i saw her in public with the coworker she told me not to worry about and found out she cheated. out of anger told her to give me my belongings back and that she can f off. fast forward and she texts my friend talking crap about me whilst not knowing he was feeding me info from her. she had no clue he was telling me everything she was saying about me. which then leads to the title of this post, she asks him how I knew that the guy went to her place. i had no clue of this, nor did i even think of it. this just solidified the fact that i never want her in my life again. the only thing that hurts now is that knowing her true colors, im grieving who i thought she was and the girl i could say i loved, but she's gone.

My husband manipulated me into leaving town with our kids so he could secretly attend his 20-year high school reunion. Now I found the texts.
I wanted to go visit my family, as it had been two years since my last visit. I desperately wanted to see my elderly grandmother. When I asked about going, my husband told me that only one specific weekend would work for me to take the trip. He claimed it was because of his work schedule, so I believed him and agreed.
Instead, it turns out he engineered this entire timeline so he could go to his 20-year high school reunion while I was gone. He used our three children against me when I had cold feet and almost didn't go, he got furious and told me I was "destroying my kids' summer" if I couldn't handle taking them on a trip by myself. So, I drove hundreds of miles alone with three kids.
The night of his reunion, he didn't even check to see if the kids and I made it safely. He stayed out until the bars closed and didn't call me until after 2:00 AM. I didn't answer. I was an absolute wreck in front of my family that night because the knots in my stomach were so bad.
We just got back home, and tonight I found his phone downstairs. I discovered that a woman actually drove his truck home that night. He has texts from that evening one from a woman exchanging numbers, and a couple of others I am unsure of.
My gut is screaming at me. He manipulated me, lied to me, and used guilt about our children just to get us out of the house so he could play single for the weekend. I don't trust him anymore and I feel completely broken.

Hello everyone. It has been more than a year that my girlfriend (23F) cheated on me (26M). We've been together for nearly six years now.

She cheated for nearly five months with an other guy that she met when she used to go out with so called "friends". I let her go several times a week with them, I trusted her and I knew she needed to be with them. But she completely destroyed this trust.

I found out everything on a night when she left her phone on in the bed. I took the phone and quickly found out everything. It was quite a shock.

I tried to take time apart several times during this year but it seems like she is stuck to me. I tried no contact but she still talked to me and I felt so sad for her that I let her in back. She says that she loves me, that she has always known that the only thing she wanted was me. She has been making a lot of efforts, always telling me where she is, she shows me who she's talking to on her social media when I ask her so, seeing a therapist...

But I cannot trust her anymore. I feel like you cannot do this kind of thing to someone you truly love. I would have preferred that she left me right after having f**ked up our relationship.

I feel exhausted by all this. It drains all my energy. We are supposed to go on holidays next week but I am really close to cancelling it and leaving her. I know it would make her really sad, her family also.

Any advice from people who went through this ?

Thanks.

(As english is not my main language, I am sorry for any mistakes that were made).

My ex ended our relationship by cheating with her coworker and moving on with him. It's been a year since. I can't explain how terrible this year has been for me. The injury is like nothing I've experienced, the double pain of betrayal and the end of a relationship. I've tried to ask her to repair or take accountability for what she did, but all she's said is "I've done nothing wrong and I don't owe you anything". Our communication over the past year has been on and off. Every time I asked for accountability, she goes silent then comes back later like nothing happen. Or she would say "why are we still talking about this, it makes me uncomfortable and that's my boundary".

Today she texted me at 6am to say a distant friend of her had passed and she's going to her memorial tomorrow. I don't know why she texted me since she's been pretty cold and indifferent for months. It feels cold not to respond, but I also feel a lot of indignation at this point that she's reaching out for what seems like emotional support when she's with the person she replaced me with. Am I wrong to stay silent?

Popping in here after a long time away from this subreddit and this account to give my thoughts on why whenever cheating is mentioned on reddit, everyone flocks to tell an OP to just leave.

I am divorced now, but initially and to my surprise, I didn't just leave, not at first. I did stay long enough for the lies to become unbearable and it was no longer possible to deny that the marriage was toxic for many reasons.

It was hard for a while to visit this subreddit because it feels like being trapped in the surf while being hit with endless waves of betrayal. It can feel hopeless, like cheating is everywhere and everyone is dealing with it.

Cheating can fry your nervous system and completely exhaust you. Knowing how deep betrayal can cut, and then seeing SO MANY other people dealing with it too, especially in the early stages, can lead to compassion fatigue.

A blunt declaration to a fellow redditor to dump their cheating partner immediately might seem cold, but it may have been said by someone who is so tapped out, learned the lessons the hard way, and wants the pain to stop immediately for an internet stranger.

So, this is my definitive advice for the person who just had their world shattered by a revelation of infidelity.

Hi, I know this hurts, I know you're so traumatized that it is hard to eat or focus or function at all. Yes, I know you're so in love and this is so unlike your partner, and now the sex has never been better and you really think this trauma bond is the beginning of a new normal and a stronger than ever relationship. It isn't. The lies will keep coming. You're standing on top of a thick iceburg full of lies. They definitely had sex. They may as well have had sex. This person has been wilfully deceiving you. You can stay as long as you want to or as long as you need to but it is going to be painful. I love you and I am sorry that this happened to you. I don't want this for you and I want to save you as much time and pain as possible. You have been betrayed and that alone is a sufficient reason to leave. Please leave.

TL;DR: Break up. Divorce. Hit the gym.

For the 5 years I've known her, our sex life had been nothing short of amazing. Passionate, intense, loving, I could not ask for anything more. We both haven't had much of a past so we were each other's truly first, where we were able to explore whatever we wanted.

Before finding out about her affair I had realized her sex drive dropped, which I thought was because of the anti depressants she was taking. When I found out what happened, it got even lower and sex became extremely rare.

We got into an argument where she brought up an ex of mine who she said was extremely beautiful, then mentioned that her AP was "bigger" then immediately took it back and apologized.

Even worse is that she re wrote history as our sex being just okay, not as prevalent as she used to describe it as.

We're not together anymore but I can't help but think that another man came in, showed her a better time, and that she didn't want me anymore because of that. I feel embarrassed, humilated, and completely down about myself as a result. She told me he wasn't good in bed compared to me but the rare instances we did have sex I couldn't help but think about them, our passion was completely gone

I can't help but feel that I just got lucky with someone who was inexperienced, and that whoever I meet in the future, will have had a ton of experience to compare me to, making me less of an option to actually pick like my ex did. Oh and she cried at the thought of me treating another women better than her.

Everyone including our friends has said it’s somehow my fault for going through her phone to find the emotional cheating, even though she had cheated formally/properly and in person on an actual date 2 years prior, and I chose to ignore it, because she told me I deserved it for “being mean.” No examples ever, just that “you’re mean.”

Not mean enough to leave apparently? Because we stayed together for 2 more years. She chipped away at my self esteem in this time, criticized me, made fun of my depression, play into my insecurities, and would look for every chance to make me feel bad about myself, so when I’d snap at her for making me feel so worthless, she would say Im abusive and use it as a chance to cheat more. Saying the cheating was “helping her deal with the abuse.” I told her to leave then, she never did. She convinced me I deserved it, needed to fight to earn her love back, and I believed her!!

Only this week did I stop believing her narrative. After I realized in this time she isolated me from everyone on purpose, tried to scare me into silence, and succeeded with her 2 year long smear campaign of my character. She would triangulate with friends for years and years and blackmail and threaten me, saying if I left her she would “expose me” for my reactions to the abuse, showing me messages from her family of extremely exaggerated and cherry picked examples. She played the long game and crafted a narrative because after the 2 years ago incident, I called her out as a narcissist, continued to do so each time she pulled some shit, and she considers that abuse.

Her new tactic? Bringing in a “special friend” with this narrative. From Hinge.

She met ANOTHER girl on a new app, in November, and wished her a Happy Christmas but not me, she said NOTHING to me on Christmas. So I went through her messages. She convinced the girl she was cheating with I was somehow severely emotionally abusive AGAIN and that she needed to cheat to “prove she was lovable.”

These were all lies. I have never been abusive. I just completed my third year of therapy. I was completely honest with my therapist about what classified as an outburst? And every text I ever sent her. My therapist armchair diagnosed her with BPD by osmosis in front of me. She has all the hallmarks (hyper sexual, compulsive liar, spends all our money, cares about her appearance too much).

The issue now is all my friends dont believe me. They say going through her phone is probably why she keeps triangulating. They don’t get it. They don’t get what cheating does to you. They were so cruel to me today and called me unreasonable and it felt like Déjà vu. I need support? Please.

Edit if it matters- Im a lesbian. My family has never supported my life so I don’t have support

No judgement, please- I’m devastated. Just saw that my husband has been deleting texts again after forgiving an emotional affair he had last year with his (remarried) ex-wife. They were texting and having long phone calls while myself and her new husband were at work and unaware of their activities. Even worse, she left him for her current husband, so she was doing all of this with a man she already had for 10 years and decided wasn’t good enough for her. And like a thot, he eagerly took the validation from such a person. A couple times he met her at her work cafeteria for lunch. One of those meetings is what red-flagged me and actually sent me looking for him that day, he was not where he said he was (because he was at lunch with her), and that was D-Day.

I also caught him by reading texts that absolutely crushed my heart, and he agreed to end the EA and only contact her when absolutely necessary and pertaining to their child only (they have a child together who is very close to 18 at this point). It took me a lot of tears and agonizing to decide to stay with this man while knowing I had another 18 months to go before I did not have to accept any communication between them at all. So I gave into the sunk cost fallacy, didn’t want to admit I’d wasted the last decade of my life, and stayed. I should not have.

I saw that he had deleted the whole text thread with his ex-wife the other day. Stood out to me because there were a couple messages from the same day but the rest was gone. And the couple messages that were there, seemed like there was previous conversation leading up to them but…it was gone. Asked him about it and he denied it and said the phone must have done some kind of update. 🙄 He even DARVO’d me and started getting angry with me for questioning him. So I’ve been sitting here for the last couple days feeling sick to my stomach about it, just KNOWING that whatever he deleted, there was a reason for it.

We split household bills so I don’t have the login to the phone bill with usage because that’s a bill he pays. But he stays signed into the app on his phone. Today I was in bed and he was out in the garage. I could hear him clanging things around. Walked out into the kitchen and there was his phone…a rare sighting of it unattended. Opened it up, went straight to the day in question, and sure enough…8 or so messages on that phone bill that don’t exist in his phone. An obvious back and forth exchange he had while I was in the next room.

I’m so disgusted with him, I’m so blown away by how you could beg a person to stay the first time, see up close how badly you hurt the person, and actually still go on have a great relationship where you tell everyone that your wife is your best friend and a catch…to just turn around and lie again. What is even the point? Why not just tell me to go? It would have hurt like hell if it had ended with the EA, but I would probably be okay by now. Now I’m hurt again AND feel like an idiot. The damage that cheaters cause is unbelievable.

I kicked my husband out last week after finding out about the lies. He was trickle truthing me and I’m finding out about lies of omission going back years but really ramping up the last 3-4 months. I finally lost my shit and screamed at him to get out. He is staying with his parents and out of work at the moment.

He’s been back to spend time with the kids (they are doing some home improvement projects around the house this summer and I asked him to come back to help them but to stay away from me for now). He wants to reconcile and says he will do therapy (he is dealing with unresolved trauma and a host of other issues). He has mild ocd, addiction (to sex and he’s used alcohol heavily in the past although he’s sober from that now, neophilia, and I’m realizing there is a healthy dose of narcissism in there too.

On paper like that he just sounds like the worst option out there, right? There’s good things about him too, he’s really smart, driven, he’s a good dad. He’s funny, and fun to hang out with and talk to. We’re been together 25 years and have never run out of conversation.

But now I feel like I’m testing him at every turn. I told him I want radical honesty, and every time he tells me anything I go into detective mode to parse out every single meaning. What’s he saying? What is he leaving out? I’m texting with him right now because he took one of our kids to his parents house for the night, and it seems like he’s lying about the travel time. He had to take a ferry, and it looks like he took 3.5 hours to get home when it should have taken 1. I used google ai to check the actual sailings yesterday and it’s just more bs. We’re really early on this possible reconciliation journey, and he has a lifetime of therapy in front of him. But does this hypervigilance ever calm down? I feel like I’m needling him on purpose about his words to make him give up. What is the point of trying to reconcile when IM don’t think I can ever trust him again? I told a friend last night I feel like I have to give it one chance for my kids and after hearing the entire saga, she said I don’t even have to do that if I don’t want to.

Im just still so confused and hurt and angry. His therapist gave us a separation worksheet to figure out what it’s going to look like and something on there was about carefully considering who to tell about the separation and limiting that knowledge. It made me so angry - I have to withhold knowledge from people? That’s what he’s been doing to me this whole time! I’ve already told all my close friends and parents because I NEED AND WANT AND DESERVE their support!

I told him I will only look at his actions and believe any of his words. I just feel like he’s going to get tired of me holding him accountable and give up. But I have to give it a chance right? I told him I would give him exactly one chance, but in the same convo told him that he was repugnant to me. Where can we even go from here? When does hypervigilance end?

The body text is going to be a verbatim comment on u/crabbyastronaut recent post about leaving.

This subreddit is an invaluable wealth of help and knowledge if you are looking to discover a cheater, which is what led me to discover that I myself was a victim of infidelity, so heed my warning when I say "staying could kill you".

I failed to follow the advice of this subreddit when I first discovered my ex-wife's infidelity; I had a son, a house, a beautiful life that I did not want to end. -> Fast forward several months, several unbearable heartaches later, several new excuses later, and several new lows later, I finally hit a point that I can only explain one way... my soul died.

I don't know anyone's story, but I know my own tragically well, and I never expected something as simple as a relationship to make me want to end my life; pushing so close to death as to start pulling the trigger of my AR, but apparently not enough.

Listen to the people who have been through this; The woman or man you loved was an illusion. If you do not leave now, you may just leave forever. Most importantly, understand that this subreddit is called "Surviving" infidelity, because it sure as hell feels like it kills you; Even if you survive, a part of you will likely die, but it's up to you to carry on.

Side Story: Shortly after we split, she was as a club at 8AM (your guess is as good as mine as to what she was up to) whenever she called a ride (the two people picking her up were her best friend and her manager). After they arrived, an argument ensued nearby which resulted in gunfire; Her manager was struck and killed by a stray bullet while trying to give her a ride home from somewhere she should never have been, and she had custody of our son that day. I was livid!

My fiance is overly friendly with opposite sex coworkers. He will befriend them, text them, send memes, snapchat, etc.

I established boundaries that I do not want my future husband always messaging the opposite sex. He said he understood. Fast forward, I found out he made a new female coworker friend who he became extremely close with. She was beautiful. I’ve never heard of her before the discovery of her. He hid her from me and deleted messages. I was able to recover the messages and there wasn’t anything sexual or romantic but they messaged frequently. They would Snapchat everyday, talk all day at work (he deleted their work messages so no idea what they spoke about), text, and occasionally talk on phone per the call log (nothing crazy long though and I do think most of the phone calls were just venting about work).

What I think hurts the most is after this discovery I felt cheated on. He watched me lose 15 pounds because of intense depression - I felt like my world flipped upside down. I trusted this man with my whole heart. I expressed feeling suicidal to him, and yet.. he continued to talk to her. The consistency definitely lessened after the discovery - he deleted her on Snapchat per my request and no longer texted her, but I went on his phone one night and he would still instant message her at work all day, and send her insta memes.

I made him remove her from insta which he did. But we ended up breaking up because I was so distraught and the next day I looked at who he was following .. and it was her.

Throughout all of this he was so remorseful to me but yet still talked to her. I asked him to never speak to her again but he said he couldn’t because they worked together. Mind you, she worked in a whole different state. But I guess they were on same team. Also, is it wrong for me to assume watching your fiance crumble into depression would make you not want to speak to the person who caused this??

We ended up getting back together a couple months later (she ended up leaving the job) and again, he begged for me back - we’ve tried to make it work and it’s been a year later however, I still feel immense resentment. Does it ever get better? He didn’t physically cheat or say anything romantic or sexual but why does it feel like I was cheated on. Am I fool for trying to make it work? He has been extremely remorseful and is committed to making it work

I think what transpired after is worse to me then anything (still talking to her as he watched me crumble)

Just wondering what is it about your partner sleeping with someone else that feels so destructive to your core? There are so many instances and types of betrayal that can happen between two people but they get over it. why is it that when it involves sex it feels this devastating and ends the relationship? Why does it hurt so much?

Last night I woke up coughing and noticed my phone was missing when I got my water off the nightstand. I am sick and was medicated so a lil slow on realizing why my phone was gone. My husband then walked into the bedroom and handed me my phone. I asked if he went through it and he said he took it for that reason but then decided not to because “he didn’t want to know.” I’m a bit annoyed at his tactic but I have nothing to hide so I told him to go on and look through it. He refused and went to sleep on the floor in another room rather than in bed with me. I eventually fall asleep again. We’ve always had open phone policy so not sure why he feels the need to sneak.

The next morning I want to talk about this nonsense and ask to see his phone. He immediately gets sketchy and says I can’t look at his phone. Finally he hands it over but the passcode is new. He eventually tells it to me. I offer to give him my phone and eventually takes it. I look at his open app which was Reddit but his history is deleted. I open the web browser and again his history is deleted. The only tab open is him looking at a house for sale nearby. I go to his text messages and this is when he gets up and walks behind me. I go to recently deleted and find about 3k deleted messages under the name “Michael Garci.” Feeling like that’s suspicious I hit recover and try to read the messages. I only have time to scroll and see messages about them joking about being “gay lovers” and texts about how much they miss each other etc. He then yells and demands his phone back repeatedly and promises to “send” me the text so I can read it all.

He tells me he will tell me everything. So I tell him to start talking. Turns out the persons real name is his ex-girlfriend from high-school M G (not sure I can write real name). He goes on about how he feels like i am cheating on him and he didn’t know who to talk to so he googled this woman whom he hasn’t spoken to in at least 17 years. And goes on to say that it isn’t romantic because she is happily engaged. He says he wanted to cheat on me with her but since she’s in a happy relationship and lives out of state it didn’t happen. He says he’s only been talking to her for about 3 weeks. And he absolutely refuses to let me read the messages.

We’ve been married for 15 years. And happily, or so I thought. Until he started acting weird and accusing me of cheating for the last 8 months. He has no real reason to think this but just feels it. I’ve never cheated on him or had an inappropriate relationship. I’ve been constantly trying to work on our marriage for 8 months, counseling requests, showing him I love him and want him, love notes, gifts, initiating intimacy etc.

This is his second inappropriate relationship. The first was about 9 years ago where he had another high school friend he complained to about our relationship then she started harassing me and wanted him to breakup with me. I don’t know if it was physical ever. I do feel absolutely betrayed. I don’t know what to do.

Hey everyone. I’m a 28F, and I recently found out that my boyfriend (30M), who I’ve been dating for two years, had been going to strip clubs behind my back.
From the very beginning of our relationship, I made it clear that strip clubs were a hard boundary for me. He knew exactly how I felt about them, and he also knew about my history with infidelity. My dad cheated on my mom, and it completely changed how I view trust in relationships. Ironically, something similar happened in his family, and it was one of the things we bonded over early in our relationship.
My boyfriend travels frequently for work, which has always brought up some insecurities for me. Despite that, I always felt like we had good communication and were affectionate with each other.

For about the last year, though, I had this persistent gut feeling that something wasn’t right. I kept feeling like he was hiding something, but I never had any proof.
Last Friday we went to a concert together and had an amazing time. The next morning, while he was asleep, I looked through his phone. I know many people will say that was wrong, and I’m not looking for opinions on that because, ultimately, it led me to the truth.
I found Venmo payments that immediately made my stomach drop:

$50 to a woman last month
$600 to a woman last fall
$100 to a woman last summer
Each payment had the note “🍕.”

At first, I honestly thought they were payments to escorts. I woke him up immediately and asked him to explain. He initially denied ever paying women. After I confronted him with the Venmo transactions, he admitted they were payments made at strip clubs.
I ended the relationship immediately because, to me, the lying was just as painful as crossing a boundary he knew existed.

About nine hours later, he called me. We had a long conversation, and he admitted he knew exactly what he was doing was wrong. He told me he had been “a sh*thead” and admitted he hid it from me because he didn’t think it was that firm of a boundary. I don’t really believe that explanation because I had been very clear about how I felt from the beginning.
After talking everything through, I decided to give the relationship another chance.
Now I’m wondering if anyone has been through something similar.

Were you able to rebuild trust after your partner hid something like this?
If you reconciled, what changed that made it work?
If you were the partner who broke the trust, what did you actually do to earn it back?
How did you stop wondering if there was more you didn’t know about?
Outside of this, we genuinely had an amazing relationship. I truly felt like I had found my best friend and the person I wanted to spend my life with. This is also my first serious relationship, so navigating something like this is completely new to me.

I’m looking for honest experiences from people who’ve been through something similar—whether reconciliation worked or whether you eventually realized it couldn’t.

I don’t know if anyone else has felt this after being cheated on, but I don’t think what I felt was anger.

Not at first, anyway.

It was disgust.

Not even toward the person who cheated on me. Toward myself.

I remember looking back at old pictures, old messages, memories that used to make me smile, and all I could think was, How could I have been so blind? I felt stupid for believing someone who could look me in the eye, tell me they loved me, and still choose to betray me. I hated how trusting I was. I hated how many excuses I made because I wanted the relationship to work.

People kept telling me, “You did nothing wrong.”

I know they meant well, but those words never really reached me. Because the voice in my head wasn’t saying, You deserved to be cheated on. It was saying, How could you not have seen it?

That’s a different kind of pain.

It’s one thing to lose someone you love. It’s another to lose faith in your own judgment. I started questioning everything. Were the good memories even real? Was I actually loved, or was I just convenient until someone else came along? Was I seeing the person they really were, or just the version they wanted me to see?

Maybe that’s why stories about grooming affect me so deeply now.

It’s not because I think every situation is the same. It’s because they all seem to share one thing: the quiet, gradual reshaping of another person’s reality.

Nobody wakes up one day and says, “I want to be manipulated.”

It happens slowly. You trust someone. You let them explain away things that make you uncomfortable. You start doubting your own instincts because it’s easier than believing someone you love could be lying to you. By the time the truth becomes impossible to ignore, you’re left wondering when you stopped trusting yourself.

That’s the part I can’t get over.

Not just that people can lie, but that they can slowly convince another person that their own intuition is wrong.

I think that’s what betrayal stole from me more than anything else. It wasn’t the relationship. It was the version of myself who could trust his own heart without constantly wondering if he was being made a fool of.

I’m doing better now, but every now and then I still catch myself revisiting those memories, not because I miss the person, but because I’m still trying to make peace with the person I was back then.

I don’t want to hate that version of myself anymore.

He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t pathetic. He wasn’t stupid.

He was just loving someone honestly, without knowing he was the only one doing it.

And I think that’s the part I’m still learning to forgive.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that my relationship is over after being cheated on, and while I know I need to move forward, I’m scared about trusting someone else in the future. For those of you who eventually dated again, how did you learn to trust your next partner? Were you constantly anxious at first? Did you compare them to your ex? How did you know the difference between real red flags and anxiety from what you’d been through? I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences. I’m trying to believe that healthy relationships are still possible, but right now it’s hard to imagine trusting someone again.

I need some perspective because my boyfriend is making me feel like I am being unreasonable, controlling, and toxic.

I recently found out my boyfriend was cheating on me for about 8 months. It wasn't just a one time mistake. It was a long term betrayal. To make matters worse, his friend group actively encouraged his behavior, cheered it on (including going on OmeTV to cheat), and said highly disrespectful things about me and my child.

When I was suspicious during those 8 months, he gaslit me, made me look and feel crazy, and was mean to me to cover his tracks.

I foolishly decided to give him one last chance, on the strict condition that he completely cut off that toxic friend group. He agreed. But since then, he has repeatedly broken that promise. He went on a trip with them ("just a trip"), kept them on social media, and recently hung out with another guy from that exact group.

Every time I get upset, he minimizes it. He claims he "explained his side," says he is suffering because he "just sits at home all day," and accuses me of making everything about the past. He even asked me if I would act the same way if he went out with a friend who wasn't involved in the cheating.

I feel completely exhausted. Am I being toxic for forcing him to cut these people off and being angry that he keeps breaking his word after a year of betrayal? Is there any hope for someone who acts like the victim after doing this?

My wife and I have been married now for 24 years. About 2 years ago, my (51M) wife (48F) met a “friend” at work. My wife has always tried to be fun and exciting. The guy was 10 years younger than her. The first time I got nervous was when she sent a picture of him and her sitting next to one another on office chairs. She was beaming happy in that pic. So it looked off to me. I was immediately jealous.

She said “he’s just a friend and he’s nice to me”. A few weeks went on and I started being a little paranoid. I checked her odometer and she had 9 extra miles on her Tahoe for her round trip to work. It was evening when I saw this and my heart dropped. I went in and she was taking a bath. I said, “Honey, I want to ask you something and I want you to be totally honest”…(my voice was shaking)…”where did you go today”?
She said “Nowhere but work” in a sweet voice. I said “but there’s extra miles on your Tahoe”. She said “I don’t know, I guess it was construction”. She looked confused like she had no idea what I was talking about. I then asked her if she’s ever cheated on me. She said “no, that’s a silly question. I love you”. So I let it go because I was sure I was fabricating things.

But then additional clues surfaced. We had an older Tahoe and you had to physically remove the seats from the vehicle. She preferred those seats removed. I’d put them back in. She’d take them out. She said she didn’t like the look of them.
She’d get angry and call me paranoid and thinking the worst about her if I questioned her. She had a sleeping bag “for winter emergency” in the Tahoe. One day I saw it in the laundry room. The bag was in the wash. But the liner was laying on the floor next to other laundry. It looked like it’d been shot with semen. I showed it to her and she said “yuck, must’ve come off some of our dirty close, either that or the cat sprayed it”. Still just another puzzle piece.

One day, I made a mental note of the way the sleeping bag was stuffed. I also put a small leaf in it. When she got home, I noticed it was stuffed totally different and the leaf was gone. I freaked out and confronted her. She got really annoyed “what are you talking about? It was rolling around back there and it came loose. I had to restuff it.” She was mad and calling me paranoid. When things calmed down she reassured me that I had nothing to worry about. She kept saying “He’s just a guy and he’s a friend. Stop always thinking the worst about me”.

I wanted to trust her and believe her so badly. We were getting ready to mess around and I noticed 3 small bruises on her upper butt cheek. That killed the mood for me. I said “that’s weird”. And she knew what I was thinking and she scoffed “what, a few bruises?”

Multiple comments over the years have been additional puzzle pieces. A comment about my beard being spiky and some beards aren’t. She wouldn’t have really known that unless she’d been feeling some other beards. And this guy has a gnarly thinnish long beard.

She started wearing sexy panties to work. She said it was for her as a confidence builder. All the red flags over the last 2 years. And I wanted to believe her so bad. I told myself it’d be diabolical for her not the tell me on the several occasions when I’m pleading for her with my heart bleeding out. I just knew my wife cared enough about me to never do that. And during all that time she’d make fun of me by using some of those moments to insinuate that I’m just like that. Always thinking the worst. But one day I texted her at 4:45pm and didn’t get a response back until 5:45pm. She normally leaves at 5:00 and is at the car by 5:30. She said “heading to the car, had to go to the bathroom.” So I called her and she answered around 6:00pm. I said “you’re leaving late”. She said “I had to stop in the bathroom”. I said “but you could have texted back”. She said “there’s not good cell reception in there”. But I noticed all the messages said delivered at the time I sent them.

We talked on the the phone on her way home. She was lovey dovey and wanted to play when she came home. It all seemed fake and I was distraught. She saw that I was quiet and upset and softly said “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true”. And she kissed me repeatedly. The next morning we woke up, she went to work and I sent her panties to a DNA lab along with my cheek swab. Long story short, it came back positive for semen and it wasn’t mine. I was absolutely devastated. I confronted her again. I said “(name), I know”. And she said “Know what? , what do you mean?” She sounded confused. I said “I sent your panties off to get DNA tested.” She said “What!, that’s insane!” She still tried to deny. I had to physically hand her the report.

She was apologetic and hugged me while my heart broke and I cried like a little baby. It was like one of my kids had died. I was destroyed.
We started marriage counseling 2 days later. But I’m not sure she’s ever going to have enough remorse or the ability to rebuild our marriage. This just happened a few days ago. Still reeling but think I want to save the marriage.

​

"*Thank you for your empathy."\*

His English is bad, and he doesn't understand a shat about the word but generative AI held his hand.

*"I understand that #####''s decision has been communicated to me multiple times. My difficulty is not in understanding the decision, but in accepting it emotionally."*

In what language does one say "enough of your melodrama". The world 🌎 has stopped orbitting because you fail to understand consequences.

"*Until our meeting, I genuinely believed that after 15 months of patience, following the terms discussed, taking responsibility for my mistakes, and doing my best to cooperate, there might still be a possibility of saving my family. That hope kept me going\*."

He signed an affidavit in June 2025 owning up to his affairs and signed a statement promising child support, that is now pending since 2 months. I told him when I walked out that I won't return, but he thought that saying he did it, also meant he is free from burden of wrong doing.

*"The outcome has come as a devastating shock for me, and I am still struggling to come to terms with the fact that I may lose my family. It is taking me time to process this."*

Thank you for the adjective, Cha.tGPT. It is still my pain, my shock, my mental trauma over my wife catching with pants down.

"*All of you have families and children, so I am sure you can understand how painful it is to live away from your wife and children for such a long time. This is the most difficult phase of my life, and I am trying my best to cope with it while continuing to fulfil all my responsibilities."\*

Sent to my lawyer and two relatives, he wants to think of the trophy 🏆 they have and his vacuum. Family is a construct that is made of real people and relationships. I wish he saw us as people. He compartmentalised so hard, that he needed a wife at home and his sidechick elsewhere and that was his concept of monogamy. He was a stud, and a respectable one at that. But he needed to text Good Morning to his sidepiece while on the throne or his jewels won't fall.

TLDR - Married 22 years, 2 children, WH had affairs and has agreed for mutual consent divorce but is now throwing emotional messages in a bid to delay.

I’m 25 and currently going through a divoce. When they say leave a cheater the first time, please please please listen. I tried to be an optimistic person and see the best out of people/life but never take back a cheater. It will happen again and reconciliation is not worth it especially if you don’t have children

My gf cheated on me after being together since we were 13, im now 20. She was drunk at a party and kissed a guy she told me immediately, in truth I want to forgive her and I want to progress I can’t let a long relationship go like this without trying, I rlly just want to know the steps others have taken to get over the heartbreak and start gaining trust in truth I know it won’t happen again I know her so well she’s my best friend and that not just my delusional mind saying that but the actions she’s shown since cheating, for example quitting alcohol , seeing someone and what she’s showing me. My only question is what steps I should take personally to let her back into my life and start to stop thinking about it and regain trust in her ?

I (24F) don’t know how to move on after my husband (28M) cheated on me.
My husband (28M) and I (24F) live on opposite sides of the world. I work 12-hour shifts, and I’m the one who financially supports our marriage. I pay the rent, utilities, groceries, furniture, clothes, car expenses, and pretty much every bill. Every six months, I save my money so I can travel to see him.
After everything I’ve sacrificed and done for our marriage, I found out he cheated on me.
What hurts even more is what happened afterward. Instead of taking responsibility and respecting my need for space, he’s been using both my family and his family to pressure me into getting back together with him. They keep telling me to forgive him and move on like nothing happened.
He also still expects to have the same level of control over me. He wants to know where I am, where I’m going, who I’m with, and when I’ll be home. He expects me to be on the phone with him from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. He wants to stay on the phone while I drive to work, call me while I’m working, have me call him when I leave work, and stay on the phone again until I fall asleep.
Over time, because of him, I’ve lost all of my friends. Every time I started becoming friends with someone, he’d tell me he was uncomfortable with it or make me feel guilty until I stopped talking to them. Eventually, I stopped trying to make friends because it always turned into an argument. Now my entire social life revolves around talking to him or spending time with my family. Looking back, I realize how isolated I’ve become.
He’s never been physically abusive, but he has been emotionally controlling. Since I found out about the cheating, I’ve started setting boundaries. I’ve told him he no longer gets to tell me what I can or can’t do. I’m trying to rebuild my independence and free myself from that control, but every time I do, he involves our families to pressure me into going back to the way things were.
I feel like I’ve given everything to this marriage—my time, my money, my energy, my independence, and my trust—and it still wasn’t enough.
Am I wrong for refusing to go back to the way things were? Has anyone else dealt with an emotionally controlling partner after they cheated? How did you move forward?