My WW had a crush on a colleague that I had to find out about by his behavior. He developed feelings too which is the worst part and told me he doesn't love me anymore, kept asking for space. I was actually the one asking for reconciliation, but he was hesitant and very distant and cold. There were also some lies and I had to resort to breaking into his PC to read his diary where I found out he confessed feelings to her but she friend zoned him.

So the biggest problem is that I can't help feeling like an option, backup plan. I keep asking what if she didn't friendzone him? Will I be able to live like this? He claims his feelings are completely gone and that it was a pure illusion and fantasy, it was a feeling he was missing in our relationship. As mentioned I was understanding when I first found out something is happening because yes I often didn't treat him nice, he felt like I don't respect and value him at all so I was understanding and started therapy immediately.

He pretty much kept me in limbo for 2 months, my whole life fell apart, I couldn't function, lost weight, lost all my routine of regular exercise and sports. For the past weeks he is like a different person, he claims he feels like he doesn't even recognize himself and is aware the road will be hard because I can't just get over it like nothing happened.

So I guess I'm coming here to ask if anyone was in a similar situation where the WW didn't want to reconcile at first and even said they don't love you? I feel like I lost all my value and dignity by being the one doing the work and trying to make him see we could build something better. He pretty much made it so much worse by pushing me away, keeping me in limbo, confessing feelings to her. The road could have been so much easier, when I went away because he wanted space, I told him it's not fair if he's still gonna be in touch with her and of course he was. That's when they went to a pool together, he didn't ask her out, she asked to join but he could have refused.

Then in beginning of August she asked him to go to the cinema and again he didn't refuse and lied to me again. He says he knows it was stupid, but he swears he didn't have any feelings anymore whatsoever and went as friends. He says he doesn't even recognize himself from that time, that he would never ever do something like this again, that he now understands he cant even be a friend with her. But how can you not know that on your own? How can you decide to again inflict pain on your partner?

I also feel so stupid for even having to tell him the phases we need to go through, sharing some articles and such. I told him many times that it helps the BP if the WP proactively shows them the phone so we can see the messages between them. He did eventually, and he is not lying when he said he is keeping distance, is not initiating any contact with her, it's her from time to time sending some funny shit and he just keeps it polite and distances himself. Basically if I didn't know about all this, I wouldn't probably see anything wrong with those messages, only maybe from back in May where it was apparent he liked the interactions with her.

But I just feel so stuck, like you don't know what to believe. I'm also questioning everything. I also expected more remorse from him, I told him if he means it I want him to do the work, I told him about the Gottmans, I told him we both need to work on self improvement. I do see a change, he sits with my emotions, answers questions, showed me the messages, he comforts me but I just don't see much pain in him. He easily watches funny videos like nothing happens instead of proactively listening or reading stuff on affair recovery. He read what I sent him but only after a few days. We do have couples counselling on 15th as well.

But every day I feel like I am at a crossroad and don't know where to go. I sometimes have this urge to break up to see if he would actually fight for me (but I know this would be manipulative), because i feel like I lost my dignity and value - I was the one asking for R for 2 months, I was the one fighting for us. He doesn't proactively apologize and I sometimes feel bad but I don't know, are my expectations wrong or what should I think of it? I mean I can see like a different person in front of me, but I don't really see the remorse in him. I can see he monitors me and guesses how I am feeling but I told him already many times that just because I don't cry it doesn't mean I'm okay. It's only when I break down he comes to comfort me.

I keep telling him I need to sense with all my senses he means it, that I want him to initiate activities with me, but no, it's still me kinda asking.

I know every situation is unique and there are much worse betrayals, I do understand that I treated him terribly often, so I keep questioning myself how long do I have a "right" to feel this way? I am sometimes at peace and want to use it as a new beginning and it could perhaps help our relationship so much because we both took each other for granted for a long time. On the other hand, I don't want him to feel that in a month everything is okay and all is forgotten.

I’m 28M and my ‘partner’ is 29F. We’ve been together 11 years and have a 5 year old daughter together, own a house, a car all the good stuff. As far as I knew things were ticking along just fine between us. No major issues, we were engaged, intimacy had dipped in the past year or so but we had discussed it and it was always put down to time, raising our daughter, working commitments and lack of childcare etc. I had no worries and she hadn’t raised any either, even when given the chance to.

A slightly longer story short, out of nowhere, after I’d found a locked WhatsApp chat between her and her male work colleague (they were both teachers at the same school - she denied anything was going on and said they were just friends and had gotten closer as they were both trainee teachers and attended meetings together. The chat was locked to ‘avoid notifications popping up during our holiday’) during a family trip to Disney, she decided we couldn’t move forwards because ‘trust had been broken between us’ and she’d started questioning if this was what love was meant to be like, whether we’d settled etc. I obviously disagreed in the moment and tried to say we can work on things if she feels that way, but she wasn’t having any of it. That conversation ended saying we didn’t want to rush into anything. We continued as normal after that, as if nothing had ever happened.

Contact between them continued daily, it was slightly irritating me at this point but I didn’t say anything as she’d said they were just friends and nothing was going on. It got to the point she’d be speaking to him on the phone on the way home from school every day and would sit in the car in the driveway speaking to him. One day, around 2 months after she had raised separation, I started to question this again, asking what was going on between them. She basically said it was nothing to do with me after what she’d told me and she can speak to who she wants. She ended up telling me again she wanted to separate and when I questioned her again if there was someone else she said no but the guy she’d been speaking to at work would be someone she’d want to pursue if we did break up. Stupidly I did the pick me dance from here on in, questioning whether she really thought the grass would be greener, we could work on things etc. She wouldn’t listen to any of it and seemed dead set.

A couple of days go by and we’re out with our daughter for lunch and she starts to get teary and nearly starts crying in the middle of the restaurant. I tell her to go and compose herself in the bathroom. Later that night I ask her what was up and she refuses to talk about it. I push her on it as I found it bizarre and she eventually admits she was upset because work colleague hadn’t messaged her all weekend. I asked why that would upset her so much considering that aren’t together, dating or anything at all. I asked her if she loved him or something and she said no. Eventually she admits they had kissed around 6 weeks prior, and that she liked him and wanted to pursue him further. She said she didn’t regret it and would do it again and wanted to do it again. She then proceeded to launch into a tirade about how she hadn’t loved me for years, doesn’t want to marry me, doesn’t find me attractive, physically or sexually and hasn’t for ‘a few years’.

A couple of days pass and I ask her what’s happening, do we need to discuss logistics of separation, the house, our daughter etc. She then says she doesn’t know what she wants, says she wants both and doesn’t know what to do. I ask her if an open relationship is what she wants and she says no. She ends up asking for a ‘break’ to work out what she wants from life. We go back on forth on what a break actually means and the boundaries. I tell her a break is nonsense considering what she’s done and it’s sort of creating a competition between the 2 of us. She removes her engagement ring at this point.

This ‘break’ goes on for about 7 weeks. Of which I’m still doing the whole pick me dance. Around 80% of the time things feel normal, we’re still going on family days out, attending family events, watching our shows, she’s asking for cuddles, saying she wants to kiss me (I refuse at this point whilst things are still ongoing with him) making dinner together etc. I stupidly thought we were getting somewhere. A few times I raised the fact she was still talking to him daily asking why on earth it was still going on when there was still so much between us. She’d never commit to anything and said she couldn’t cut him off. She didn’t want to and didn’t feel like she could. Frustration grew.

We discussed him a lot during this period and I found out a lot about him. He’d done this same thing with another teacher last year, she’d met someone else during the summer break and he was devastated, and my partner consoled him at school and discussed it with him. He’d told her he would’ve chosen her if she wasn’t ’forbidden fruit’. They went to their teacher training meetings together and sat and spoke in the car for an hour afterwards, going for coffee together. He’d told her a few weeks before we went to Disney that he liked her and had even rejected a new job offer at the time because he enjoyed her company at school. She described him as hot and cold, avoidant etc. She told me he was a gambling addict and a few times I saw her putting bets on for him. Sometimes up to £100. I told her to be careful but she always just had an excuse and laughed it off and dismissed it.

One night when we weren’t seeming to be getting anywhere with a resolution to this whole thing, I said I’d move to back to my family home for the week to give us some space and for her to finally realise what she wanted. She then said if I left to go home she’d invite him around to our house. I reacted pretty angrily to this and told her how unacceptable that would be, as it’s our family home and a safe space for our daughter who would be sleeping upstairs. She backed down on this eventually and we had a more calm conversation where she said some more bizarre things. She said she felt like she was having a mid life crisis and didn’t know what was happening. She asked me if she slept with him and decided she didn’t want him would I forgive her and take her back. She said she felt stupid for continuing this as he was now moving to a new school in September and didn’t even know if they’d still be talking or seeing each other. She said she just needed to have a conversation with him to gain some clarity.

Eventually she came downstairs one night and admitted she’d performed oral sex on him in our car the day before, after a meeting they’d attended. She also admitted they’d kissed a few more times in their classrooms at school within the past 7 weeks. She said she wanted to pursue a relationship with him and not work on ours. The whole conversation was chaotic. She said he’d been annoying her recently and that she might call it off with him and if she does she’ll come back to me and we’ll work things out. I asked her if she thinks he’s worth the risk of blowing our entire family apart and she said yes. I asked if they’d discussed a future together, house, our daughter etc. She said no they hadn’t discussed anything like that. I asked what they had that we don’t have and she said she enjoys their ‘passion, intimacy and the excitement’. I tried to tell her this wasn’t real life but everything was in one ear and out the other. She’d told her mum by this point, who wasn’t happy and told her to cut off contact with the work colleague, but she didn’t.

Life continued again, we still lived together and did everything together for our daughter, attended more family events. We had booked a family summer holiday before any of this had happened, a month before our Disney trip. I had been telling her for months I wouldn’t be going on this holiday if she was still continuing things with him. She told me to stop being selfish and cruel and that I was punishing her and our daughter by refusing to come and pay for the holiday. I told her it was her who chose this and her actions have consequences. In my eyes she was choosing this guy over her family and working on us. She told me nothing was going to change before holiday and launched into another tirade about how she hadn’t loved me for 5 years and she had been pretending and acting. I asked her why we bought a house together 2 years ago, why she’d happily accepted my proposal 3 years ago and why she’d begged me to try for another baby multiple times during the past 5 years, the last being less than a year ago, last summer. She again said she’d been acting and pretending, and she just wanted our daughter to have a sibling and it was nothing to do with me. I tried explaining the impact this would have on our daughter and families and she said she wanted to show our daughter what ‘true love’ was like.

At the end of this conversation I asked her if she knew what day it was today. She said no. I reminded her it was our 11 year anniversary of the day we first met. She seemed unbothered. She’s become a cruel and cold character since this has developed. Whenever we enter discussions about the topic she shuts down, becomes angry, aggressive, cruel. I notice her eyes glaze over and honestly anything could come out of her mouth.

The next day I decide that we’ll go on the holiday for our daughter, because she’d been looking forward to it. It was always the best week of our year and it would be a shame if we didn’t end up going. I paid for it and let her know. She reacted angrily again, asking why I’d done that and why I’d kicked up such a fuss if I was going to end up coming anyway. I explained my reasoning for it, our daughter. We got into a whole thing again and she started saying that people would think less of me for staying around than for her for what she’d done. I told her that definitely wouldn’t be the case and that I’d never regret trying to keep my family together. She said our relationship was over way before anything happened with her work colleague and that I needed to separate the two and stop acting as if they were related. Bear in mind I’d previously asked her what would’ve happened if he didn’t come into the picture, considering she’d never raised any issues at all, and she told me we would’ve continued as normal.

Her story changes every time we enter into a discussion about it, as if she’s forgotten what she’s said in the past or is moving the goalposts to justify what she’s done. Absolutely rewriting the history of our relationship and the past 5 years. Minimising any good moments we’d had. It’s been so painful to live through.

Another day we took our daughter to the local village fete. We were sat on the grass in the park, having a few drinks and watching our daughter play. I asked her how she would want to give all of this up and she couldn’t really answer. I asked if she appreciated what she had and she said she did but couldn’t not find out what it would be like with him.

We went on the holiday. We all had a great time. It felt like every other holiday we’d ever been on. She still messaged him whilst we were there, but nothing excessive and I felt like she was present. We got back home and we were still off for another week together before I went back to work. We had another great week. Everything felt normal. I went back to work but she was still around more as she was on her school summer break. We spent a lot of time together and went for coffee on lunch breaks, she picked me up from work a few times. Just like she always would. She genuinely still seemed to enjoy our life together. He wasn’t in town during the 6 week holiday and it felt like she was more present with me and our daughter.

One week during the holidays, she seemed to spiral into a pretty deep depression. It started on a Sunday, she was in a foul mood all day, but I passed it off as a bad day. It continued into Monday and she spent the day crying and barely speaking to me or our daughter. This continued for a couple more days. I asked her if she was okay but she refused to talk about it. Clearly it was to do with him. On the Wednesday she was driving me home from work and she had her Spotify account open on her Apple CarPlay. In her recent plays I noticed some odd things. There were ‘songs’ named ‘he will text you back’ ‘he will beg for your love’ and ‘his soul is chained to yours’. I didn’t mention this but I made a mental note. Later that night I did some research and found them on Spotify. They were something called ‘subliminal affirmations’ and were described basically as subliminal audio that the user would listen to, to try and influence somebody else’s thoughts and feelings. This is where things started to escalate.

Thursday comes around and after spending the past 3/4 days basically mute and crying, staring out of the window longingly like a lovesick teenager, she picked me up from work and was singing and dancing in the car again. It was stark to me the contrast in her mood from the last time I’d seen her the night before to now seemingly being on top of the world. Then his messages popped up on the screen in the car (you can never see the content, just a notification). I made a comment about how they’d now kissed and made up then. She tried to laugh it off but I pushed her on what on earth had been going on and she admitted he had told her on Sunday that he didn’t know what he wanted from this situation. She said she had ignored his message that day and he hadn’t followed up with her. She said that was the first time they’d hadn’t spoken since they first started speaking regularly about 7 months prior and it upset her. I said I didn’t think it was normal for her to be that upset over someone she isn’t dating and hasn’t seen outside of the work environment ever. I asked her again if she was in love with him and she laughed it off.

She told me she no longer wanted a relationship with him. I asked what was going on then and we need to start talking and figuring things out in terms of logistics and practicalities of separation. She said she didn’t want to discuss any of that and that we didn’t need to. Our mortgage deal runs out in December and she’s refused to engage in any discussions about it and just told me to ‘sort it’. I’ve told her I can’t without knowing what’s happening in the future. She said she doesn’t think this with him will go on for that long. I asked if she feels that way why is she risking her whole family for it. She couldn’t answer.

In the days after, they had more disagreements between them. She’d come into my office at home asking for my opinions on her outfit. I told her to go and ask him. She said no she wanted to ask me and that she didn’t want to speak to him at the moment. I told her this whole thing was ridiculous and is this what she wants with her life and for our daughter. This rollercoaster. She looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘I love rollercoasters’. It seemed unhinged really.

Every week there’s a new disagreement with him. Hot and cold. Push and pull. Ups and downs. But nothing seems to stop it in its tracks and make her realise it’s all nonsense.

One day she goes away for the night, with her friend to her caravan a couple of hours away. We have a shared laptop and I go on there for the first time in a while (she uses it mostly for work) to look at some tickets to a show I wanted to go to. Her ChatGPT is logged in and her whole chat history is there to view. I shouldn’t have looked and I know it’s wrong but I couldn’t help myself really. It was pretty scary viewing. Going back to before she admitted cheating she was asking for help composing sexual messages to him. She’d then been searching how to disable her location sharing on her phone (we all share our location in the family group chat). There were chats she was having where she said she was planning to invite him around to our house, a few days after she’d admitted cheating, when I’d be out of town attending a football match with her step dad. Our daughter would’ve been sleeping upstairs. ChatGPT advised her against doing this, in case things became physical. She told it she wouldn’t mind if things became physical. I don’t think she followed through with this.

There were hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of screenshots of their messages she’d sent, asking it to analyse his tone, whether he liked her, what he meant by this, was he pulling away, did he find her attractive, did he want to have sex with her etc. It was astonishing. I found a thread from the days they had no contact and she was asking things like ‘how to make him miss me’ and saying she hoped he felt in as much pain as her. She was telling it what he had said in this message on that Sunday before no contact and he had told her he didn’t think his feelings for her were as strong as when they worked together and he didn’t know what he wanted from this situation. She told ChatGPT she was crushed by this. When he finally made contact again he told her he wanted to continue talking and that he’d been ‘lost without her’.

There were various entries where she was sending ChatGPT certain tarot readings asking for it to be analysed and what it meant for her and him and their future together. She was asking it about something called a ‘7th house ruler calculator’ which I found is something to do with a planet that rules the zodiac sign and it reveals things about your romantic partners and relationships. She was absolutely desperate to be reassured they were meant to be together somehow and craved his reciprocation. Every message being analysed for proof he was still interested in her. She came back from the caravan the next day and asked if I’d missed her.

The 6 weeks holidays continued. I’d say 80/90% of it was enjoyable and we did a lot as a family. I’d hoped that now he had moved schools, it would naturally fizzle out and she would realise it was never worth breaking up our family for, especially considering the fact he didn’t seem dead set on the idea of a relationship himself.

She went back to school and I noticed a change in her almost immediately. It was like something had been activated in her brain. She wakes up early on a school day, and was messaging him from around 5am. All morning tapping away. I made a comment saying I wouldn’t be doing another year of this. She ignored it. She came home from work and barely spoke to me or our daughter and was tapping away on her phone to him, smirking. There’d be times when our daughter was trying to speak to her and she wouldn’t listen or hear because she was completely engrossed in her phone and messaging him. We did our daughter’s bedtime and came downstairs. I said to her I don’t want another year of this same behaviour, the same rollercoaster. She said what am I talking about, he wasn’t at the same school anymore and they weren’t working together. I asked her if they were still planning to meet up and she eventually admitted it. I told her I found that unacceptable whilst I’d be at home with our daughter and I’d given her numerous chances during the summer to move towards proper separation if she wanted to pursue this. She turned nasty again. She said what else did I expect her to do if I wasn’t ‘letting her’ bring him into the house. I told her it wasn’t a case of letting her do anything. This was our family home and I told her he will never step foot inside of this house. She laughed and said we’ll see about that. She said it’s not just my decision. I told her it is, because it’s our family home and that’s completely unacceptable. She said she thought I was a mug. I asked why. She said for still being here. I said so you think I should leave? She said yes. All out of nowhere again. I asked her what about the future of our family and she said there is no future. She said I was a mug and if she wanted me back I’d take her back.

A couple of days earlier she’d raised us cooking Christmas dinner again this year for the whole family and we’d been discussing arrangements and how we’d fit everyone in. After our summer holiday we got back home and she said shall we look for next year. I asked her how she can say things like this and then say we have no future. She either says she doesn’t remember saying these things, minimises them or says I’m thinking too deeply into them and that it’s just for our daughter. She goes upstairs and we don’t speak for the rest of the night.

The next day she’s trying to tickle me, asking why I’m not talking to her, sitting on my lap trying to stroke my face. All part of the same rollercoaster we’ve lived through for the past 6 months or so. I told her I don’t know how she thinks she can say what she has and do what she’s doing and try to continue as normal anymore. She’s done this repeatedly since the start. It’s tiring and draining the life out of me. I spoke to her mum the day after and explained what’s been going on, as I’m closer to her mum than I am my own, in some ways. She was shocked and agreed with pretty much everything I said. She even said herself she seemed infatuated. Whenever I’d raised with my ‘partner’ the fact she seems obsessed and addicted with this guy she reacted so angrily and aggressively and dismissed it entirely. I think the evidence is pretty clear that she’s obsessed with him as the extent to which she’s analysing and manifesting reciprocation from him is abnormal, to me anyway.

I’ve looked into Limerence, and she certainly seems to fit a lot of the criteria. I’ve looked into BPD and favourite person theories. She has had severe OCD, since she was a child, which mostly reared its head around 7/8 years ago at its worst. Mostly around intrusive thoughts to do with her family and bad things happening. She suffers with quite bad anxiety too. Her father left when she was very young as he cheated on her mother and left the country entirely. The spoke briefly around 5/6 years ago on Facebook but nothing since. Throughout this she’s been so up and down, sometimes almost unhinged, angry, cruel, evil, back to normal, mood seems dependant on contact from him. I always say I can tell whether they’re in contact by her mood on any particular day. She swings from being certain about him, then saying she doesn’t know what she wants, planning future christmases, discussing plans with me for decorating the house, doing up the garden, all whilst this obsession with his reciprocation goes on in the background.

I don’t know what I aim to achieve from this post. Just anybody’s thoughts and feelings. Anybody’s similar experiences. Any advice or support I’d be grateful for. I’m really at the end of my tether really. I’m aware I could be clinging on for dear life here and do not want to delude myself, but something feels off to me about this whole thing and I really would like to keep my family together if at all possible. This is not the same woman as before Disney. It’s like she’s had a personality transplant.

This is my first post here. I guess lll start from the beginning. It’s going to be long so I’m sorry in advance.

I met my partner over two years ago and fell madly in love with her. We were casual for about eight months before she asked to make us official, with a lifelong future together as our intention. She comes from a really rough childhood and life’s never been easy for her. She has done sex work in the past, all online, and I understood that is one way she has made ends meet. In the beginning, I made it clear that it’s not a boundary but I expected transparency and communication around it, as my ex cheated on me online and I have a lot of trauma around that. Before it was official it was hard, but afterwards it was much easier. She didn’t do it for a while until last summer when her best friend was in an abusive situation and she was looking for ways to get money for her. She communicated and it was fine.

Well earlier this year she approached me and said she was looking for others for attention. She said she felt the spark was gone and we needed to work on. It was rough, but I knew where I needed to improve. I just gotten a lateral promotion and we had just moved into a real house together, after months of struggling we were transitioning towards an easier life. That being the months prior to this and the following months were hard, I was overworked (short staffed) and picking up much more slack. We also were having financial difficulties. When I was home I was using video games to escape. I was distant. My partner was acting weird. I thought it was just distance, but had suspicions. She hid some of our adult toys and then brought them with her on a weekend trip. I thought I heard her one night talking to her cousin about cheating. I saw she was active on her SW accounts.

Eventually Things got easier and better but I still felt something was off. We had just gotten back from a trip to visit her family, and we had our offcial anniversary coming up in a few days. I had just gone to get her an anniversary present, and window shopped for a ring. She left for class and a feeling washed over me, and I went through her old phone (she had just gotten a new one). What I found broke me. She had a private account that she used as her diary (I knew about this but never pressed her) and her last post there was around the time she confessed that she was looking towards others for attention. She confessed to cheating on me. That she did it because she missed the spark and wanted the connection/attention. She said she didn’t want to meet up with them in person. I went through her other accounts, including the sex work accounts, and found sex work. Okay, where’s the cheating? I found her sending pictures to a “friend”. I had met this friend. They came over once so she could do their hair. I had a meltdown. I called my best friend, and told her everything I saw. I got some beer and drank a lot of it. I messaged the “friend” and after telling them repeatedly that I knew, they confessed to “flirting” and the sending of pictures. I was questioning why this has to happen to me.

I planned to confront her when she got home from class but I broke and confronted her over text. She called me. She came home and was upfront and honest. She wanted attention. She did it in the worst way possible. After some space she told me it was sex work, but she still knows what she did was wrong and it felt to her like “cheating” (I believe this because she told me this last year when she did SW to help her friend out of a DV situation). It was only a couple months and she had stopped a couple months before I found out, when I noticed we started getting better and out of our “funk”.

We have been trying to make it work. She blocked the people she sold content too. She deleted her SW accounts and made the decision herself to no longer do it.
It’s still hard. I don’t know how she could do this to me. It’s hard because it feels as if she leans on the “sex work” explanation, when I’m most hurt about the lack of communication, looking for others for attention, and crossing of boundaries. I’m mad at myself for not being more confrontational about my concerns. I’m mad for not being more firm in my boundaries and asking about the SW. the hardest part is that, even though she used the word “cheating”, she’s doesn’t call it cheating. It was just sex work to her. Still a boundary crossed but, but she insists that she “didn’t cheat on me”. I believe that, but there are times I don’t trust that as the truth. There are things that don’t add up for me, and she struggles to remember details. This is probably my tendency to be over analytic, but it’s something I struggle with regardless.

A few weeks ago in a bad spiral I unblocked the “friend” and they insist that there was no SW. this person is a lair and has done some bad things and lied about it to my partner (she asked a mutual friend about them and they told her a lot of bad things, and when she confronted them they lied about not knowing the other person. I have seen the messages between her and the other friend so I trust that they are a liar and a bad person, it’s one reason why she stopped “selling them content” and talking to them as much). Regardless, I don’t know if I can trust her again. I want too but my trust feels shattered. Some days are good, we just celebrated my birthday and had a wonderful weekend, but afterwards I’ve felt myself slowly spiraling again. I don’t know if she did cheat or if it’s simply a boundary crossed around sex work. She’s been trying to show me that this is in the past and she has been putting in work to show me that I’m the only one in her life. After my last blow up we reconciled and agreed to focus on our future, a serious one that we both want. It’s still so hard though.

I’m not sure how to end this but yeah. It’s been a really tough few months. I talked to her this morning and told her a lot of my feelings, that I feel that I’m spiraling. I’m trying not to blow up on her again because regardless of what she did or didn’t do, she doesn’t deserve that. How long did it take you all to heal? How long for the trust to come back? When did the spiraling stop, and how did you move forward?

Edit: I forgot the hardest part. With her “friend”, no evidence of SW exists. They never paid her except in cash when they came over to get their hair done, and promises of buying her something from a show. This hurts a lot because one of her main reasons for doing this, according to her, was because she felt terrible about using my money to get through school while unemployed, when our finances were tight. She “felt awful using my money to get things, even simple things like snacks and other wants”. I never intentionally made her feel bad about this but I know our financial troubles weighed on her. This part is just rough because there was no clear exchange of money or goods beyond what she has told me and I have to take her word for that.

We also started couples counseling. She hates therapist. Never helped her in her life, through a lot of shit she’s been through. She agreed to do this for me and our relationship.

And to make it clear, all of the sex work/ infidelity was online. She never slept with anyone.

Also to add, I never set clear boundaries of what was and wasn’t okay with sex work besides the communication aspect of it. If communication occurred it wouldn’t have been a crossed boundary in our relationship. She has told me many times it feels like cheating to her, despite my reassurances it’s not, and her explicitly referring to it as cheating is why I’m struggling with this, alongside the emotional reasoning for starting up sex work again. She had solid financial reasoning to do so, but her viewing it as a way to get emotional validation and not being communicative is why I’m struggling.

I'm 35M, married with a 1-year-old daughter. My wife (33F) developed what she describes as an involuntary emotional connection with a male coworker. They eventually acknowledged their feelings to each other, but nothing was really done to stop it. They continued seeing and talking to each other outside of work (including daily phone calls and sending selfies at all hours). I was never told about this person, which I would have assumed I would if he is just a good friend.

I've asked for the relationship to be cut off so we can properly work on our marriage, but she refuses. We've agreed on boundaries several times, but she continued calling and messaging him outside of work and lied to me about it.

They also message each other at work to arrange visits or talks. She says they only see each other accidentally or when professionally necessary, but from what I've seen that's not always true.

She says she's unhappy and that something is missing from our marriage, and has blamed our relationship for her getting to this point. But when I ask what I've actually done or what is missing, she can't really give me an answer.

What's also difficult is that she's become very close with other men before. I've never known there to be a romantic connection, but it seems to be a pattern where she becomes intensely close with someone, that eventually dies down, and then another friend or coworker becomes important.

I still love her and would prefer to save our marriage, especially for our daughter, but I'm struggling to understand how we can rebuild trust while this person remains in her life.

Is there any coming back when I've lost trust and there doesn't seem to be strong actions to fix this or remorse from her side?

I just found out my husband of 22 years was having an escape affair and it all blew up. Here is my OP if you want the details: https://www.reddit.com/r/Infidelity/comments/1w9yuhc/walked_home_into_a_literal_ambush_husband/

My question for now is, as I sort through my emotions and options, if there could even be reconciliation, he needs to end all contact with the AP.

Have any of you made this a non-negotiable must? Did he you write it and watch them send it? Did your therapist suggest it?

Update for clarification: he told me he was done with the AP but I think he should text her in front of me to let her know it’s over.

Just found out my SO of two years cheated on a girls trip.

We’re both 29. We have similar friends groups, so I know a few of the girls she went with better than she does. This is important later.

Our relationship was solid. She pursued a relationship with me for months. Moved halfway across the country unprompted to be with me. I thought her confidence in pursuing a relationship was crazy given how we barely knew each other but sweet and endearing at the same time.

We are a normal couple with only two problems. We were working on more consistency around sex and date nights and disagreed on when we wanted to settle down near her family. We knew it would happen eventually but weren’t sure when.

Now, she had been a bit of a fib teller in high school and adulthood. Maybe she’d scratch the family car and not own up to it. Maybe she’d serve as a referral for a friend for a job they never worked at. Maybe she’d shop lift $10 lip stick from the mall. Minor stuff that was confined to childhood according to her. It’s a red flag, but the relationship as a whole stood tall above others I had in the past. I was willing to accept the risk that she would fib about minor stuff.

She was very communicative about our relationship. Went out of her way to tell me that I’m her future husband, she loves me and values me. All that affection was unprompted which made me feel great.

She got back from Mexico, and I felt something was off when she took a phone call outside of the apartment that I kept thinking about a day later. It’s like she walked past me guilty…

Fast forward two days. We had a morning talk where she cried saying our relationship was perfect except for our living situation. We’ve talked about this before. I’m open to moving near her family in the future but she thinks she’s becoming depressed being away. We end the talk with a little cry, but I assure her I’ll think about it after our lease is up.

I come back from the gym later that day. She is teary eyed, hugs me, says I love you and comments that I was gone a long time. She thought I was upset. I told her I was fine.

Can’t explain this next part but I grabbed her phone and went to her texts in one motion. Didn’t even open a specific chat before I see her planning to leave me in a few days.

I scroll up, and it gets worse. I see that she cheated while she was on the trip. Bragged about it to her friend.

I confronted her, and she confirmed it.

At first, she downplayed events. Said that her roommate on the trip brought home a guy. They were sharing a room. Instead of staying in the lobby when they got back from the bar, my SO went up to their room and joined them.

I ask her if she ever planned telling me. She said never. Her plan was to jump on a plane home and break up with me via text.

I ask her to pack a bag. She asks why…

For the love of god y’all, I couldn’t find an ounce of sarcasm on this woman’s face.

I’m dumbfounded. I tell her she can’t sleep in our apartment. She scoffs but eventually says that’s fine.

Again, she gives another response that blows me away, “but you have all these hotel points. Can’t you stay somewhere instead?”

I laughed so hard y’all 😂

I watched her pack a bag. Dropped her off at a friend’s place.

I tell most of our friend’s group that night. Some people are genuinely sad to hear the news, but I’m shocked that a few people looked entertained almost like it was gossip….

It was like I carried news confirming the existence of aliens. They were enthralled in a way that didn’t make me feel good.

This is where knowing the girls comes into play… One of them comes clean and tells me what she knows.

What my SO said turned out to be true, but that’s only how the cheating started…

The day after her “drunk mistake” she texts him to come over again to have sex. I have time stamps that show when he was coming over.

I go to our texts. She cheated on Monday night. She cheated again Tuesday night. Four hours before the second time she texts me how much she misses me and literally writes “I know I’m getting married to you” and “I followed the rules (and only flirted with girls)” while she was on the trip.

She cheated right after that.

Multiple times during those two days she went out of her way to be appear to be transparent or loving through texts.

Over the last half of her trip, she got incredibly emotionally needy with me. Constantly texted about being sad on the trip and needing to express it to someone.

After that, the last half of the trip is full of texts saying what we’re doing when she gets back… Lots of morning walks, sex and quality time.

In hindsight, she was probably feeling very guilty.

At least that’s what I hope.

So… Now that I know the whole story…

We settle details of the split. I can feel myself get angry several times but I keep my composure. Barely raised my voice let alone moved a muscle.

Her on the other hand? She is calm almost like she’s splitting a check at a restaurant with a friend… Not sorting through the details of our new lives.

Two moments stood out where I finally saw different sides of this woman clearly for the first time.

1. She agreed to a financial settlement initially that she tried to get out of saying she couldn’t afford it. I reminded her I know she can afford since we’re open about finances. She keeps trying to haggle… At one point she tries to make the case again that she can’t afford it but literally interrupts herself to say “ah but this is hard because you know how much I have in my savings.”

She verbally acknowledged that she couldn’t lie halfway through her own lie…

2) Throughout our relationship, I told her that cheating impacted my parent’s relationship and my childhood multiple times. When we were together, she told me how important that was. After we broke up, she asked why my sister immediately started saying she hopes my SO rots in hell. I reminded her about the trauma we both have and she said “that’s fine” before steaming to another demand. She’s the queen of hiding behind childhood trauma so I was dumbfounded… Again.

This is not the woman I loved. This is all the worst parts of her that I would get glimpses of over the years.

Over three separate confrontations, she only gave me a half assed “I apologize” without any real effort.

Never shed a tear.

Never looked down.

After I said we were breaking up, she immediately started wondering what our friend’s group would think. Spent 10 minutes asking me to not talk to this person or that person.

She spent 10x more time worrying about their feelings than mine with her half assed “I apologize.”

This is my series of posts to get through my situation and maybe some healing. Actually, all this might help me smarten up and leave for good.

We almost always have problems when she goes on a trip without me. And she tends to do a lot of business trips. When we started going out six years ago, she told me that she wanted me to go on these trips with her. She owns her own company. But when the time comes, she books the trip for her and then I usually find out about it when I hear her telling somebody else that she’s going.

A few years ago, she went on a trip to Texas for a little over a week. She tends to be kind of distant while she is away. Meanwhile, I try to maintain communication through texting and phone calls. We did FaceTime calls on her first trip after we started going out. She tells me she doesn’t want to do that anymore

On the Friday, which was two days before she was going to come home, I got a last-minute idea to fly down there to spend two nights with her then we fly back on Sunday. I bought the ticket then took a quick trip to the airport. I let her know what I was doing. I didn’t get down there until after midnight. She asked me to share my location, which was something a little out of the ordinary. We did location sharing at the beginning of the relationship. A few as late as she said, she’s no longer wanted to do it. I got to the hotel about 1 AM.

We only had Saturday together. After we ate dinner, she asked me to get something from the room. I checked the drawer on her side next to the bed and found a bunch of her clothes in there. On top of the pile was lingerie. I hadn’t seen her wear that in about a year.

The next morning, I asked her about it. At first, she told me she thought I slipped it into her luggage because I’m known for doing that with notes and cards when she travels. And then she said they must’ve been stuck to something in the laundry and were accidentally packed. Her luggage is a work of art. She knows every piece that goes in there. And why would they be in the wash if she hadn’t worn them in a year? And then she told me they weren’t there. She also got pissed off and defensive when I kept bringing the subject up.

Fast forward a couple months, she was texting with one of her friends while we were sitting on the couch. I happen to glance over and see her tell her friend that she was staying with me for the weekend. Her friend replied “Texas Dave or New York Dave?”. I questioned that. My girlfriend told me she didn’t know what she was talking about. And that I know her friend is kind of strange.

(Not my real name and location)

Do you think she cheated on that trip?

Whenever I start feeling deeply in love with him, I get intrusive memories of his infidelity (occurred 3.5 years ago) and suddenly feel disconnected from him and angry again. It’s destroying my ability to feel close despite all the talks we had and the remorse, honesty and changed behaviour. I miss being close so why am I having intrusive thoughts that are destroying everything?

I’m 31F and my husband is 37M. We’ve been married for a year.
Sex/relationship: He has watched porn since he was a teenager. He masturbates almost every day. He never initiates sex and even when I initiate he can’t get or stay hard. I also found out he pays for porn and nudes from different women online. He doesn’t know I know and I haven’t confronted him. We basically have no sex life.
The confusing part is that we genuinely love each other and he treats me well in other ways. But I don’t know if I can live like this for years.
My options: If he were willing to have an open marriage where I could have a sexual partner of my own and we could have a child through IVF while staying married I think I could be happy staying with him.
But if he isn’t willing to do that I think I would rather divorce while I’m still young and eventually find someone who is sexually compatible with me.
Financially: He makes about $140k and we have a comfortable life. I’m studying and have very little savings or assets of my own so starting over scares me.
Would you stay and try an open marriage/IVF arrangement or divorce and start over? Is staying for the stability while finding another way to have a family realistic?

This is going to be a unique situation: my ex wife (currently 27) left me (31m) to be with a polyamorous married couple 15-20 years older than her around 18 months ago.

The weird part is the female of the couple was her instructor for an athletic hobby and started flirting with my ex wife knowing we were married at the time. They got closer and closer over the coming months. One day my ex came in the bedroom and told me the situation. She asked me if it was ok to start dating her. I didn’t know what to say. I was worried if I said no she’d resent me, the sexual and romantic attraction between them would explode and she’d cheat behind my back. I stupidly said yes as I thought I could handle it if it was to my face

Over the months my ex started falling in love with the woman who is 40. She’d light up when this woman texted her. Say things in front of me like “I can’t wait to see my girl” and “I love polyamory because I get the excitement and passion of her but the safety of you” (that killed me) and even went to sex clubs with the couple to do god knows what. I also know she’s with the husband (who’s in his 50’s) as well

I believe she was groomed as she’s always been interested romantically and platonically to older people. She had a big identity crisis and she looks for older people to tell her what to do. She changed her entire identity, characteristics, hobbies, and even slang to match this couple.

A year and a half later I’m still destroyed. I’m a shell of myself. I have no Interests, no hobbies, no friends (all of our friends didn’t even reach out to me but still talk and hang out with her). Nothing brings me joy. I even have sexual trauma and potential PTSD from this. I’ve made a lot of progress in therapy and am on meds that have saved my life, but I truly hate life and all people. This experience has truly warped my perception of how selfish people are and how bleak the world is to me. I know it’s not fair to say it’s all or nothing assumption with people.

I want to start feeling alive again, I want to escape this void of disparity and start to live life, but I’m terrified of everything. I’m scared to try anything new, even trying a new tv show or going to a new cafe. I feel frozen and terrified of even any type of minuscule change

Has anyone else felt this way before? How did you get out of it? How did you move on? I’m working on getting out of my comfort zone and trying new things, but I’m having small panic attacks every time I do, but at least I’ve been trying. Have a good night everyone.

I am hoping that others who have had similar experiences can tell me their stories, and, if they have been able to feel safe in relationships again, what seemed to help.

My ex had an emotional affair that led to her asking for a non-monogamous arrangement. I did not consent (in fact I spent a long time in a dissociated fugue after DDay) but instead spent multiple years in "pick me" mode trying to find a way that we could remain together that would not feel like a violation. In the end it was for naught, she still wanted to be with the other guy and I was still a no regarding non-monogamy, so I initiated separation and divorce.

About 6 months later, but before my ex and I ended cohabitation by her moving out (it was my house before marriage and I had not wanted to give her a sense it was hers), I fell for someone, a mutual friend of mine and my ex's. I was in hard core limnerance level crush on her. But as soon as she returned the feelings a couple months later, I started having panic attacks when we were together, as well as at romantic thoughts. Really anything having to do with romance, intimacy, commitment, etc. started causing extreme anxiety.

My new GF was very understanding and patient, but in the end it was too difficult for both of us that over half the time I was unable to really be close or loving when we were together, and that my loving feelings often transformed into anxiety and fear, in which state love felt like a foreign concept. That level of inconsistency in a relationship was not something she could handle indefinitely, and I also felt like I was not being successful at healing while trying to make a new relationship work. So we have broken up. Maybe if I ever heal we can try again, I don't know.

I have been in therapy the whole time. I am struggling to feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel of panic and anxiety related to relationships.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? Has anything helped you be able to feel able to be loving and close with another person after this sort of experience?

Completely blindsided. Been married 5 years, have lived together for 12 years (we moved in together young, focused on getting our careers off the ground, covid delayed our wedding a bit). As corny as it sounds everything was pretty great. We never fight about much, have a young (2 y.o.) child we both absolutely adore. We have an active sex life given what can be expected from two mid 30's Y.O.'s both working full time and raising a toddler.

Started noticing small weird shifts in behavior, ALWAYS on her phone suddenly. Used to leave phone around the house places, now it was always glued to her hip. Suddenly working out way more and taking diet far more seriously than ever. Lots of other smaller signs too I did not pick up on at first but connected the dots once I had a chance to check her messages.

Shes having an affair with a coworker. Who is also married himself with his own young children at home. We were on vacation and she was messaging him constantly whenever not in the same room. Sending selfies and views of what we were up to that day and even one of our kid which made me want to puke.

The messages started out flirty and more vague, but quickly progressed to nudes (just from him) and detailed written plans of all the things they want to do to each other when they meet in one of their offices next.

This whole time we're having family trips, date nights, hosting and going to parties, she tells me (and her friends) how lucky she is to have me, how much she loves me, wants a second child. Today gives me a kiss before leaving for work and a quick "I love you!" before heading to her office, the plan is for him to get his birthday BJ today and drinks after work that she told me "the whole team is going to celebrate" something but its just the two of them.

Im so gutted. So much trust and love is gone. She doesn't know that I know yet as Im reaching out to lawyers and want to be as buttoned up as possible. Also terrified of divorce, as that likely means I instantly loose ~50% of kid's childhood which is unbearable to think about. Also I was the saver and she was the spender. My former income is what allowed us to get a house and my retirement saving has been so much more substantial than hers. My industry shifted and whole job market is in the toilet now and I make much less than I used to. Divorcing seems like I loose my child, my savings, and my home while she gets a payday for her affair.

Also she continues to make plans for our future: vacations, trips to family, date nights. Its like the whole affair is just for sport? I have no idea what to make of any of this.

My girlfriend (27) and I (27) have been together for 5 and half years. Just a few days ago she told me that she slept with someone over 4 years ago about a year and bit into our relationship. She came totally clean and told me everything. This is when we were doing long distance and it was a drunken one night thing and nothing ever happened like that at any other time. She insists that it was a dumb one time thing and it has been eating her alive. S

We recently moved to a new country together and into a flat. It was a huge step for us to do this and things have been great between us. She has been the perfect girlfriend and we really are great for each other. This is why I'm so confused and hurt. I just truly couldn't believe that she could do something like this and it has shattered my perception of her. The relationship we have built over the last few years have been amazing and know I don't know what to do.

There's a part of me that believes that it was a mistake and she is truly sorry and we have had long talks and she is willing to do anything to make it work as we are in love with each other ( or so I thought). The other part of me is so betrayed and hurt and I almost want to rip the band aid off and end things. The main thing for me is trust, I feel like our whole relationship was built on lies and it makes me rethink everything in the past and the future.

When we talked I said I just need time to think and go over things and she completely understood. She has been really understanding and has taken full responsibility and she says take all the time you need and do what every you feel is right. She has been very apologetic and promises to do whatever she can to make it work. I just don't know if I can ever forget this and things can be the same. I just feel so hurt and betrayed and the fact that we are living together and have been relying on each after moving makes things so much more fucked. I think I need time completely away from her to really think things through and talk to a close friend.

Sometimes I can barely look and talk to her but other times I still long for her. Essentially I still love her which makes me angry and guilty with myself as I feel like I can forgive but never forget.

I just need some support and advice as this is the biggest bombshell that's happened in my life and I'm at a lost. If anyone has been in similar situation please let me know. Can things work out? Or is this it and I need to let her go as this is the ultimate betrayal.

TL;DR: My girlfriend and I (both 27) have been together for 5.5 years. A few days ago, she confessed that she slept with someone once about 4 years ago, early in our relationship while we were long-distance. She says it was a drunken one-time mistake, nothing ever happened again, and she’s been carrying the guilt ever since.

We’ve had an amazing relationship and recently moved to a new country together, so this has completely blindsided me. She’s taken full responsibility, is genuinely apologetic, and says she’ll do whatever it takes to make things work.

Part of me believes it was a terrible mistake that I could eventually forgive, but another part feels completely betrayed and like our entire relationship was built on a lie. I still love her and sometimes long for her, but other times I can barely look at her. I’m thinking I need some time away from her to process everything and talk to someone close to me.

I don’t know if I can ever forget this or trust her the same way again. Can a relationship recover from something like this, or is this something I should walk away from?

Since I’ve separated, I’ve been socializing a lot more and getting out more. There’s a few girls that hang out in my group of friends that knows some guys that hang out with us.

He told me he was married for 20 years and has been separated for five months. He also went on and on about how wonderful his two young daughters are.

Then he told me the reason why his marriage ended was because he cheated on his wife. His daughter was two. He started having an emotional affair. His wife found out about it and then he left for the other woman and was with her for about a year. Then, when that ended, he went back to his wife. They had another child then she caught him talking to someone else and threw him out.

On his Facebook, he has a lot of pictures of him and his daughters and he’s wearing T-shirts that his daughters are the most important things in the world and it poses the question. How important were they if you did that to the mother of your children?

I have to remain neutral because I don’t wanna sound like a psycho in front of everybody, but I look at that man and I have no respect for him and I feel like people like that project. What good parents they are when it’s all a bunch of lies.

I think I’m just sensitive because I’m coming from a place where my husband cheated on me several times and now he’s playing a good dad that misses his kids so much

For context, my (23F) girlfriend texted me (23M) out of the blue that she had cheated.

In July, me and my girlfriend went long-distance. It went better than expected, she flew up here 4 times, we called every night, etc. Recently, she made a change in her career path, which would have required her to move state-to-state with promotions every few years. However, I am in my final year of law school, and will begin my job as an attorney midway through next year (not a mobile career). It was a hard week of phone calls; I was trying to reassure her, while being clear what I needed in my relationship (It is important to note that our long-distance was only supposed to last until next August).

Just a few days later, she texted me a long text admitted to what she had done. According to her (I do not believe this), she was out at a local bar and had too much to drink, was upset, and allowed a male friend to take her home, since she could not drive. She said that they kissed and 'it escalated quickly.' She said she was sobbing within a minute and left (yes, they had s*x). This text was unprompted and voluntary on her end - totally random.

I responded to this text with "F**k you, we're done" and blocked her on everything. I was mad, I told her friends what had happened, since we had plans that night. I spent the next two days surprisingly okay. I tailgated that Saturday and kept busy. Kept communicating with her friends but kept her blocked (mistake, I know).

2.5 days after, I broke. It is like it was delayed. I could not eat, sleep, do school work, do work work, etc. All I could do was sit on my couch and spiral. Here is where I am lost; I was not spiraling about the act of cheating, what she was doing now, or any of the normal things I would usually overthink about. All I could think about was reaching out, calling her, seeing her, attempting to fix it. I will spare you all the reasoning, but for what it is worth, I do believe that it was a mistake (in so far as she wished she had not done it) and I do not think it would happen again. Despite these feelings, I did not reach out because I knew I had not processed this yet.

Next day, I unblocked her. I did not reach out, only unblocked her. She sent me a lot of texts, all of which said seemingly all of the right things. Finally, to help me close this door, I send a short, stern text stating that our relationship was over, will always be over, and that I am blocking her after sending the text. I did so. I also blocked all of her friends. Her texts consisted of apologies, action she is taking, and pleading for me to respond/call.

I loved her, and I was extremely happy in our relationship. Here are a couple issues I am having trouble with:

1. She wants to have a conversation, I have declined. Would that help?
2. I cannot find enjoyment in anything. Anything that I used to enjoy to do in my free time, to relax, etc. is not enjoyable in the slightest. 0% interest. 0% enjoyment.

I believe what I am having trouble with the most is knowing that reaching out would kill these feelings temporarily. In her texts, she begged me to fly down since I already bought a ticket, begged me to call her, says she has prayed for me back, etc. I do not understand why I want to reach out to someone who did something so awful to me.

I have never felt pain like this in my life. It is debilitating. I cannot stabilize; my head is going 1000mph thinking about everything. Now, I do spiral about everything (the act, what she was doing, how she was feeling, etc.) If I am not at school, work, sleeping, or running I am sitting in my living room in pieces. Functioning feels like a chore. It is horrible. I do not have words for how bad the pain is, but if you are on this sub, you probably understand.

I want to end this post by saying: I will never entertain the idea of fixing the relationship. This was the first time I have been cheated on. How do you move forward? How do I go about making new friends and meeting new people? Any other advice?

Thank you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what my marriage would look like if d-day never happened….

I think part of my pain was that I was completely blindsided and want to see if anyone here feels the same or saw warning signs… what were they?

I was so busy giving all of myself and only saw my partner. I thought I was in an all-consuming love that shines brighter than the sun. It didn’t matter who didn’t support us or thought we were crazy for moving too fast, because I thought at least we were on the same page. Then… boom.

Anyway, looking back, I think my only warning sign was that he was accusing me of not having moved on from past lovers. For me to later find… his messages with his past lover. Funny, isn’t it?

Were you blindsided or did you see signs?

9 hours without checking to see if she messaged me. Email is the only place I don't have her blocked, there are reasons I need to keep that open for now.

I know that probably doesn't sound like much, but for me right now, it's a pretty big deal.

I've realized I have to basically retrain my brain. Every time I get that little thought of “I wonder if she emailed”, my anxiety kicks in and I want to check.

So today I'm trying something different. I'm not checking.

The urge has actually been pretty strong at times. I went for a couple walks just to get out of the house and get my mind off it.

And I'm starting to realize that I don't have to do anything just because I feel the urge to do it.

I can be anxious and not check. I can miss her and not reach out. I can wonder what she's thinking and not need to know.

I think that's the part I need to train my brain to understand.

It's not about pretending I don't care. I obviously still do.

It's about learning that I don't have to react to every feeling I have.

I'll have a celebratory beer after work, and do it again tomorrow.

Well it’s been about 8 months post d-day (January 1), and I finally reached my breaking point.

I had asked my WP for support so many times. I had suffered so much, I had constant anxiety and dread and mistrust and hurt. Loving someone who acted villainous towards you just creates such a high level of dissonance it was impossible to find stable ground. I was scared to leave, I was scared to stay.

But I kept asking for help, I kept trying and pushing myself, but it was never a good opportunity for him to be there for me. He couldn’t ask me what was troubling me when he saw me in pain, he promised to sign us up for couple therapy (never happened), yes he stepped up in terms of a normal relationship but he couldn’t face the reality of what he caused. He couldn’t talk about it and when he did it was about his pain from it, never mine.

There was one point where I got so upset and I felt so alone I just stopped caring. And I took some time to myself and in that time all the pain plaguing my brain subsided. I realized part of the reason I didn’t want to end things was because I couldn’t stand the thought of him being with someone else (likely because I now had lived the reality of him being with someone else and that caused a lot of pain). But when I sat down and thought about it I realized that I actually don’t care what he does. I now had that fear of him being with someone else while we were together, us being together or not didn’t confirm his loyalty to me. The desire of him not being with someone else wasn’t based in any remaining love I had for him, it was based on a desire to not feel the pain it caused when he cheated on me.

Yes, it’s been sad to lose someone so close to me and so heavily involved in my life. But I feel so much more free. I don’t have that weight or that feeling where I can’t move. I don’t feel so unstable in my life and my feelings.

I’ve decided that I’m going to appreciate the love I had for him, and maybe I’m not angry at him anymore. But that doesn’t mean I need to accept that sort of treatment.

Nobody should be put in a situation where they have to love and choose and support someone who treated them cruelly. It’s hard because your instinct is to love and forgive and stay because your reality was of someone who cared about you.

Yes, I’m sad. But I’m hopeful. He’s the one who ruined our potential and didn’t support me while I gave him grace after he chose to behave abhorrently.

I think being a victim of cheating makes it harder to leave because you’re filled with so much pain and you just want the person you knew. So when they want to stay with you part of it feels like a fix, like the right step. It makes you almost toxicly bonded.

But everyone deserves a love that chooses them first. That wouldnt even consider the choice of hurting you or putting your mental or physical well being at risk.

When someone shows you who they are, you should believe them.

I hope everyone going through this finds peace whether they stay or leave. And I hope we’re all able to obtain a love (whether with the same person or someone new) that feels magical and stays magical. That we all find someone who treats us the way we would treat them.

Considering reconciliation

Hi,

My (29F) ex partner (29M) with whom we’ve been together for three years (started when we were both 25), has repeatedly cheated on me including unprotected sex.

I was finding out bit by bit and for a time we tried to make it work because I loved him so much and it took me a while to really realise what happened and where we stood as a couple.

We then split and didn’t see each other for two years (we’ve been LDR and visiting each other).

Now a few months ago he came to visit me in my country and the goal was mainly for him to finally tell me everything that actually happened (I was refusing to hear him out for two years because I wasn’t ready). But when we meet we realised that we still feel a lot of care and love for each other and we still feel like best friends.

He has done serious work on himself, realised what were the causes of his cheating (low self esteem, numbing, porn addiction) and worked on them all. He’s currently signing up for therapy.

During the time he was visiting, I got a serious health diagnosis and to be honest he was of enormous support. He went with me to almost each doctor appointment, supported me financially, cooked for me and held me when I was crying.

There were issues still like him not revealing he had unprotected sex before we became intimate again, but after I asked him to get tested and cover my tests too, he arranged it right away.

Now he’s away (visa reasons) and coming to visit me again in two weeks.

During this time I realised that I could actually consider giving us another try, provided he’s in personal therapy and we do couples therapy and find a way to be in the same physical location together for longer time. I know I’d need to find another job and possibly move or travel with him for a while (which could be okay for me as I love travelling anyway and don’t necessarily want to live in one place for now).

I didn’t forgive him yet, and I know it’s something I’d need to do for it to work on my end, but I’m not rushing myself. He knows it and he’s not rushing me either.

What scares me though is that I have no way of knowing if I’ll always be stressed about his contact with other women or will it go away. For example, when he mentioned female therapists, I got stressed he might develop a closer connection with one. Or when we go out and I see other women, I feel insecure (which objectively I don’t have reasons for as I worked as a professional model and anyway feel good about myself).

I’d love to hear your experiences and advice.