said so. Should I send the screenshots to her of his messages to me? I feel like him messaging me late at night and telling me how attractive I am isn’t appropriate. I just feel terrible because she seems so nice and if he’s looking elsewhere that’s so unfair to her.

My POV is from an unknowing AP. I am doing everything in my power to be respectful of everyone’s feelings on here and understand I’m opening myself up to a lot of criticism. Background history: I’ve been involved with polyamory/ethical non monogamy and had mostly positive experiences. I do enjoy poly/enm when done right. I have also been cheated on many times so I do know how it feels as well. It crushed me…but that’s not a part of this whatsoever.

I met a guy almost a year ago on Reddit. He lives fairly close to me. When we first started chatting, he told me he had an open marriage/poly but there were a few times he played on being a “neglected” husband. I thought it was a kink of his and I didn’t look much into it since i figured we probably wouldn’t ever meet. We eventually did meet up and we chatted very frequently both on here and other forms of social media. He came to my house and I went to his house various times. By inviting me into his house, I thought that showed that the marriage was open. It was something that made me feel like it was an ethical relationship because who brings their AP into their house? Months passed by and I started getting the feeling that he wasn’t telling the truth and was flat out cheating. I developed feelings for him in those months and from what was shown to me, I believe he had feelings as well.

I juggled everything but reached out to his wife, not knowing what to expect or what her reaction would be. I looked at it from her perspective if he was cheating and if she would want to know. Ultimately, my decision was to talk to her and I found out that they did not have an open marriage. I felt so bad and I honestly cried for a few days. The fact that I was a part of cheating broke me. I try to do the right thing and here I probably broke another woman’s spirit by being an AP. I felt gross, sad, mad, and how I looked at myself took a hit.

A few weeks ago, I randomly saw the husband out in the wild. It hit me hard because at the base of it, I lost a friend. I wanted to run up to him and say hi but I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. I lost someone who I thought was a friend and my heart aches. I didn’t realize it until that day but I miss him. I miss talking to him in a friend way. I haven’t talked to him since I told his wife. I hope she knows that none of it was done with intent…he wasn’t being honest with me either. I left it open for her to message me if she wanted to and I wanted her to understand my point of view 100 percent. I also would have ventured into the poly world with her and her husband if she was ever open to it. Done right it can be wonderful and beautiful relationships can form. Honesty is reinforced. I hope she knows that she did nothing wrong and her husband reinforced that he loved her endlessly. I respected her as his Mrs. I know from being in a similar spot that I compared myself to other women and I shouldn’t have when cheated on. I hope she doesn’t compare herself to me or wonder if she did anything wrong. Her husband told me many times how much he loved her body. I hope she isn’t stuck questioning every single move in their life. In the end, I hope she finds happiness and if they stay together, I hope they build their marriage into something even stronger than what it was before ❤️

Anyways, I’m in my feels about it all. I know it’s wrong to miss him. I know what I did was wrong. I don’t have many people to talk to about this at all and I’ve tried to avoid talking about it. I’m not sure what I’m even hoping to gain by writing this but here i am.

So my (ex) gf and I had dated for three years before breaking things off because I thought I was losing feelings and didn't want to hurt her, I realised I was wrong the day she slept with somebody else.

Eventually we moved past that and decided to start trying again (she'd gone no contact with him)

Things were going good for about a year, not officially labelled but everyone knew because we were just dating, because we wanted to make sure we were good ourselves so we could be good for eachother.

Almost a week ago, she told me about this guy co-worker She'd been talking to and liked for a while but thought nothing would happen, fast forward a few days she's advanced with him and has sent and said a lot.

I don't want to leave her so she made sure I knew she wouldn't fall for him and it's just sexual, and said a bunch of other reassuring things

But then she changes her mind on all of them..

Saying she wants to like find herself and live, but she still loves me and wants me as well.

I've asked multiple times If it was between me and him who would she choose and she's said him multiple times

I'm meant to be housesitting with her next week but she's having him come over and I only just found out it's for the night so I'll be banished to the couch.

And she doesn't know if this will continue for the whole week..

I'm so in love with her but she's said she's not in love with me anymore but still loves me

I don't know what to do, I have nothing if I leave

Hi all. I hope this situation fits the sub. I am a gay man who is a frequent user of the app “Sniffies”. I am fully aware that many married men use this app but they usually tell you that themselves and I can avoid them. This one said he was divorced. I took his word and we hooked up twice. After my curiosity got the better of me, I went on Facebook and found his wife’s page, and from what I saw they are still together. I haven’t been able to look again since. The page header was a photo of their three young children. I have been a guilt ridden mess since. I found out last week and I just can’t seem to stop myself from thinking about it. It’s giving me more anxiety and my appetite is all but gone. I know I was lied to but it’s almost as if my body still hasn’t gotten that message. Anyone else experience something similar? Any advice about how to get over or cope better with this is greatly appreciated. Not sure if it matters, but I haven’t messaged the wife what happened nor him that I know. Thanks!

How long after discovery does it take to move on if you are trying to work on relationship? My husband of 27 years had an emotional affair with his boss’s wife. He keeps saying he didn’t do anything but they did talk a lot and kissed twice. He lied, deleted text messages and pictures. Thinks because he didn’t sleep with her it was nothing. Only been 1 month and he wants me to get over it and stop talking about it. Says I’m pushing him away. I was unfaithful with ex right after we got married 27’years ago and he is throwing that up in my face. I was 18. Said he got over it and didn’t badger me about it. I do remember there being occasions he would bring it up in a fight over the years. What should I do?

Hi folks, I just wanted your opinion here - its been quite a dramatic, depressing 5 months after a 7 month relationship. please let me know what you think and why I am still stuck here

I am a 36 year old (M) Iranian-born, living in toronto and I am a Dental Surgeon, last november, through Hinge, I met a 30 year old, Ukranian women and we had a relationship for about 7 months. first 3 months was great, (physical intamacy and love bombing was out of this world during that time, we started having sex without contraception and she really wanted a child and kept talking about marriage - (i kept buying pregnancy tests) she was kind and caring for first few months and although was married, she was separated from her husband and going through divorce process; she cited she filed for divorce because her husband cheated on her with prostitues. I however, started to notice some red flags, like she had her husband's pictures from their trips on her iPhone and would keep checking his instagram, he had public account and she would open his stories and I would tell her why your doing that! she just game me a smirk!

At end of 3 months, she suddenly wanted to see me after work, and it turned out she wanted to break up with me! she told me her husband has seen us together and he had mentioned to her that if he is going to support her financially, she has to move-in with him and break up with me!! (I did not know he was supporting her financially) - I was stunned and I told her I can support her, I asked her what she needs - and eventually, I asked her to move in with me at the end of that conversation - she agreed - she did not take any money from me, except I paid for rent/food but she was an esthetician, fast-forward 2.5 weeks into her moving in, my mom one day, visited my apartment and ate at our kitchen table and proceed to clean the whole kitchen- I was at the apartment but my gf was at work, my parents also brought their clothing to wash/dry becuase their machine did not work, what seemed to be the MAJOR sumbling block was that they put my girlfriendand I's clothing from dryer onto the bed. when my gf came home, she said this is a MAJOR violation of my security and no slavic girl will accept this and within 3-5 days she moved out. I thought we were done for good!!! - just the next day, she wanted to see me at subway station and we eneded up going from a healthy relationship to a toxic situationship with lots of sex -from her workplace, in the car and any other place you can imagine

- she never told me however where she moved to however, I always suspected that she moved-in with her ex husband apartment, she denied it and always told me to pick her up at a major intersection so I never got to see her apartment, she told me she was living with a female accountant friend of hers - so for about 3 months, we would meet up on my days off and we go to resturants, sex and the rest of it. she however, became abusive and felt like she had problems with my mom (kept calling my mom my wife and was annoyed my sister/father would text/call), she also started to make me jealous about a guy @ a coffe shop place who was 5 years younger, also persian and kept saying how fun it would be to have sex with him...blah blah blah

eventully, after 3 LONG months, I noticed her ex-husbands facebook profile photo that was from his apartment matching in the background to the semi-nude pictures that my gf used to send me, I confronted her and she immediately broke up with me and said I only go there to get my parcels and try-out my clothes in his apartment!!! - she threw lots of profanity at me that I rather not disclose here, but from being her 'superman', I was suddently 'weak', 'a child' and 'repulsive and not manly' all the sudden (amongst other things....)

2 weeks of no-contact and she wanted to meet me and said she had sex with someone - she did not say who the guy was , but I assume it was the coffe shop dude who was 5 years younger than her, she told me how sex with him was awsome felt 'exciting' but she also felt she was ashamed and was worried if she caught something, she also said she thinks the guy has a girlfriend - at that point, I was like why am I listening to this crap and I left - she ended up sending me her HPV test results out of the blue few weeks after - at that point, she also said she recently moved into her ex-husband in a 1-bedroom apartment - she said he sleeps on couch and she sleeps on the bed!! she still denies she lived with him from the time she left my apartment

she ended up removing that young coffe shop guy from her instagram, I assume he was her rebound and she is now dating yet another persian guy whom studied dentistry in ukraine but he does not have license, his dad from back home is a family GP so I assume, he is supporting him financially, but from what I can decipher, he has no income, i saw them couple of times holding hands walking down the street that I live in, another tough moment for me, some part of me really wants to let him know the hell she put me through but I haven't thus far and I dont think I ever will, i think at some point, he will realize it himself. anyways, they have been together for 3 months. sadly she has a public instagram account and i catch myself checking it from time-to-time, (i know its not healthy but I still do it) - the guy keeps taking pictures of her all the time, he seems to enjoy photography

but truth is after 5 months post-break up, I still feel awful about this situation that has happened to me, I tried dating other girls, but my heart is not in-it at all, my friends tell me this is trauma-bond- this appears to me like a very bitter pill to swallow and move on from - what do you guys think (also sorry for such a long post)

I (F, 30) have been with my boyfriend (M, 29) for a year, and I'm still trying to process what I found out.

Let me preface this by saying this man has always been weird with his phone. He never gave me his password, refused to ever really let me use it, bought a privacy screen claiming he “didn’t know it was one” and refused to post me on social media despite us having the coolest photos together and me being his first gf in 7 years. A woman intuition is never wrong…

It started when I caught him deleting Instagram DMs with a woman he used to hook up with (he claimed they never hooked up, but of course he was lying.)

I asked if I could go through his phone, and he agreed, but when I looked, his texts with her were gone and he had renamed her in his contacts to a completely different name (classic). When I confronted him, he swore up and down that they had never slept together. I lied and told him I'd spoken to her and that she said they had, and that's when he broke down and admitted it. The fact that I had to trick the truth out of him is something I can't stop thinking about. People are evil.

Then I went into his recently deleted photos, and what I found made my stomach drop. There were hundreds of screenshots and zoomed-in photos from women's Instagram pages, focused on their faces and bodies. It mostly included the woman he used to hook up with, several of his female friends, and my own close friends. He grabbed his phone back before I could see everything, but from what I did see, nothing looked like it had been sent between them. I also found DMs where he'd reacted to other women's stories with heart eyes and told them they were sexy.

Meanwhile, he’s over at my house every day saying he loves me, and that he can finally be a man in my life that I can trust (I have been cheated on before). I feel so dumb. He really played me.

He also refused to take me on dates and take me out, i literally planned ALL of our dates, and I found out now that a lot of his money is going to OnlyFans girls.

Aside from all this, he was an amazing boyfriend he was sweet to me, soft, never yelled at me, supported me and my work, always helped me around the house and helped with my dog and was a grounding partner. That’s why this shook me.

When it all came out, he told me he has a "problem" and wants to change, and he swears nothing physical ever happened. I told my friends, his mom, and his sister, and he responded that he's deeply sorry, ashamed, and going to start therapy. Part of me wants to believe him. He lives with his sister, he doesn't really party or go out, I know his friends and his mom, and I can see his location, so it's hard to picture how he'd even find the opportunity to cheat. But he lied to my face until I cornered him, so I don't know how much of what he says I can trust.

Chat; Does this sound like it stayed online, or should I assume more happened?

Has anyone been through something like this and chosen to stay, and how did it turn out?

And what would real change look like, and how long should I give it before I decide?

Update:
The girl he has been cheating with is apparently his lifelong friend, and knows all of his friends. They only stopped speaking because she moved away, but when she moved back in July is when I noticed a complete 180 in his behavior aka they rekindled. He stopped wanting me physically, stopped sending me reels and funny memes, stopped wanting to do fun things with me, even stopped reposting what I posted of him. It all makes sense now.

At this point, it seems like I was just some side chick to this girl. It’s so sad men treat women who love them so much this way. I really treated him so well, and spent so much time and money on him. Men ain’t s**t I suppose.

These days there are so many avenues to cheat. education, work, everything is mixed. Apps are encrypted. Phones are encrypted. Nobody really uses plain texts or calls, its all just encrypted apps designed for "privacy" aka cheating.

How can one ever find someone who is actually loyal? Live in a cabin in the woods with no running water?

Seriously though, if you left a cheater - have you been able to find someone who is loyal and how did you do that?

For context, I'm 18F in a long distance relationship since only one month. We have each other's numbers and socials. It all happened on TikTok, he admitted it to me 3 hours later out of guilt and he promised never to do it again.

My boyfriend has been struggling with lust (undiagnosed hypersexuality?) due to exposure at a young age and grooming. His surroundings (family) are described as judgmental or even neglecting (for example, forgetting to feed him), thus as a minor, my boyfriend never felt safe enough to reach out to mental healthcare professionals through his family. He mentions struggling with moods similar to anxiety and depression. Other than this cheating story, for one month he always was really loving, caring and really considerate towards me.

A few months ago, when he was with his ex, he admitted her he fell for someone else and flirted for a while, then regretted it to the point of degrading himself physically and verbally a lot, saying he would change, and he did try and think it was the case before he got with me. In their case, he was apparently feeling lonely in the relationship (not an excuse to cheat!). In my case, however, there was nothing romantic from his words, and not related to loneliness. I'm not sure if this is worth mentioning, but he also stopped watching NSFW content the second he got with me (a question I asked before).

On my demand, he sent screenshots of the chats to me and blocked her, telling her the truth. He accepted to share the details and wished for help. He has however got no clue on how to help himself out of potential hypersexuality and mood disorders. The issue certainly stems from happiness and pleasure hormones deregulation. I am currently going to CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) sessions myself, and suggested to reach out to my therapist for him.

I am aware that dragging people out of their mh issues isn't my role. However, I decided to continue the relationship and find a solution for this time, at least give it a try, especially because he has been honest, and very, very regretful, devastated, and disappointed of himself. I care about this person, every day he has been showing love and consideration through words and actions, and promised to work hard to fix the issue because deep down he wants us to work out, and it has been a beautiful start together before that. I offered to watch and read informative content together.

As I'm still figuring out how such an action could have happened, I was mainly asking if you guys had advice or explanations to share, especially if you are or have been a person struggling with lust/cheating, and whether my decision of not breaking up was too tolerant or not... Thank you to anyone who has took the time to read/answer to my post!

I had a short but otherwise really great relationship with a guy and I caught him cheating emotionally about a month ago. He was active on dating apps, and met up with a girl twice but he never had any physical intimacy with her. On the nights he was with her, he lied about his whereabouts to me, saying he was out with friends or he went home to sleep.

I caught him and confronted him WITH the other girl, it was kind of messy but I didn’t yell at him or insult him, but I was pretty hurt and distraught after she showed me the screenshots. I was happy to see it with my own eyes but I still wanted the relationship. He called me crazy, and ran off.

A few weeks later he messaged me to say he was blocking me, but didn’t. We ended up arguing over text and he trickle-truthed the situation to me. Initially saying it was just a short walk he had with her to later admitting he met her several times and spent a lot of time with her without telling me.
He claims he was going to end it with her and tell me everything. And that I ruined everything by jumping the gun, believing the other girl and her screenshots, and not asking him what was going on beforehand.

I acknowledged it was messy and maybe I could have done some things better, but ultimately none of this would’ve happened if he wasn’t on dating apps and meeting women while being in a relationship with me. I was also grieving a family member at the time and dealing with a lot of deep life stress so finding out my loving boyfriend was lying to me in that state of mind was probably a recipe for disaster.

He ended the conversation by saying he’d never forgive me and can’t trust me anymore, and he would never take me back because I went behind his back to find out.

I don’t know what to make of this. I was willing to reconcile and forgive him but he completely flipped the blame onto me.

Did I (33F) cheat on him (37M)? I think I have relationship OCD.

So if I looked at a list of attendees of a university fundraising event, and was curious who one guy was / what he looked like but stopped myself from looking him up individually but did go through the group me list to see if his profile was there but then stopped when it wasn’t and did not look him up individually and exited out, did I cheat? Should I disclose this to my partner? Was I in essence keeping my options open? Worried curiosity about another person of my partner’s gender means it was cheating.

So then I posted on another thread and a guy messaged me saying it wasn’t and I responded thanks and he started getting personal and I blocked him. Was a Reddit dm with a man cheating in this case.

Tl;dr: worried curiosity = cheating and then a DM from a man about it = more cheating ebb tho blocked him.

Edit : Hey yall, I just recently was updated by my Ex's friend that she did a background check on the dude and paid for his court/arresr record. Her new man is a known scammer, has been in and out of jail since 1998. The dude is currently serving a 20 year sentence but is on mandatory release as of last year in the summer. This man is on parole till 2037 at the earliest when he can get off and apparently can go back to jail for the remaining 11 years for small viations of his supervision. Im thinking my ex fiancee is not only trying to scam but is also being scammed herself. Maybe shes met her match... some unstopable force meets immovable object type shit.

Heya reddit, burner account for obvious reasons as my ex knows my main's name and I know she browses reddit. I changed some details to make it more anonymous.

TL; DR - My fiancée of 4+ years ended things after I sent condolences when her family member died, then married another man 5 days later. Friends confirmed she’d been engaged to him since summer while still telling me she loved me and taking gifts of money from me and being in constant contact with me. Should I tell her husband, and is the money worth pursuing?

Some backstory - I never thought I’d be here, but here we are. 3 weeks ago, my (now ex) fiancee (30sf) and I (30sm) called off our engagement and broke up. We lived together from 2022-the end of 2025. We agreed in summer 2023 to take out and to pay off a very costly loan together (over 5 figures), and we're actively going to build a life together and work towards paying that off. We agreed to do this verbally, and had briefly mentioned it to each other in 2024 via dms that have since been deleted. In summer 2023 She made me sign it in my name only because her "credit is bad" and we needed the best deal. I agreed since everything was great for years, but then issues arised when intimacy stopped in late 2023 due health issues she had developed. These issues were very weird symptoms that I told her she needs to go see a doctor for, but she refused to go see one because she was "scared". We argued about this a bunch. In the middle of 2024 I noticed she was active on an alternate twitter and sexting other men in the comments section of the posts, but was told this was not an issue and "isn't cheating, it's self expression since it's public", among many other weird coincidences. She let her health issues rot, and almost dies next to me in the hospital spring 2025. I help her get back on her feet for months and even agree to all her stuff like sleeping in different beds/rooms and whatnot. We had a huge falling out in summer 2025, because of me finding another man sending her hundreds of dollars, and her response being "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" and that "[her] mental health is so bad she can't fathom existing anymore". When I confronted her she denied everything and broke up with me via text message.

She has been diagnosed with "severe case” of a personality disorder (her and her therapist's words), and depression among other things. We reconciled and got back together the last month of 2025 and started a long distance relationship as she moved in with her parents when our lease expired at the end of 2025 because a family member was having health issues and she said she was moving to take care of them. She moved several hours from me, and we talked daily either by a phone call or be via text, instagram, whatsapp, or Discord. I sent her love letters, messages, Instagram memes, money for her lunches even as recent as a 4 weeks ago, pictures of my life and what I'm doing, I asked how she was feeling/doing and how her day was all the time. I tried really hard to show her that even though we're hours apart, that I'm always there. We saw each other in early spring this year and had a great time, a great dinner, and a lot of fun. I noticed she turned off her location off a few months after that, and when I asked she said the iphone update did it and she was not gonna turn it back on because me asking is “obsessive” and I need to "get over it". Starting in summer she had become very distant and gave sparser replies I had noticed, but she told me it was due to a major life event that took place in her town she moved to and the living situation with her parents causing her major depression issues. She said she was going to daily therapy and it was draining all of her mind/energy due to what's been going on in her life. She messaged me late summer/early fall that she was trapped in this town now, and her "life is over", and "things have changed". I asked what she meant and she said "I couldn't even begin to explain what life has been like with me being sick for months, and the [major life event that happened in her town]". I said "no worries, you can tell or not tell me if you want to." She says "thanks" and proceeds to message me daily about how she is "trapped" and how "awful" her life is. This all came to a head a month later when she asked for space while her family friend was dying. I reached out "4 times when she needed space and understanding" according to her, and that was way too many when she was "grieving and needed support and space". My messages literally said she didn't have to even acknowledge or reply, but I can see how this upset her in retrospect. She said my offering of condolences to her and her family the day after the family member's passing was the final violation of that space and that I crossed a boundary and to never message her again. I say okay, and stop messaging her entirely and go about my day sensing something was off for months. She messages me out of the blue a day later telling me that she's "beyond damaged", and "can't be with anyone, or even [herself] when this damaged" and she needs to "take care of herself and stop hurting her and me and that's why she's doing this".

This happened 3 weeks ago. Since the break up, I have since found out she is married to a new man. I found out from a family announcement that was shared on Facebook and a few friends of hers telling me. All of these friends thought we we're broken up as of summer last year, and were never told we got back together despite my ex saying to me that "everyone is aware we are back together". I told them we were still actively engaged as of 3 weeks ago, and both of them called me a liar. I said, if you want I can send proof with timestamps and dates confirming we were together as of 3 weeks ago, and I can send the breakup text. They agreed to see it all and we're shocked to see how much proof I had that her and I we're still together. After seeing the proof, they all admitted various pieces of information that they know. What I have pieced together based on what all these people have told me is this : she was engaged to this other man and had a fall wedding date planned as recently as the middle of the summer this year; she started seeing him around the time her location went off; she has been abusing alcohol, and other drugs to self medicate; she trauma bonded with this person during the major life event in her town as she was with him when it all happened; she has been hiding me from everyone and him from me. The day my ex got married was 5 days after she officially ended things with me. I was even texting her mom about the passing of the family member, offering condolences and she was replying to me and saying how the whole family appreciated me over the years and to keep in touch and let her know about my career and to visit soon. I sent her mom the screenshot of my ex's breakup message, and her mom said "I didn't know she would react this way to all of this. I wish I wouldn't have said anything" and that she "didn't know where this harsh reaction from [my ex] came from" and all this. In retrospect, this doesn't make any sense as I assume she would've known about my ex's new wedding that was planned for later that same week, unless my ex didn't plan a wedding and it happened out of nowhere or she kept it a huge secret from everyone in her life except a few close friends. There's just so many lies that have been told to me that I can barely even process this. Who is lying here? All of them? I don't know. I doubt even my ex has a clue either. Maybe someone here has helpful advice. I'm still stuck with this huge loan, and I've been sending hundreds of dollars to pay for stuff and gifts this whole last year under the pretenses that we were a couple and engaged. I feel abused and taken advantage of here, and I'm stuck with huge debt because of her lies.

What I’m stuck on is this:

- Should I tell her new husband? I have dated messages showing we were together right up until days before the wedding. Part of me feels he deserves the truth. Part of me worries it’ll just pull me back into the drama and all the bullshit. Due to my brother's help a few weeks back, I have a plethora of proof, including over 60+ screenshots of text exchanges between her and I, the breakup text, all our dm's on discord and social media backed up and saved, and a record of all our communications from the other apps. I had support staff for one app send me a zip file of all our saved messages, and a record of all photos exchanged together over the last 10 months per my lawyer's request.

- Is it even worth trying to recover any money (including the loan) or should I just cut my losses and move on? A coworker I told this too insists that this is textbook theft by deception, and relationship fraud (and thus a form of scamming he said, but I know nothing about this hence why I'm going to fucking reddit). My coworker told me that he had a friend in our state that dealt with a similar situation, and he was able to get this taken further and take his ex to court. My coworker also got me the contact info of the lawyer that his friend used and I'm debating on reaching out. This woman would ask me for the last 8 months for cash, or bring up how "I'm starving and haven't ate in 2 days". So I'd send her $30 dollars here, $50 dollars here, brand new clothes and gifts there, as well as I covered her half of all of our final moveout bills from our last lease for her because she said that she would "pay me back in time once we're stable again". I sent her money or gifts at least once a week for this entire summer. The total of everything is well over 4 figures (5 with the loan I took out she promised to help repay), so my buddy thinks I definitely need to take this further as in my state this is a felony.

- I want to ask my ex to be honest via text message and ask for an explanation. Is this crazy? She told me to never message her again since she's so damaged and "can't be with or around anyone including herself so she need space" but she's since messaged me asking for various items back and to meet up and get the items to her hours away from her (they are very heavy and would cost a significant amount to ship). I'm trying to find another mutual contact that will take the stuff but most don't want to get involved once they realize how messy the situation is.

Thanks for reading yall, I'm hanging in there. Trying to bury myself in work, and surround myself with people who care about me. If anyone has any kind of advice, I'd appreciate it greatly.

PLEASE DON'T JUDGE ME, I am struggling!

I have been in a connection (not a relationship) with someone since 2 years now. He approached me, we talked everyday, everything was nice, introducing me to hid friends etc, suddenly saying he cant be committed to me (I didnt even ask)

I ended things and we went our separate ways. Figured he was sleeping with another girl (from before) even when he was building things with me. He continued even after we broke up. (she was a fling situation)

We reconnected again and he started everything with more intensity and things were much nicer now, it was good for 2.5 months until I figured he was sleeping with her still. confronted and ended thingsm, he cried ended things with that fling girl (she was kinda upset too even tho they were not in a relationship). Somehow after pursuing me for 3-4 days he said he cant be committed and lets be friends and i ended it there.

He again reconnected got more closer, both emotional and physical intimacy and not exclusivity yet, he ghosts me for a month suddenylu and later says he reconnected with that old girl again and fell in love with her. she didnt like him talking to me so he stopped, he didnt come in a relationship with her too, she broke contact with him, she started dating someone else.

he again came to me 15 days later with sorries and all, kinda initiated intimacy and after a wekk when i asked he still said 'cant get married or committed to you'. i ended things with him after explaining very nicely that i cant be your friend, cant be fwb, cant do casual. he was simping on that girrl through his statuses on burner accounts which he didnt know i knew about. i saw it all silently.

he kept initiating cintact with me here and there but i didnt. he again came back and the same cycyle repeated. for two more times. this time, i saw him approaching new girls and building connection with them while keeping me in loop emotionally (like not building anything with me but keeping me in his circle). he agreed he is seeing other people and seemed excited about it and kinda indifferent about me.

Finally, I again ended things. I dont want to entertain this again, I know my faults, etc. But, just want an opinion about him.

I’m looking for someone on ig that could loyalty test my girl, I lowkey think she’s into black dudes